Tourism, hospitality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tourism, hospitality - Essay Example Since social media seems to have a relation to the success of a travel business, this phenomenon has got much attention among businesses and researchers. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to review literate on the matter and determine the major points of research being conducted in relation to tourism and social media. In an attempt to establish current knowledge of the subject this work will summarize, interpret and critically evaluate the existing literature, as well as will try to identify the key issues related to social media and tourism. In order to fulfill all of the set goals it is important to determine the very reason of extensive interest of the tourism-related community in the subject. It can be assumed that social media has an influence on consumer behavior. This idea is supported by Williams (2002), who states that purchasing high risk items, such as tourism products, involves information research step of the buying process being more extensive than that for purchasing less expensive or important for people products. The first step of the decision-making process is motivation and recognition of a need. Then, as an individual has decided one wants to purchase a tourism-related product, he or she starts searching for information on the available options. At this point, as Blackwell et al (2006, p. 75) write, the consumer is influenced by â€Å"market dominated† and â€Å"non market-dominated† sources of information. These non market-dominated sources refer to the word-of-mouth publicity and social media. Furthrthermore, social media tools can even be called an advanced variant of traditional world-of-mouth publicity. So, today a consumer evaluates alternatives and makes a buying decision on the basis of more sources of information: from marketers, from the community (friends, colleagues, family) and from social media. At the same time, it should be remembered