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Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
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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
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

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Page | 37
May 24, 2013 – May 26, 2013
 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.
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:
• Social media leads visitors and customers to the
right travel information;
• Tourist company providing personalize messages
and content directly interested segment of customers .
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.
Increasing companies involvement in social
media and statistics in this field are very impressive:
Page | 38
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
• 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 traveler-
written reviews
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 :
• Inactive - customers are not involved in social nets
and are passive;
• Spectator- customers are only observer adn
sharing the idea ;
• 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
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
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M. McDougall, Making .Social Media Marketing Campaign
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John Hope-Johnstone, Secrets for Successful Social Media
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Stelzner M. Social Media Marketing Industry Report, White Paper
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Page | 39
 CHAPTER I. Economical Tourism, Investments, Infrastructure

Tourism Online Marketing Workshop with Ms Patricia Brusha, A

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