Social Media Impact on Tourism

Research Methodologies

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................1
Purpose of this study.....................................................................................................1
Significance of this study...............................................................................................1
Background of research................................................................................................2
Rationale of research....................................................................................................2
Aim and objectives........................................................................................................3
Research Questions......................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................................................3
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS.............................................................................................5
CHAPTER 4: ETHICS, VALUES, REFERENCING AND PRESENTATION.........................6
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................9

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Title
“Assessing the impact of social media platforms on tourism destination selection”
- A case study on Malta.
Purpose of this study
In the present era, social media has played a vital role in changing the lifestyle of
people. It has provided a platform to communicate with each other so that information
can be effectually shared. This has enabled them to gain more information about
various things. It has also brought change in their decision making and consumer
behaviour (Social media and tourism marketing, 2018). When people travel to some
place, they share their reviews with each other on various networking sites. Companies
also take their feedback and post it on their website. This is done to attract more people
by influencing their behaviour. In addition to this, there are some other factors as well
that impact on the selection of tourist destination. These are social, natural and cultural,
etc. On the basis of these factors, people select their favourite tourist place. Tourism
sector is evolving at a high rate (Mkono and Tribe, 2017). Now, people are preferring to
travel to those places that they find peaceful and attractive. But for this, they analyse
details about it. Most of the people prefer to change their decision at last moment by
reading reviews on social media. They acquire knowledge about that place before
developing plan. This knowledge is acquired from various platforms of social media
sites. It helps them to analyse various factors of particular place. By this they take
decision whether to visit that place or not.
Significance of this study
Social media is playing a significant role in providing information about different
products and services. Now, people mostly prefer to search on networking sites to
gather any information. Many tourism companies promote their services on social
media. Besides this, it provides brief details about entire package. But people get
satisfied only when they read reviews of others about particular tourist destination. This
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influences their behaviour (Shrivastava, Shah and Navaid, 2018). Malta is a country that
is known for famous tourist place. Many tourists visit Malta in a year. So, people share
their views on different things. It has enabled them in getting desired information.
Alongside this, it has strengthened the communication channel in between people. Now,
they are also involved in promoting tourism places and destination. Due to this, other
people get influenced and change their decision. The present study is thereby based on
a similar consideration of evaluating the role played by various social media platforms in
influencing the tourists to select a particular tour destination.
Background of research
It has been observed that there has been a great influence on the behaviour of
people due to social media. This is because; it has allowed them to gather more
information about tourist destination before developing plans. Besides this, it has also
provided a platform to take their feedback so that it can be analysed. There has been
change in trend of selecting tourist places. It is because; companies have already
promoting their products and services on social media sites. So, it has been benefited in
providing a lot of information such as historical architect, culture, weather, etc. of that
particular place (Lund, Cohen and Scarles, 2018).
Through this, it has become easy for people to select destination. In addition to
this, now in 21st century, tourism sector is at boom. This is because of integration of
social media in marketing of products. Hence, it has created a platform to collect more
information about market, organisation, services, etc. Moreover, now people have
become more aware about new products. Similarly, tourism sector is also impacted due
to this. Before selecting favourite destination, people do research. Furthermore, they
review comments and take suggestions from people on networking platforms that help
in making effective decisions. Therefore, it can be said that social media is playing a
crucial role in selecting the tourist destination.
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