In the recent years, the mushrooming and increasing use of Web 2.0 tools are giving rise to social media and social computing applications. Social media refers to “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” It is a new online media with features of participation, openness, communication, connectivity and community-based, within which people can enjoy much greater involvement. Itgenerally employsonline forums, blogs, IM tools, video sharing sites, wikis, SNS, etc. to fulfil the requirements of users’ network building. In addition, the technology that embedded in cross-platform, cross-product, cross-media equipment (i.e. Internet, mobile phone network, television and video) allows users to access to social media using any devicesor platforms. With the emergence of the mobile phone terminal products (such as the iPhone, Android) and the new trend brought about by the iPad tablet, the off-line social media has also become quite popular. Social media is now ubiquitously accessible. At the same time, social computing supports any sort of social behaviour. It gains a wide application in the area of travel as information and social interactions are the lifeblood of the tourism industry.
Advances in social media and social computing are changing the ways in which travel products can be more effectively sold. With the support of social media and social computing applications, people now increasingly prefer to take cues from one another rather than from institutional or corporation sources. Since information exchange and personalised interactions with like-minded travellers are extraordinarily easy to be realised online among individuals regardless of time and space, tourists’ needs and expectations are changing. They want more relevant information with perfect peer-reviewed opinions and even real time interaction in order to make plans for most personal experience. This is a challenge as well as an opportunity for online travel marketing and distributing. If social computing technology can be effectively utilised in online travel, it will cause a shift in this industry from passive selling to active customer engagement. In fact, many entrepreneurs are thinking about ways to gather information about families and friends from social networking sites, and thus provide personalised services accordingly. They considered that it would be much easier for potential travellers to make a specific travel plan if they could be fed on related information from their network ties.
Taking both travel product and service providers and travellers into consideration, we are proposing a social media based application, namely GO2GETHER, which tries to fulfil the needs of all stake-holders.