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8th Silk Road International Conference “Development of Tourism in Black and Caspian Seas Regions” Significance of Social Media Marketing in Tourism Charita JASHI Professor of Tbilisi State Univerity Georgia Abstract The article explores how information and communication tecnology is changing marketing of tourism. Using the social media marketing instruments for promoting tourism industry in Georgia market is obviously incraesing. Social media marketing is the way for companies for getting close to consumers. According to the International Tourist Research Centers 88% of representatives of tourism business are actively used social media and 70 % of consumers trust of recommendation given by social networks . Social media marketing can also be helpful in understanding the attitudes of customers. Tourism is one of the main priority of Georgian industry, where a number of activities were provided for supporting tourism development in the country. At the same time , the value of social media marketing in tourism business is not well recognized yet. There`s lack of investigation about the impact of social media marketing on tourist behavior in the country. You can find websites and blogs on tourism, but it is rather difficult to obtain effective analytical articles on tourism in the virtual space. It is urgent to involve representatives of academic sphere , to prepare attractive materials for tourists. Social network consumer has opportunity to share opinions with million consumers about toursim destinations, service quality. Why is important to analyze the knowledge of tourist consumer behavior for promoting toursim business activity. Social media should be integrated into marketing mix and lead customers to the useful and right direction. Keyworlds: social media marketing , toursim, attitudes of customers, knowledge, service quality. Significance of Social Media Marketing in Tourism One of the most competitive fields of Service sector is tourism industry, which requires effective management of natural, financial and human resources existing in country. For developing tourism industry in any country is therefore important to provide relevant Infrastructure, improve service quality and increase of customer satisfaction. The essence of successful marketing is to provide sufficient value to gain loyal, long-term customers. There are different types of instruments in marketing, which aims to achieve of customer satisfaction and loathly. Social media is a crucial tool for success in business today. People are already talking about the business using social media , companies could establish good relations directly to the customers. Use of the internet for booking tends to be higher in countries that have high internet penetration levels and usage of credit cards, especial in the USA and UK. But the highest levels, interestingly, can be found in some smaller Travel and Tourism markets such as Scandinavia (65% and higher) and Australia. Globally, different estimates suggest that more than 50% of leisure trips and 40% of business trips are booked online. By 2014, over 3 billion of the world’s adult population will be able to transact electronically via mobile or internet technology with a 90% mobile penetration rate Tbilisi - Batumi, GEORGIA May 24, 2013 – May 26, 2013 and 6.5 billion mobile connections. (Travel and Tourism , World Travel Tourism Council in 2011) Social media refers the activities of different customers in the society , gathering and sharing online information and knowledge. Marketers know that theoretically, social media should be a powerful way to generate sustainable, positive word-of-mouth marketing. It is very important that marketers select the right social media platform, design the right message and engage the right users to spread that message for implementing successful campaign. Tourism review team works daily with a number of collaborative media for tourism industry and attracting millions visitors from different countries. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Podcasts and travelshake are the best known and effective social media networks for marketing in tourism and hospitality industry. The impact and usage of social media marketing strategies are very crucial for satisfying tourist demand in the global world. The creation and accessibility of internet space has radically changed tourists motivation to plan and book trips with different destination. Companies grow their confidence and familiarity with the social web to receive all successful information from researching travel on websites Page | 37 CHAPTER I. Economical Tourism, Investments, Infrastructure or social networks. To access new information technology now is very easy and this has radically altered the way in which information is created and disseminated . Accordingly, marketers have possibility to use social media to stimulate and encourage interaction of customers to facilitate developing awareness of tourists in through the country. Picture2: Social media in the marketing mix: budgeting for 2011 www. Emarketer.com Social media and Tourism industry Statistics in 2012 have highlighted increasing role of social medias: • 40% of online travelers visit social networking sites to influence destination selection • 87% said reviews impacted hotel choice • 84% said reviews impacted method of travel • 78% said reviews impacted choice of dining Picture 1. A cycle of key steps for successful social media marketing, adapted from Gretzel et al.,2000:148. One of the advantage of social media , which is particular important for small sizes business, reduces administrative costs . Social media became as an integral part of the path leading the visitors to find exactly what they are looking for, and making the tourist destination a perfect fit. Social media integrated into marketing mix for two purposes: • 70% of consumers trust online recommendations while only 14% trust advertisements • 50% of blog readers read travel blogs • 57% of travel-related website visitors read travelerwritten reviews • Social media leads visitors and customers to the right travel information; Tourists are not only differ in their motivation , but also their ability to take advantage of social media. The impacts of changing behavior of customers in tourism industry are very high and the customers have passing five stages of social media marketing : • Tourist company providing personalize messages and content directly interested segment of customers . • Inactive - customers are not involved in social nets and are passive; The tourism and hospitality industry is turning to social media to engage customers in a more personal way. Almost two-thirds of travel companies plan to increase their social media marketing budgets. social media using marketing