DESTINATION BRANDING REPRESENTATIONS USING SOCIAL MEDIA: EXPLORING KERALA AND TAMIL NADU

This paper is presented in two parts. A brief discussion on past research on destination branding which have used social media posts is followed by an exploratory study of content and images of Kerala and Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporations posted on their official Facebook pages. It aims at connecting with the destination branding representations of Kerala and Tamil Nadu Tourism Corporations as destinations of choice. The Facebook posts of these destinations were systematically analyzed using the content analysis technique. The analyses are presented under seven themes or categories which were derived from research articles published in the past. Analyses reveal that the posts focused on varying tourist attractions in each. Description of posts, hashtags used photos and videos in posts, activities, likes and comments and few others were analyzed. Kerala portrays the events of each season with photos, videos and leaflets such as boating championship among other attractions of the natural surroundings. Tamil Nadu on the other hand portrays a lot of temple tours offered as packages alongside historical places, natural surroundings and cultural aspects. These findings show that these posts present a lot of information on experiencing Kerala or Tamil Nadu and convey brand representations. Both destinations fair differently on the categories. Detailed information about transport, stay, best time to visit is not given on the tourism products and services for either destination. The information may be linked to providers of various services and packages so that it helps travelers plan their trip and translate into reality the experiences as depicted in the posts, photos and promotion videos.