Assessing the organic and induced images of the Maltese islands from the perspective of travel bloggers

Abstract

A destination image is important for any destination as it leaves an impact on the individual’s choice of holiday destination. Two levels of a tourist destination image are the ‘organic’, which is non-commercial information that is transmitted to individuals unintentionally and the ‘induced’ which is commercial information coming from tourism marketing organisations of a particular destination. After having formed an organic or an induced image and travelled to a destination, a traveller will then form a ‘modified-induced’ image based on his personal experience.

The aim of this research focuses on the organic and induced images of the Maltese Islands from the perspective of travel bloggers. This research was completed by using an inductive approach. In-depth interviews were carried out with ten multicultural travel bloggers and other key informants. Ten travel blogs were also analysed.

Findings from the research show that before visiting the Maltese Islands, the travel bloggers were affected more by organic images than induced images of the Maltese Islands. The research also goes into what type of organic and induced sources of information were most popular with the travel bloggers. Findings show that recommendation from others and other travel blogs were the main sources for creating images of the Maltese Islands. Moreover, an analysis of the travel bloggers’ post experience in the Maltese Islands was carried out and this served as a good opportunity for further marketing recommendations for the Malta Tourism Authority.