Social media has become one of the most important strategic tools in order to understand where our Tourism industry is heading and with use of various applications and websites; it gives users the commendable experiences. It is crucial for the tourists to know in advance about the experiences the various destinations will going to be offer. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY • To understand the role and impact of social media on tourism industry. • To understand the frequency of users using the social media. • To analyze how frequently social media is used while planning for any trip and travelling.
Based on Dr. Rashad and Lim’s journal, social networking is so versatile that it can be used for both leisure and business purposes. In the hospitality and tourism industry, social networking sites are one of the essential tools that play an important and beneficial role.The use of social internet outlets have become widespread, and travelers consistently use the media to brag about their great experiences as well as express displeasure. In the journal “Impact of Social Media on Tourism and Hospitality” by Rashmi Gururaja, he claimed that advertising in the social media is one of the primary sources of advertising in today‟s market. Most of the organizations have websites with online portals that can be accessed by consumers and potential customers
Chapter 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING Background of the study The online world has become a new kind of social communication. It connects people to different online communities. This practice has already been accelerating during the past decade (Heinonen, 2011). The author believed that these changes in media consumption and online collaboration have boosted the interest of businesses and consumers in employing the social media sphere for their marketing and communication efforts. Kozinets (1999) argued that the influence of information by society greatly affects consumers buying decision processes and product evaluations.
H1a: Online destination image has a positive relationship with online tourists’ satisfaction The relationships between online word of mouth and online tourists’ satisfaction can be developed through the principle of planned behavior theory that is connected to belief and attitude of online tourists psychologically. It was proposed to predict the power of reasoning and action including perceived behavior control. The general strategy of online word of mouth among tourism organizations is to show flashy images of destinations on the internet to attract tourists and impact their decisions to select the destination to visit (Chen
It was found that social media has become a powerful tool in our society. It has really changed our thinking and the way we perceived things. So now it has confirmed that social media is an important tool for social change and use of this media to aware people about the social problems can benefit the society. Times are changing now people have started sharing social problems on social media so we can conclude that social media is an effective instrument for social change. No doubt we are living in a technocratic world where technology is teaching us and we are also using the technology with great zeal.
The advancement of technology like internet access influenced most of the people to use their mobile devices to get information. The rise of new media has changed the way of business operations as they are using affordable budget to do online advertising. In other words, internet advertisement is one of the most important marketing tools because it is a cost effective and efficient to expand the business. Online advertisement is defined as the purpose of transferring a marketing message to consumers in order to attract and influence them to purchase a product or service (Ashraf & Mohammed, 2012). Different online advertisements on the website have their own characteristic such as font, content, color, format, size and others.
The factors which contributed to the advancement were led by technological advancement, introduction of WWW, easy access of internet by the customers and the rise of competition in the hospitality industry. E-commerce mainly helps in the generation of leads, presenting information about the tourism product to its customers and facilitating the transaction process electronically through World Wide Web”. [3] A hotels actual usage of internet varies on the basis of internet ability to help hotels to connect to more customers and thereby increasing the sales and profits. Due to various reasons, if the internet cannot contribute significantly in this direction, the hotel would rely more on other sources like travel agents or telephone enquiries for attracting customers. E-commerce website should offer stimulating experiences with reliable information that could motivate the customer.
Short summary of research problem: The advancement in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has influenced the development of the economy and has played a significant role in the growth of the tourism sector. With new developments such as Web 2.0 allowing dynamic web pages, user generated content and enhancements. The travellers and tourists are becoming more demanding and knowledgeable with the use the internet. Social media has made a huge impact in both the personal capacity and in the business arena. In the fast paced world we are living, technology has improved and evolved immensely.
Social networking showcasing, when done right, can prompt more clients, more activity, and more transformations, and its digging in for the long haul. As indicated by (Forbes,2013) “94% of corporates are utilizing social networking and 85% said that it has given their business more presentation”, social media tools like Facebook , twitter, youtube e.t.c are in high use by many organizations which uses these tools for marketing purposes so as to make high sales, spread brand name and much more. This social media marketing has many advantages like spreading awareness about business which also increases brand loyalty and helping small business to compete highly qualified business on the contrary it has certain disadvantages also like misuse of information by the people, highly addictive which leads to wastage of time and distraction in important work.The inquiry should be in a manner by which one can slice through this clamor to achieve your clients. Marketing managers must use this media in an effective way rather than spreading rumors and false information, the misunderstanding due to lack of face to face interaction must be solved and effective communication should be built.Thus , it an be
Tourism marketers and social media managers use social media to help promote the location by offering experiences of tourist satisfaction and experience at the destination. The appeal of a tourist destination is therefore enhanced (Pease & Rowe, 2005). Social media also increases the speed at with companies and destinations can market real time messages and replies to questions that tourists may have about a destination. Prices can be shared and viewed by millions of potential visitors to the destination as the information can be seen easily on computers, laptops, tablets and smart phones. As a result of social media, stakeholders can save from reduced costs associated with marketing and other communication measures.