University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Informatics and Statistics
THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACTS ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR IN THE CONTAXT OF TOURISM
IN INDIA
MASTER THESIS
Study program: Information Systems Management Author: Mohammad Danish Khan
Supervisor: Ing. David Chudán, Ph.D.
Prague, December 2021
Acknowledgement
I hereby wish to express my appreciation and gratitude to the supervisor of my thesis, Ing. David Chudán, Ph.D.for his time & dedication and my friends who helped and supported me during
this whole process.
Declaration
I declare that I am the only author of this master thesis which named “Use of social media by political parties of India in comparison of EU”. I marked out all quotations. The used literature and sources are stated in the attached list of references.
In Prague on ....06/12/2021...
Signature Mohammad Danish Khan
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...1
1.1 Methodology...2
2. What is social media...3
2.1 Forms of social media...7
3. Tourism in India...9
4. Most favorite/Used social media platforms in India...11
5. Analysis of research...13
6. Stages where buyers will be affected by social media...36
7. Usage of social media in each stage...47
8. How companies design awareness on social media which can affect consumer behavior...58
9. Consumer Behavior: Origins, theory and models...81
10. Conclusion...10
11. Bibliography...98
Introduction :
Social media is a successful platform to connect people of all ages and corners of the world.
People connect, share, read, and communicate their ideas, likes, dislikes, emotion, and so many things on social media. On the business level companies, organizations, political parties use social media to communicate, advertising, convincing and exploring products and services to their respondents. Social media become as popular in all walks of life as important networks for information. In some of the fields it is considered the big factors like the tourism industry, advertisement; hospitality and rest of the fields are not apart from it.
In many research and studies conducted by the companies, social media have an impact on buying decision, purchasing the product and services, and the reviews of brands before buying, during buying, and after buying process. In support of consumer behavior blogs are also big impact.
Aim and Objectives:
The aim of this research is to explore the impact of social media on consumer behavior in the context of travelling in India. To achieve this aim I will focus on some consumers and do research on how social media can impact consumer behavior during the whole process and a deep understanding of social media applications. For this purpose, I have taken top five social media platforms used in India.
Following are the findings during the research:
Use and the impact of social media during tourism process.
To understand the deep and in details of social media and the application on the tourism in India.
The function areas of social media in context of tourism and how it impact consumer behavior.
To achieve these finding, some hypothesis questions are made to respond which are given below-
Research Question:
At what phase users will be affected by social media?
How they use social media in each phase?
At which phase they have taken the decision to buy?
Designing of awareness by the companies on social media that influence consumer behavior?
Methodology-
Introduction- Based on the research questions, aim of the research and objectives this chapter provides methodologies, justification on the decisions process, details of research questions and analysis. In this chapter we will discuss the model of research on questions, for which
The aim of the research describes critical analysis of the terms and data questions to justify methodology and the decision-making process. This study starts with research questions to meet the solutions of all the questions. This research provides the entire pragmatic manner and
provides orientation and argument with the justification of the problems. The research is focused on how the social media have the impact on consumer behavior how the use social media how it affects buying behavior and pre purchasing, during purchasing and post purchasing steps. What can be the definition of the social media what social media is considering the most affecting to its users?
In this era of electronic media and information technologies social media have impact on buying behavior. Business has advertising on social media to communicate to their targeted customers.
To this statement the following hypothesis need to be answer in this work H1 social media influences in the context to tourism in India.
H2 consumer behavior in the context of tourism.
H3 buying behavior in tourism.
Scientific benefit of the work
In the development of the economics of the country tourism is the most important and not negligible industry where government spent big amount of budget on this industry. There are so many scientific research in the tourism industry which contributes and gives better understanding for future. It has given the fashion and some level of individual gain also. Tourism is turned as an educational subject where the study can turn the tourism and economic growth. There are so many publications dedicated to tourism and linking to the economic, cultural, language,
behavioral growth. In the context to India there are so many tourists as we have discussed in this thesis which directly and indirectly sources of economic growth and giving job opportunities too in the country. Tourism intertwined the use of social media, print media, digital media and exploring the new places, ideas, food, cultures and many more things, which makes the place metropolitan. Cross cultural tourism also gives recognition to fashion designs, which can intertwine so social forms and commerce. Commerce is important as there is always change in the market forms and tourism is affected with that. We can take the example of COVID-19 it has changed everything and especially tourism is impacted worldwide. This study will help to understand the concept of tourism as in this study there is one survey conducted on random people in India so that we took one sample of people and with some statistical data further predict the tourism and impact of social media also.
What is social media?
