Young Chinese tourists' motivations to engage in collaborative information behaviour for group holidays

This paper reports work in progress from an ongoing investigation of young Chinese tourists’ collaborative information behaviour (CIB). Much existing research around CIB focuses on information seeking episodes while the circumstances where CIB occurs remain unclear. This study addresses this gap by investigating motivations to engage in CIB, paving the way towards a holistic perspective of CIB process. Following a grounded theory approach, data was collected from seven groups of young Chinese independent tourists travelling to Australia via interviews and self-kept diaries. Preliminary results revealed group holidaymakers’ broad and complex information needs falling into three categories, with properties being evolving and dynamic. Five dimensions of motivations to engage in CIB were identified, including gathering rich information, shaping specific information needs, sharing information seeking workload, accommodating each member's preferences and opinions, and sense of participation. We present these emerging results, provide design implications on tourist-centred information systems, and propose further research directions.