MGBBT0UCT Essay: The Impact of Influencers on Consumer Behavior

This essay examines the impact of influencers on consumers in the 21st century, focusing on their role in shaping consumer behavior, particularly within the tourism sector. It analyzes the authenticity of influencers, their brand connections, and the engagement of their followers, drawing upon relevant theories to support its arguments. The essay features case studies of Simon Alan Reeve and Monica Stott, highlighting their approaches to influencing travel choices and promoting destinations. It also considers the future of influencer marketing, including the use of virtual reality, drones, and artificial intelligence, emphasizing the importance of hygiene and safety in the post-COVID-19 era. The study concludes that influencer marketing is a rapidly growing field driven by digitalization, with influencers serving as key sources of information and inspiration for travelers.

Understanding customers

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
Online-.............................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Influence marketing is the form of social media marketing where companies and big
brands ask social media influencers who are having huge number of followers to promote their
products and services (Pop and et. al., 2022). On today's 21st century, most of the customers get
influenced by their social media ideals and they obey their recommendations. This will help the
company to enhance their sales and profitability by attracting more customers. In context of
tourism and travel industry, most of the hotels and restaurants ask for food bloggers or travellers
who are having followers in huge number to promote their hotels and restaurants. They even get
payment for doing this as well as free membership of few hotels as per the deals of influencers
and hotels. The following essay will covers introduction of area of influencer marketing,
different influencers and their analysis on product selection and brands and the future of
influencers.
MAIN BODY
Tourism sector include those businesses which are having accommodation services, food
services, travel agencies and few others. Here, the main customers of this sector are those clients
who loves to travel at different location on their weekends. Social media marketing is one of the
most effective tool for such customers to attract their attention toward a particular destination or
a hotel. In context of this sector, the companies find those travelling bloggers who can blog for
them for their destination and recommend their huge number of followers to visit the destination
or a particular hotel for effective customer satisfaction (Madureira, 2021). This type of marketing
technique basically attract young customers for the hotels and restaurants. Here, basically the
social media influencers got the invitation from the companies of this industry and they visit the
particular destination for blogging or vlog. They also share the videos and pictures and highlight
that they are having god experience from the particular destination. After this they recommend
their followers to visit the destination. Sometimes, these social media influencers ask their
followers to visit the site and meet with them for having much better experience. For the strong
wish of meeting with ideals and these social media influencers a lot of customers get engage to
visit the site and use their products and services. Hence, this is how the productivity and the sales
of the companies in this sector get enhanced (Xu and Pratt, 2018). The benefit is gained from
both sides, hotels and restaurants get the benefit to attract new customers and increase their
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productivity and the influencers get the payment for their work as well as the discounts or other
benefits from the same hotel or resorts for which they promote the services.
Simon Alan Reeve is a British journalist, author, adventurer, television presenter and
documentary film-maker. He was born on 21st July 1972 in London, UK. He is popular to make
global travel and environmental documentaries. He influences people from his documentaries as
well as social media uploads about the destination. He selected to promote different natural
destinations. He wrote various kinds of books on modern history, international tourism and his
adventure experiences. He did not only promotes the destination but he is also popular to share
the culture of that destination about the ways people live there, their lifestyle and the kind of
things they do to earn their basic needs. Hence, the main selected area of tourism sector for
Simon is the natural environment and he has many influencers who follow him. He is having
159.9K followers on Instagram. He got the average likes of 5.6 K on his last 20 posts on
Instagram (Simon Reeve, 2022). His influencers are attracted toward his skills and knowledge he
share about the destinations. He is also appointed as the brand ambassador for Kuoni Company
which is worldwide travel company (Television presenter and author Simon Reeve becomes
Brand Ambassador for Kuoni, 2022). Here, Simon promotes sustainability in this industry and
adventure travel to gain the attention of adventurers for toward the company. The main roles
given by Kuoni Company to Simon is to host customer events, write exclusive and attractive
article for the company and create the blogs for the guests and share them to the website of the
company. The quality of his blogs for the company are high and attractive for the travellers
because he know that which factors will attract which customers toward a particular destination
and he share all those factors in positive manner which can attract their customers. Hence, he is a
successful influencer for the travel and tourism industry.
Monica Stott is one of the most popular travel blogger who was born in 8th October 1987
in England, UK. She and her team travel the world and analyse the hotels and restaurants
services at cheaper rates and share their experience through her world famous blog “The Travel