Social media are communicating technologies that allow the people to share their status, ideas, career interest and much more from the virtual communities and networks. People mostly access social media on their Mobile phones, Tablets, Desktops, and laptops through the internet. Social media is a big platform as it has Billions of users the reason people use social media because they are allowed to share, discuss, participate, and are allowed to media content posted by other which increase the interest of people of using social media. Social media is also used to explore a lot of interesting things like sharing or watching videos, images, articles and it is also used for promoting business, creating blogs, marketing, dating or making friends.
In 2019, social media also refer as "forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging & vlogging) through which users create online groups to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as Images & Videos)."
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media)
Andreas Kaplan distinguished mobile social media applications can be among four types:
Space-timers (location and time-sensitive)which meansexchange of messages with
significance mostly for one specific location at one specific point in time (e.g. Facebook Places, Whatsapp, Foursquare)
Space-locators (only location sensitive)which meansexchange of messages with
significance for one specific location, which is tagged to a certain place and read later by others (e.g. Yelp, Qype, Tumblr, Fishbrain)
Quick-timers (only time sensitive)which meanstransfer of traditional social media mobile apps to increase proximity (e.g. posting tweets on Twitter or status updates on Facebook)
Slow-timers (neither time sensitive nor location)which means transmission of traditional social media applications to mobile devices (e.g. watch over a YouTube video or read out a Wikipedia article)
Social media platforms have the potential for content posted their to spread it virally on social media platforms. This term is similar to the viral infections which spread Individual to Individual because on social media a viral content is which is shared from one individual to another and then they reshare it and the cycle repeats. There is another term called Viral
Marketing nowadays business uses it a lot because form social media platforms they can achieve widespread advertising coverage. There are lot of platforms of social media like Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram. Instagram is one of the most famous platform as it is the popular way to connect with celebrities leaders, friends , family. On January 2020 on Instagram there are around 1 Billion active users, but still Instagram is behind Facebook because Facebook still have 2.8 Billion User Instagram is ahead of most of the other famous social media platforms because
Twitter have 353 Million users and Pinterest have 456 Million user. On Instagram 500 Million users uploading and checking other stories that’s why Instagram Ads are more expensive than Facebook.
According to a research in the starting of 2021 (KEMP, 2021), there are 4.33 Billion user of social media around the world which is equating to more than 55% of the total population. These data suggest that more than 9 in 10 internet users now use social media each month. In the last 12 months 521 million user joined social media in the year to April 2021. That equates to
annualized growth of 13.7 percent, or an average 16½ new users every single second. It’s also worth nothing if we compare it is compared to the total population because most the social media platforms restrict use of their platforms to people aged 13 and above.
Figure 2.1.: Use of social Network and Messenger around the World
Available at: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2021/04/60-percent-of-the-worlds-population-is- now-online
Facebook still remains the world’s widely used platform. There are six other platforms which claim that each of them have more than 1 Billion active users.
Graph 2.1: Favorite social media platform Source: Author
According to the GWI new section in the survey about the favorites social media platform among users from the age group of 16 to 64 all over the world But they didn’t include China in this survey as the users in China are unable to access the same social media platforms as the rest of the world.
As per the survey showed 24.1% of internet users' favorite social media platform is Whatsapp. Facebook is on second as almost 22% and Instagram ranked third with 18.4% by the respondent from the survey. Twitter rank fourth as only 5% of the respondent choose this option.
As previous section showed that the Whatsapp is the world’s favorite social media platform but still Facebook have the world’s largest active user almost 2,800 million.
Youtube is on second with almost 2300 million users and Whatsapp is on Third with 2000 million users.
Latest data shows that the Facebook attracted 57 million users in just last three month from the survey.
According to widely available data up to 17 April January 2021, at least 17 social media platforms have 300 million or more monthly active users*:
0.00%
7.50%
15.00%
22.50%
30.00%
Whatsapp Facebook Instagram Twitter FB Messenger
Tiktok Snapchat Whatsapp Facebook Instagram Twitter FB Messenger Tiktok Snapchat
Graph 2.2: Active Users of Social Media Platforms (in millions) Source: Author
1. Facebook has 2.797 billion monthly active users.
2. YouTube’s potential advertising reach is 2.291 billion.
3. Whatsapp has around 2 billion monthly active users.
4. Facebook Messenger has around 1.3 billion monthly active users.
5. Instagram’s potential advertising reach is 1.287 billion.
6. WeChat (inc. Weixin微信) has 1.225 billion monthly active users.
7. TikTok has 732 million monthly active users.
8. Douyin (抖音) has 600 million daily active users (note: monthly active users may be higher).
9. QQ (腾讯QQ) has 595 million monthly active users.
10. Telegram has 550 million monthly active users.
11. Snapchat’s potential advertising reach is 528 million.
12. Sina Weibo has 521 million monthly active users.
13. Kuaishou (快手) has 481 million monthly active users.
14. Pinterest has 459 million monthly active users.
0 750 1500 2250 3000
Facebook Whatsapp Instagram Telegram Twitter
Facebook Youtube Whatsapp FB Messenger Instagram
Tiktok Telegram Snapchat Twitter Quora
15. Reddit has around 430 million monthly active users.
16. Twitter’s potential advertising reach is roughly 396 million.
17. Quora has around 300 million monthly active users.
Graph 2.3: Global active User
Available at: https://wearesocial.com/blog/2021/04/60-percent-of-the-worlds-population-is- now-online
2.1. Forms of Social Media
There are many different forms of social media. According to (Mayfield, 2008), there are six primary forms. He considers blogs and microblogging as the same concept.
