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The impact of Social Media Marketing on consumer decision-making process in the tourism industry
(2019)
Decisions are defining our daily lives. Consumers are making decisions frequently. Since new technologies appeared, and globalization is rising, people are facing new challenges and are confronted with more decisions to make than it was two decades earlier.
Decisions are made in every industry. Likewise, it is in tourism.
The tourism industry is booming, and the necessity of the internet required more than ever. Simultaneously tourism industry is faced with a new consumer who is creating, commenting, sharing, liking and posting content. Hence, it is more complex to analyze and understand this form of consumer. Changing position from an offline to an online member of the internet have had a huge impact on consumers’ behavior. Adaptation of Social Media Marketing to the new consumers tend to be more difficult than it was earlier. Consumers are getting more communicative dispose of a wider range of information, as the internet became a tool to interact and communicate. It is now more important that the tourism industry acts in a successful and sustainable way to improve its Social Media performance and adapt communication processes to be able to influence decisionmaking and direct consumer to their touristic supply.
At this academic work, firstly, it is identified the term “tourism” to analyze the decisionmaking process adapted to the tourism industry. Moreover, critical phases, which can be strongly influenced by Social Media Marketing are defined, based on theoretical research.
Moreover, a model is going to be designed, which describes adequate Social Media applications which are influencing consumers’ decision-making process. This is based on a quantitative research in form of a questionnaire. The resulting model is proved and discussed later approached by a qualitative research, which will be designed as an expert discussion.
Social media and social networks are terms which appear daily in all sort of different contexts. The importance of such online platforms is growing day by day. People spend an immense time of their everyday life in such networks. Therefore, it is not surprising that marketers have encountered the great opportunity coming along with this. This paper contributes to the little research on follower demographics and delivers an insight into the hotel industry in the Black Forest. It attempts to close the knowledge gap of comparing social media followers of hotels to actual hotel guests, shows how hotels can integrate social media in their marketing strategy and why it is relevant for different market participants. Moreover, a comparison of possible target groups was made.
For analysing social media followers of hotels, own primary data was collected in form of an email survey of hotels in the Black Forest. The findings were afterwards compared to actual tourist demographics derived from a former hotel guest survey in the Black Forest. According to responses of 85 hotels, the study found that hotel guests are usually from older generations (60+) and mainly male, whereas hotel social media follower tend to be younger (around 30) and female. This shows the possibility for hotels to target customers, different from their loyal customer base, via social media. Secondary data helped drawing further conclusions. Instagram clearly supports hotels to attract new customers. It has high relevance for hotels, as well as individuals, and can be integrated in each step of a marketing planning process. Target group analysis of current guests and potential new clients, who are present on social media, has made clear that both are coming with advantages and disadvantages. Hotels should enter new markets to enlarge their customer group, however, not at the dispense of loyal guests. Loyalty and customer relation management in the accommodation industry will always be an essential point.