Hack”. Hence, she recommend her followers about the hotels and services under various budget
especially for middle person budget. She also recommend the destinations which are good to
travel with children. She started her blog in the year 2009 by sharing her first blogging trip
around Australia and Asia (Monica, , 2022). She god a positive reviews on her first blog and she
continues to blog for her followers. Most of the hotels and restaurants invite her as an chief guest
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and ask her to blog for their promotion and for this they paid a fee as per her blogging quality
and value. Exploring the home country which is UK is first choice for her. Secondly, she also
share few of the most important hacks in travel and tourism industry to find best travels with
small budgets. When she is asked about the idea for travel blogging then she replied that when
she was 16 she supposed to use internet facilities to grab the knowledge about her academics but
beside this she also spend lot of time for watching travelling videos and pictures as well as the
story and experience of other travellers. She started visiting different travelling sites and there
she decides to see her future in this industry as an influencer and adventure blogger (Travel
Blogger Interview With Monica Stott Of The Travel Hack, 2022). Hence, internet plays a
important role in making her career and help her to become influencer.
The future of travel influencers are bright because the digitalization is engaging people to
use different types of tools and machines to perform different tasks (Szymkowiak, Gaczek and
Padma, 2021). Today customers use internet services for almost every activity like searching the
information, booking the hotels and many others. Virtual Reality is one of the best example of
such technology which help the influencers to influence their followers to follow them. Due to
virtual reality, influencers can make their followers feel that they are present at the destination so
that they will make their choice for choosing the best destination for their weekends. After
COVID pandemic the main concern of customers in travel and tourism industry is to use those
products and services which focuses on hygiene and all government rules and regulations for
avoiding to spread infection of Corona disease. Hence, influencers can also supposed to share the
pictures and videos on social media which highlight cleanliness of the hotels and different
destinations to attract other travellers. According to a report, 78% of travellers get influences by
Instagram posts (Travel Influencers : The Future?, 2022). On the other hand, Instagram is
adding various new features at every week after noticing their users and the requirements of their
users. Drones are one of the most useful gadget for travellers and the travel influencers because
they can shoot their journey from different angels which can make their blog much attractive and
influencing. Artificial intelligence is growing rapidly in this industry (Seeler, Lück and Schänzel,
2019). Hence, in future travel bloggers can also use robots for making the blogs and vlogs for
their followers.
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CONCLUSION
From the above information it is concluded that travel and tourism industry is one of the
fastest growing industry in context of digitalization. The travellers use social media platforms to
collect any information about the destinations and hotels. Social media influencers are those
individuals who influences their followers toward a particular product or services. The main
features of these influencers are that they are having huge number of followers of social media
platforms. They share blogs and vlogs for their followers and share their personal experience
regarding a particular destination. They can also be the part of a travelling company like Simon
Alan Reeve who is one of the most popular traveller is the brand ambassador of Kuoni Company
which is worldwide travelling company. In context of future of these influencers, they can use
drones or artificial intelligence for their blogs .
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Madureira, L.B., 2021. Stimulus from social media influencers to the Portuguese tourism and
travel industry in the COVID-19 era (Doctoral dissertation).
Pop, R.A. and et. al., 2022. The impact of social media influencers on travel decisions: The role
of trust in consumer decision journey. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(5), pp.823-843.
Seeler, S., Lück, M. and Schänzel, H.A., 2019. Exploring the drivers behind experience
accumulation–the role of secondary experiences consumed through the eyes of social
media influencers. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 41, pp.80-89.
Szymkowiak, A., Gaczek, P. and Padma, P., 2021. Impulse buying in hospitality: The role of
content posted by social media influencers. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 27(4),
pp.385-399.
Xu, X. and Pratt, S., 2018. Social media influencers as endorsers to promote travel destinations:
an application of self-congruence theory to the Chinese Generation Y. Journal of travel
& tourism marketing, 35(7), pp.958-972.
Online-
Simon Reeve, 2022 [Online] available through:
<https://www.speakrj.com/audit/report/simon_reeve/instagram/>
Television presenter and author Simon Reeve becomes Brand Ambassador for Kuoni, 2022
[Online] available through:
<https://www.kuoni.co.uk/press-room/news-archive/simon-reeve-becomes-brand-ambassador-
for-kuoni/>
Monica, 2022 [Online] available through:
<https://thetravelhack.com/author/thetravelhack/>
Travel Blogger Interview With Monica Stott Of The Travel Hack, 2022 [Online] available
through:
<https://www.expedia.co.uk/stories/travel-blogger-interview-with-monica-stott-of-the-travel-
hack/>
Travel Influencers : The Future?, 2022 [Online] available through:
<https://www.bhavinbhavsar.com/travel-influencers-the-future/>
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