Research Proposal

Name of the Proposers

PRN Name
22021141014 Anwesha Pati
22021141030 Divya Kathotia
22021141034 Fiza Setia
INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND:

The study's theoretical framework is based on the concept of consumer behavior, specifically the
theory of travel purchasing behavior.
Not all travel decisions are based on a careful search for information. Earlier Tourists
increasingly made such decisions by relying more on Travel guides, experiences from their
family, friends, and relatives, or commonly visited places but now the decision-making process
for the tourism sector has altered dramatically since the introduction of social media and we will
see the impact of social media on customer travel decision making and will focus on evaluating
the role of constructs including desire, information search, evaluating alternatives, purchase
decisions, satisfaction and experience sharing.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE:

1. To investigate the causes of using non-travel-specific social media for travel decision-
making before a leisure trip.
2. The role of web-based social media in the formation of a tourism destination image and
how it influenced decision-making.
3. To identify and describe the factors (and characteristics) of social media content or posts
that tourists consider when making travel decisions and preferences.

SUMMARY:

The role of social media cannot be ignored in the travel process. This research aims to explore
the travel behavior and the usage of social media for travel purposes by travelers during their
entire travel process (destination, transportation, accommodation, food and dining activities,
attractions, shopping, and leisure activities). Tourism is an activity of individuals traveling or
staying in places outside their homes for recreational purposes or leisure. The reviews on
various social media platforms tend to determine the destination chosen by a traveler.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Kumar, P., Mishra, J.M., Rao, Y.V. (2022): Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) i.e.
the State and Union Territory tourism department in India promote destinations through various
social media platforms which Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are common. Among them,
Facebook is widely used for promotion, consumer search, and customer service. The study
explored how Indian DMOs employed Facebook to promote destinations. Size month data were
collected from the Facebook pages of 32 DMOs for content analysis. Semi-structured interviews
were conducted with seven managers of the tourism department. The Jammu and Kashmir and
Kerala DMOs have shown higher user engagement through firm-generated content. The
conclusion is that DMOs use Facebook as a supplement to traditional marketing tools.

Thilakarathne, K.R.R.S., Kumara, B.T.G.S., Kuhaneswaran, B. (2021): An large video

information platform, YouTube has grown significantly. Users interact with videos by like,
sharing, commenting on, and watching them. This article offered a method for gathering tourist
opinions by analysing YouTube comments. They used YouTube video comments to predict the
subjects of particular Sri Lankan tourism destinations using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)
modelling.

Azeez, Z.A. (2021): Tourism companies are more dependent on social media in presenting their
services to attract tourists by providing them with various options. They conducted a field study
on tourism companies in Baghdad city where 40 questionnaire copies were handed to senior and
middle administrative staff. The result was in line with the core of the study.

Merkle, J. (2021): Certain places are becoming travel hotspots as Instagram posts reach a high
number of followers. These places get financial benefits by growing the number of tourists but
on the other hand, they also deteriorate the environment. The influencers are paid to post photos
that turn the landscape into consumable objects.

Kim, J., Fesenmaier, D.R., Johnson, S.L. (2013): According to this survey, travellers utilise
social media to ask their friends and acquaintances for input before, during, and after the trip.
The study showed how social media made it possible for visitors to access their social networks
and how it influenced their feelings and perceptions while travelling. The study confirmed that
social media sites like Facebook have the potential to dramatically alter travellers' emotions,
enhancing the tourism experience. This was done by using a web-based experiment.

Tahiri, A and Belkadi, EZ (2019): It is widely acknowledged that the tourism industry uses the
destination image as a strong tool to increase destination competitiveness. Therefore, travelers
need information about these places to choose from a variety of options. By utilizing web 2.0,
this process has become simpler today. This study aims at how social media affects how people
perceive a destination and how much it affects how tourists make decisions.

Krishnamurti; Fedrina, R; (...); Prihadi, DJ (2021) : Social media, which is a big part of
Generation Z's life, has encouraged them to travel and suggested places to go. Social media now
plays a crucial part in the marketing of tourist destination and the various businesses that are
associated with them. This paper examines how social media affects Generation Z's travel
decisions, particularly those made by university students majoring in tour and travel operations.
The e-questionnaire was used in this study as a quantitative methodology to collect data.

Pop, RA; Saplacan, Z; (...); Alt, MA (2022): Social media influencers (SMIs) are becoming
more prominent, and their influence on consumer behavior in the travel sector is growing. This
study focuses on investigating the function of customer journey constructs (including desire,
information search, evaluating alternatives, purchase decisions, satisfaction, and experience
sharing) in mediating the relationship between SMI trust and the dimensions of customer
journeys and uses customer journey theory to explain the impact of SMI trust on customer travel
decision-making.