1) Social Networks: Networks that people can create personal accounts and pages in it to share and to communicate with friends, followers and fans through these accounts and pages. The biggest social networks are Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram.
2) Blogs & Vlogs: Blogs are online journals while Vlogs are online Video journals. Blogs are also called digital diaries.
3) Wikis: These are the online encyclopedias that act as a online shared information resource.
Users can add or edit the information on these platform. The most popular are Wikipedia, Wikia&Wikihow.
4) Podcasts: It is a service that audio and video files are available in it by subscription sometime free as well as paid; such as iTunes, Youtube and Spotify.
5) Online Forums: Online Forums allow people to discuss online on a specific topic or topics with online shared link. Forums were invented before the social media appeared.
6) Content communities: Communities that share particular contents in the form of visual. The most popular content communities focus on photos is Flickr and on videos -Youtube.
7) Microblogging: It is a blogging style created by the combination of a rapid messaging
system and the traditional blog concept. In microblogging small updates are shared online with the followers and Fans. The most famous example is Twitter.
In addition to these forms,
8) Interpersonal Communication Sites: Whatsapp, Skype, Facebook Messenger 9) Gaming Applications: Steam, Origin
10) Professional Networks: LinkedIn, Xing
11) Commercial community sites: eBay, Amazon
The population of India is 1,352,642,280. New Delhi is the capital of Republic of India. The Economy of India in 2020 was nominally worth 2622.98 billion US dollars, Which is the fifth- largest economy by market exchange rates and is around $11 trillion and third largest by purchasing power parity, or PPP. With an average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past decades and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012. India is one of the world's fastest-growing economies. In 2020 the unemployment rate of India is 10.3% of the whole population. The politics in India work under the framework of constitutions of India. India is a secular democratic country where the head of state is President of India is and head of the government is the Prime Minister of India (Wiki).
In 2020, India had almost 700 million internet users over the nation. This figure was extended to develop to more than 974 million clients by 2025, demonstrating a major market potential in internet providers for the south Asian nation. India was positioned as the second biggest online market worldwide in 2019, coming next just to China. The quantity of web clients was assessed to increment in both metropolitan just as country districts, showing a powerful development in admittance to web. In 20202, 50% of the India population is using internet which is increase 42.5% in last 10 year as the user of internet in India was only 7.5% in the year of 2010.
Tourism in India:
One of the oldest civilizations in the world, India is a variety of multicultural practices. With a rich tradition and innumerable attractions, India is a country which is the most popular tourist destinations in the world. India covers an area of 32, 87,263 sq. km, reaching from the snow- covered North Indian Himalayan Mountains to thetropical rain forests of the south India. India is 7th largest country in the world and remains standing apart from the rest of Asia, shown off as it are by highest mountains and the sea, which give the India a distinct geographical entity.
Bordered by the Great Himalayas in the north, it extends southwards and at the Tropic of Cancer, tapers off into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west. As you travel the vastness of the country, you are greeted by diverse varieties of, arts, adventure sports, music, faiths, nature, lands, cuisines, tribes, history and crafts. India has a mesmerizing conflation of the old and the new. As the busy old bazaars rub shoulders with glamorous shopping malls, and magnificent monuments accompany lavish heritage hotels, the ideal traveler can get the best of both worlds. Head to the Himalayan Mountains, enjoy a beach time or cruise through the golden Thar Desert, India has options for all who want to enjoy the diversity.(Incredible India, 2021)
5 Most favorite/Used social media platforms in India:
As per the survey conducted by we are social in January 2021, shows that YouTube is most used social platform by the user in India with the percentage of 85.8%, Facebook is ranked 2nd with 75.7%, Whatsapp on 3rd with 74.6% user, Instagram is on 4th with 70.6% users, Messenger is on 5th with 55% from the overall user population in India.
YouTube have 448 million users reached using adverts on YouTube. User in India spends 26.4hours/month on YouTube to stream video or watching their favorite YouTube blogger.
Percentage of male user of YouTube in India is 68.8% while Percentage of female user is only 31.2%
Facebook have 320 million users currently in India. User in India spend 17.1hours/month on Facebook to post, stream video or chatting with their friends & family.99.5% of user in India access Facebook on their mobile phone, only 0.5% access it on desktop.
