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The article aims to analyse the tourism activity of people suffering from celiac disease and to distinguish the behaviour patterns of such consumers while identifying barriers that make it difficult or even impossible to participate in some tourist services, and indicating practical solutions for hotels and catering facilities that could help build a competitive advantage. The research was carried out using the survey and netnography. The results showed that people with celiac disease or their legal guardians need to adapt their trips to special nutritional needs, associate travelling with an increased risk of disease symptom exacerbation and almost always experience discomfort related to special food needs during travelling. Based on the research results, as well as the analysed literature, it can be concluded that the basic factors facilitating travelling for people with celiac disease are the awareness and sensitivity of the staff and access to reliable information on the composition and method of preparing meals.

Purpose. Analysis of manifestations of imitative behavior among participants of “Organized tourism” forums. Methods. The survey was conducted using the virtual ethnography method, which belongs to the group of qualitative methods. The discussion forum on the “Gazeta.pl” website was analyzed, in particular 90 conversations were categorized according to three criteria: theme, stage of the decision making process and needs of the person who initialized a discussion. The next step was to find the content in different threads, so that an answer to the research questions could be found. Findings. The study shows that imitative behavior is often manifested as positive or negative identification, due to the fact that the imitation among discussion forum users was caused by a need to obtain information. However, there are entries that might indicate the existence of a “demonstrative effect”. Studies have shown that in different phases of the tourist experience, different imitative behaviour is manifested. Discussion forums are an important source of tourist information for its users because they aim to preserve its credibility. Research and conclusions limitations. The method that was used does not allow for generalization of the results. Practical implications. Studies have shown that forums are important sources of tourist information for its users. It can also be a source of knowledge about consumers for travel agencies. The results of this study should encourage tourism marketers to modify their tools for information distribution towards greater usage of social media and cooperating with reference individuals or groups. Oryginality. The work fills a gap in literature on the consumers of tourism products and their manifestations of imitative behavior Type of paper. A research paper.