James Maltoni Chilembwe and Frank Wadilika Gondwe (2020): To inform and interact with
their consumers about the offerings of various tourist destinations, travel companies use social
media. Social networking is being used by trip planners to decide on tourism spots. Travelers can
receive information on their reserved flights and lodgings at a tourist destination via social
media. Most businesses are encouraged to start using social media by the expansion of its use in
the tourism sector.

Basco, Angelica Ann R. Mejia, Zyrene Joy L.(2021): The goal of this study was to identify
and describe the characteristics of social media posts connected to tourism that influence
travelers’ and social media users' choice of potential trip destinations. It intended for its
conclusions to advance awareness of social media as a tool for promotion and reaching out to a
wider spectrum of tourists among tourism establishments and stakeholders.

METHODOLOGY:

RESEARCH DESIGN:
The research design includes the retrieving of articles from Scopus, Web Of Science (WOS), and
Semantic Scholar.

SCOPUS:
956 documents were retrieved by searching for concepts like “tourism” in TITLE and “social
media” in TITLE-ABSTRACT-KEYWORD.
This search was further limited to 734 documents by limiting our search for business
management and accounting and social science SUBJECT AREAS.
320 documents were retrieved by searching for the concept’s “travel” in TITLE and social media
in KEYWORDS.
502 documents were retrieved by searching for concepts “travel” in TITLE and “social media” in
TITLE-ABSTRACT-KEYWORD.
This search was further limited to 329 documents by limiting our search for business
management and accounting and social science SUBJECT AREAS.

WEB OF SCIENCE:
100 documents on the Web of science were searched upon giving all fields
as “Role of social media on travel decision making”.
The search was further filtered to 80 Documents by giving “Travel” in the ABSTRACT field and
43 documents by giving “Tourism” in the ABSTRACT field.

SEMANTIC SCHOLAR:
758 Documents in Semantic Scholar were identified upon searching for “Social media in Travel
Decision Making”

Titles and abstracts relevant to the desired topic were shortlisted by going through the
documents. A total of 63 documents were filtered.

FINDINGS:

The primary finding of this study demonstrates the significance of social media as a source of
information for travellers at every stage of trip decision-making. At each level, the traveller uses
the information to carry out all activities done. The study in particular can help the tourist sector
and other sectors that are concerned with understanding consumer behaviour in the modern
technology era. The development of information and communication technology has encouraged
travellers to exert more influence over the satisfaction of their requests. As a result, current
consumers have switched from being passive to being more active. They do look for knowledge
to satisfy their needs, and it comes from more diverse sources now than it did before. For current
marketing communication tactics, social media becomes a promising tool. The reason for this is
that the media now forms an integral part of contemporary society, and consumers believe that
user-generated material is more reliable than that produced by brands or marketers.
 Figure: Social media in Travel decision making

From our observation, we came to know that the below-mentioned techniques are being used:

1. Non-probability Sampling like Convenience sampling was used to obtain information

from the sample.
2. Using Semi-Structured Interviews
3. Questionnaire
4. Usage of various models like the Information Adoption Model (IAM), Structural
Equation Model (SEM)
5. Correlation

REFERENCES:

1. Azeez, Z. (2021). Social Media Impact in the Tourism sector. pp. 893 - 910.

2. Basco, Z. J. (2021, April). SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS INFLUENCONTO TOURIST

DECISION-MAKING AND PREFERENCES. pp. 231-247

3. James Malitoni Chilembwe, F. W. (2020). Role of social media in Travel Planning and
Tourism Destination Decision Making. p. 16.
4. K. (., Fedrina, R. (., Suhud, U. (., & Prihadi, D. (. (2021). The role of social media in
Generation Z travel decision-making process. pp. 741-747.
5. Kim, J. ,. (2013 ). The effect of feedback within sonial media in tourism experiences. pp.
212 - 220.

6. K.R.R.S, T., B.T.G.S, K., & Kuhaneswaran, B. (2021, October 25). Analyzing Tourists'
Perceptions of Tourism Destinations using YouTube Comments. pp. 301 – 305

7. Kumar, P. M. (2022). Analyzing tourism destination promotion through Facebook by

Destination Marketing Organizations of India. pp. 1416 - 1431.

8. Merkle, J. (2021, January-February). Traveling for "Likes" - How Instagram is changing

tourism. pp. 16 – 19.

9. Pop, R. (.-A., Saplacan, Z. (., Dabija, D. (.-C., & Alt, M. (.-A. (2021, March 4). The
impact of social media influencers on travel decisions: the role of trust in the consumer
decision journey. pp. 823-843.

10. Tahiri, A. (., & Belkadi, E. (.-Z. (2019). Social Media and Destination Image Formation.
pp. 5845-5853.
Turnitin Report: