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This makes you more likely to recommend your holiday experience to others

New research highlights six factors.

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The researchers based their findings on responses from more than 5,000 holidaymakers from Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Walter Norman Wehus Communications adviser
Presented by: Presented by: University of Agder
Published

"If you have a good experience whilst planning and booking your holiday, you’ll be more satisfied afterwards. A positive experience beforehand also makes it more likely that you’ll recommend the holiday to others," says Cecilie Andersen.

She has researched the phenomenon known as word of mouth marketing.

"I found it really interesting how I myself was influenced by it. I noticed that what other people said was more important than what the companies themselves said. And whenever I was torn between two products, I would always want to hear other people’s opinions," says Andersen.

From spontaneous trips to carefully planned vacations

The term word of mouth marketing first appeared in the 1950s to describe the informal conversations people had with friends and acquaintances about products they had experience with.

This was still the case when a young Cecilie Andersen went on an Interrail trip in the 1990s. It was before the internet permanently changed the way we travel.

“I bought a ticket and set off on a four-week trip without having planned a thing. I hadn’t read up on any restaurants to eat at, and I hadn’t been given any tips on the best ice cream parlour,” she says.

Fast forward a few decades, and it seems unthinkable that anyone would take even a weekend trip to the neighbouring town without planning every detail.

Often, that planning is based on what has received the best reviews on travel sites such as Tripadvisor or Hotels.com.

On these platforms, it is the users themselves who write reviews of their experiences. The reviews are used to rank everything from hotels to restaurants and ice cream stands.

Portrait photo
"We might ask ourselves whether we’re perhaps overplanning a bit when we go on holiday. We know so much about a destination before we arrive that we might be missing out on some of the spontaneity," says Cecilie Andersen.

Good planning leads to more sharing

Andersen and her colleagues analysed responses from over 5,000 holidaymakers from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK.

These three countries are Norway’s most important tourism markets.

“It was in these responses that I found the link between pre-holiday planning and positive word of mouth after the holiday. We then carried out a study of 100 British participants to find out why,” says Andersen.

The researchers identified six reasons why good planning made people more likely to share positive holiday experiences with others afterwards:

  • Satisfaction: Good planning increases the chances of a successful holiday. Anyone who has had a good holiday is happy to recommend it to others.

  • Altruism: People want to spare others the same planning effort.

  • Self-promotion: Having enjoyed a successful holiday makes people want to talk about it.

  • Belief in one’s ability to cope: A thorough understanding of the details of the trip provides self-confidence and motivation to share.

  • Risk reduction: Thorough planning provides control and reassurance, which increases the likelihood of a problem-free holiday.

  • Involvement: Those who get involved in the planning may feel a greater sense of ownership of the experience and enjoy a richer overall experience.

Younger people and women are more likely to make recommendations this way

“It’s usually not just one factor that determines whether you recommend something or not. What happens before the holiday affects the holiday itself, which in turn affects whether you recommend the holiday afterwards,” says Andersen.

The researchers also found that younger people make more recommendations through word of mouth than older people, and women do so more than men.

“If you’ve planned well and had a successful holiday, you may feel a greater need to talk about it afterwards to put yourself in a good light. People tend to keep bad experiences to themselves, unless it’s to help others avoid making the same poor choices," she says.

Similarly, a review on TripAdvisor may be written both to help others make good choices and to support a small, local family-run business.

Valuable for the travel industry

A surprising finding was that those who went on package holidays contributed more to word of mouth marketing than those who did all the planning themselves.

"We had expected the opposite. There may be several reasons for this, including the fact that, as package holidays are professionally organised products, they may lead to greater satisfaction and a stronger motivation to share. It may also be that those who plan their own trips simply assume that their approach is not as relevant to others," says Andersen.

The researcher says that the findings could be valuable for the tourism industry. Among other things, they highlight how important it is to provide good information, to have good, simple booking solutions, and to follow up effectively with the customer after the booking.

"But we might ask ourselves whether we perhaps overplan a little when we go on holiday. We know a great deal about a destination before we arrive; perhaps we miss out on some of the spontaneity," says Andersen.

She is already working on a new research article on artificial intelligence in travel planning.

Reference:

Andersen et al. Tourist involvement in vacation planning and booking: impact on word of mouth and loyalty (Abstracts), Tourism Review, 2024. DOI: 10.1108/TR-08-2022-0398

Andersen et al. How pre-vacation factors influence post-vacation word-of-mouth, Current Issues in Tourism, 2026. DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2025.2462160

Andersen, C. Word of mouth in tourism and hospitality: A bibliometric co-citation and a co-word analysis, International Journal of Hospitality Management Vol. 137 Pages 104666. 

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