Tourism Management 25 (2004) 709–722 Towards understanding members’ general participation in and active contribution to an online travel community Youcheng Wang a, *, Daniel R. Fesenmaier b a Rosen School of Hospitality Management, University of Central Florida, P.O. Box 16140, Orlando, FL 32816 1450, USA b National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce, Department of Leisure Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Received 23 October 2002; accepted 5 September 2003 Abstract Online travel community has been considered central to models of Internet marketing and electronic commerce in the travel industry. The successful operation of an online travel community depends on the understanding of member participation in and active contribution to the online travel community. This study evaluates an integrated model of an online travel community using structuralequationmodeling.Theresultsofthestudyindicatethatparticipationinthetravelcommunityisdrivenmainlybysocial and hedonic benefits, while level of active contribution can be explained by three instrumental, efficacy, and expectancy related incentives. Implications for the development of a dynamic and sustainable online travel community are discussed. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Online travel community; Member needs; Motivation; Tourism marketing 1. Introduction For decades the field of social psychology and anthropology have studied communities and their characteristics are rather well known (e.g., Sarason, 1976; Wellman&Wortley,1990).Researchersinterested inthepsychologyoftheInternethaverecentlybegunto explore whether communities can appear in Internet- based environments as well (e.g., Wallace, 1999). The existence of online communities was even predicted 20 years ago by Licklider (1965), who set in motion the research that resulted in the creation of the first such community, the ARPAnet. Since then the notion of online community (also known as virtual community, computer-mediated community, or simply e-commu- nity) has aroused great interest among both academia (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996; Kozinets, 1999; Rheingold, 1993; Wang,Yu,&Fesenmaier,2002; Werry,1999)and businesspractitioners(Cothrel,1999; Kim,2000; Shafer, 2001). Indeed, the development of such online commu- nities, which enable people to interact based more on commonality of interests are transforming the ways in which society functions (Brand, 1987; Burke, 1985; Miller,1998; Wilson,1990).Thesechangesareoccurring on multiple levels, affecting our modes of production (Canter & Siegal, 1994), our modes of learning (Rheingold, 1993),ourmodesofcommunication(Parks & Floyd, 1996), and our modes of commerce (Arm- strong & Hagel, 1996). In the business arena, online community has been depicted as central to models of electronic commerce as well as to the future of narrow and mass customization inthewiderworldofmarketingandadvertising(Werry, 1999). Armstrong and Hagel (1996) argue that tradi- tional business functions such as marketing and sales will be significantly transformed in a community environment. This is because more and more Internet marketers have realized that the philosophy of ‘‘if you build it they will come’’ does not work and providing information and services alone may not be enough to keep customers loyal to the Web-based company. In response, many companies have focused their efforts on developing more effective relationships with their customers. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business strategy that involves the combinations of people, processes, and technology across all customer touch points, including marketing, sales, and customer ARTICLE IN PRESS *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-407-823-2578; fax: +1-407-823- 5696. E-mail addresses: raywang@mail.ucf.edu (Y. Wang), drfez@uiuc.edu (D.R. Fesenmaier). 0261-5177/$-see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2003.09.011