Role of Social Media in Tourism Marketing

Social Media has revolutionized the lives of people within a decade of its introduction. It has gradually inculcated into our daily routine as a real time source of information related to every ongoing activity, including business, technology, current affairs, social life, travel, and more. Social Media has also expanded the reach of industries as now they can target consumers sitting miles away without even meeting them. Focussing on this evident nature of Social Media, this working paper is aimed at studying its relative effects on one such industry tourism. This paper conducts a systematic and structural literature review on the history of Social Media and its relationship with the tourism industry to understand how researchers have adopted theories, used research theories, and developed conceptual frameworks in their studies across many countries including Turkey, China, India, Istanbul, Sweden, Britain, Spain, Germany, France, Malaysia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur, France, etc. The main objective of this paper is to establish a working relationship between Social Media and its role in Tourism Marketing. The conclusions drawn from the literature state that Social Media is fundamentally changing the way travellers and tourists search, find, read, trust, and justify information related to tourism suppliers and destinations. However, since the use of Social Media is constantly evolving, the literature review may not be exhaustive. Therefore, there is a proposal for future researchers to focus on developing working Social Media marketing models that determine its influence on the various tourism marketing strategies.