instruments for business development. • Spectator- customers sharing the idea ; Increasing companies involvement in social media and statistics in this field are very impressive: are only observer adn • Joiner – customers registered in the nets , but are very passive ; • Critical - active involved and sharing the ideas; • Creator –customers are making blogs themselves . Tourism Review team has very important role to attract new visitors, which are ready to create a unique set of articles and submit them to tourism related article directories. As a result hundreds of thematic and highly relevant one-way back links will dramatically increase search engine rankings in the leading search engines such as Google or Yahoo and result in free targeted traffic to website of consumers. Trip Advisor enjoy the patronage of millions Page | 38 Tbilisi - Batumi, GEORGIA May 24, 2013 – May 26, 2013 8th Silk Road International Conference “Development of Tourism in Black and Caspian Seas Regions” of users from around the globe who have helped create one of the strongest travel communities on the internet. The demographical diversity of the users is a huge advantage which has been leveraged in the past with the success of travel trends and surveys. Most of social bookmarking services support internet users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags such as tourism, travel, marketing etc. Such tags in fact promote your travel business and make it much more visible and searchable by search engines. With the continuous growth of social media, researchers must find ways to betterexplain the phenomenon and generate insights for practitioners who are keen to engage and connect with travelers within and beyond these. Patricia Brusha (hospitality.net) says there are 5 distinct types of social users: the Butterfly, the Selective, the Connected, the Starter and the New Norm. This is a good start to understanding social behavior and creating your online social media travel marketing strategy. Three factors should be considered while using social media in tourism : • Customer Influence Effect, which measures the influence a social media user has on other users in the network; • Customer Influence Value, which helps measure the monetary gain or loss realized by a company in social marketing campaigns by accounting for an individual’s influence on purchases by other customers and prospects • Stickiness Index, which helps identify social media users who actively discuss the company’s product or service category; 1. The most obvious way that social media has changed consumer behavior is just by giving customers a bigger voice than they’ve ever had before. Tourism is one of the main priority of Georgian industry, where a number of activities were provided for supporting tourism development in the country. Travel and tourism is a market that is changing shape dramatically in recent years in Georgia. The comparison of growth rates of the world and Georgia shows that in the last five years tourist arrivals in Georgia increased considerably faster than in the whole world At the same time , the value of social media marketing in tourism business is not well recognized yet. There`s lack of investigation about the impact of social media marketing on tourist behavior in the country. You can find websites and blogs on tourism, but it is rather difficult to obtain effective analytical articles on tourism in the virtual space. Article marketing is vital tool for promoting travel destinations, tourism businesses or travel trade events is an essential component of any long term online marketing strategy. Unfortunately there`s lack of such information about Georgian tourism destinations Tbilisi - Batumi, GEORGIA May 24, 2013 – May 26, 2013 It is urgent to involve representatives of academic sphere , to prepare comprehensive attractive materials for tourists. Social network consumer has opportunity to share opinions with million consumers about toursim destinations, service quality is rather weak . Thre`s limited research related how service providers percive and employ social media to influence customer`s decesion making process. It should be anaylyzed perceptions regarding social media to influence. Companies must address a full spectrum of consideration for developing and implementing a new media marketing strategy to promote Georgia tourism and engage travelers online via social media platforms. Undoubtedly, social media currently represent a dynamic online travel information source that can greatly influence travel consumers. We beleive that social media marketing would be strong instrument to forward tourism and hospitality industry in the country. Endnote 1. Stickiness Index this is the index of the percent of the audience that watched the show, compared to the average for all shows of that length. It is based on work done at Zenith, which showed that viewers who chose to watch more of a program were up to 40% more likely to recall the same ads than people who only watched a little of the show. So, controlling for exposure, people who watch more of a show, are more likely to remember the advertising. If higher recall is important for a brand, then looking at Stickiness is important. References Leungh, D. Perceptions and Strategies of Hospitality and Tourism Practitioners on social media: An exploratory study, 2012 Gillin P. Secrets of Social Media Marketing: new influencers 2007 P:25-37 Social media for Tourism, Tutorial, Version 5 Last updated September 2010, p. 2. www.manta.com/c/mmc6qnc/nielsen-medical-research, International Journal of Tourism Research 2000,p14 www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/tag/social-marketing/Social media for Tourism, Tutorial, Version 5 Last updated September 2010, p.26.; M. McDougall, Making .Social Media Marketing Campaign Accountable, www.sinotechblog.com.cn; John Hope-Johnstone, Secrets for Successful Social Media Marketing, 2010,p.27 Stelzner M. Social Media Marketing Industry Report, White Paper Source ,2011p. 11-12. Travel and Tourism , World Travel Tourism Council , 2012 Page | 39 CHAPTER I. Economical Tourism, Investments, Infrastructure Tourism Online Marketing Workshop with Ms Patricia Brusha, A Couple of Chicks E-Marketing arcres.com/Social-MediaTravel-Marketing. PhoCus Wright travel research 2010 Com, score tourism research 2010 www.hospitalityupgrade.com www.stikkymedia.com/.../social-media-and-the-tourism-industrystatistics www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/tag/social-marketing/Social media for Tourism, Tutorial, Version 5 Last updated September 2010, p.26.; http://www.tourism-review.com/social-media-marketing-intourism-industry- page659# www.independent.co.uk.www. tourismkeys.ca/blog/tag/socialmarketing/. www.sinotechblog.com.cn Page | 40 Tbilisi - Batumi, GEORGIA May 24, 2013 – May 26, 2013