Whatsapp have 390.1 million users in India. User in India spend 21.3 hours/month on Whatsapp for chatting & calling.
Instagram have 140 million users in India. Users in India spend 9.8 hours/month for watching their favorite influencer on Instagram.
Messenger has also same users like Instagram 140 million with 78% male & 22% female.
(social, 2021)
Market Size of India tourism:
India is the most digitally enhanced traveler country in terms of digital tools being used for planning, booking, and experiencing a journey. India’s increasing middle class and improving disposable income has supported the growth of national and international tourism.
In 2019 Pre-pandemic situation, foreign traveler arrivals (FTAs) in India stayed at 10.93 million,
achieving a growth rate of 3.5% y-o-y. Also in 2019, The FEEs from tourism increased by 4.8% y-o-y to US$ 29.96 billion. In the same year the arrivals through e-Tourist Visa increased by 23.6% y-o-y to 2.9 million. However due to coronavirus situation in 2020, FTAs decreased by 75.5% YoY to 2.68 million and arrivals through e-Tourist Visa from January till November decreased by 67.2% YoY to 0.84 million.
As of March 2021, the e-Tourist Visa capacity was extended to citizens of 171 countries around the world.
Surprisingly, In April 2021, the percentage share of foreign traveler arrivals (FTAs) was highest from
Countries Percentage
USA 26.80%
Bangladesh 15.65%
Afghanistan 6.92%
UK 5.87%
Nepal 4.59%
Canada 4.27%
Iraq 2.99%
Portugal 2.40%
Germany 1.42%
Russian fed 1.41%
Maldives 1.39%
France 1.33%
Sudan 1.21%
Korea 1.18%
Australia 1.02%
&the percentage share of FTAs domestically was highest :
States Percentage
Bengaluru 29.96%
Mumbai Airport 17.48%
Ahmedabad 15.72%
Delhi 9.21%
Cochin 4.91%
Chennai 4.04%
Hyderabad 3.34%
Lucknow 2.40%
Bhavnagar 2.37%
Kolkata 2.11%
Calicut 1.41%
Amritsar 1.35%
Kakinada 1.32%
Dabolim 0.91%
Mangalore 0.72%
From January 2021 till April 2021, FTAs was 376,083 as evaluated with 2.35 million between January 2020 and April 2020, registering a negative growth of -84.0% Y-o-Y due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The future projections show that by 2028, international tourist arrivals are expected to reach 30.5 billion in India which will help to generate revenue over US$ 59 billion. However, there is also possibility of domestic tourists are expected to drive the growth, post pandemic.
As International accommodations chains are increasing their presence in the India and they will
responsible for around 47% share in the tourism and hospitality sector of India by 2020 and 50% by the year 2022.
As per the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), in FY21, the Indian accommodations businesses has taken a hit of around US$ 17.81 billion in revenue due to impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Investments
India was globally the third largest in terms of investment in travel and tourism with an inflow of US$
45.7 billion in 2018, accounting for 5.9% of the total investment in the country.
The hotel & tourism sector received cumulative FDI inflow of US$ 15.89 billion between April 2000 and June 2021.
Indian government has projected that India would emerge with a market size of 1.2 million cruise visitors by the year of 2030. Dream Hotel Group plans to invest around US$300 million in the next 3-5 years for the development of the cruise sector in India.
Achievements
Following are the achievements of the Government during 2019-20:
• During 2019-20, an additional fund $ 269.22 million was sanctioned for new projects under the Swadesh Darshan scheme.
• Ministry of Tourism sanctioned 18 projects covering all the North Eastern States for US$ 211.35 million to develop and promote of tourism in the region under Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD schemes.
• Statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, also known as ‘State of Unity’, was inaugurated in October 2018 and the total revenue generated till November 2019 stood at US$ 11.81 million.
Analysis of research
From the responses I have done, the data has been derived where i have taken into considered the top four social media platforms in India. in the result the data reflects Instagrame, Facebook, youtube and Tweeter where people uses the Instagram, Facebook, youtube and tweeter 67.60%, 64.57%, 69.62% and 35.31% respectively. In the fig 1 the graph is representing the users preference and in fig1.1 the percentage of the social media usage.
Figure 1 (Source :Author)
In my survey I have prepared 20 questions which is for analysing the use and impact of social media on travelling. Figure 1 shows the answers for my first question as we can see on the graph the highest number of social media users are on Youtube 69% out of Instagram 67%, Facebook 64% , & Tweeter 35%.
Figure 1.1(Source :Author)
After getting the answers for social media platform usage I have focused on the age of people by my second question. Figure 1.1 shows that most of the people who answered was of the age of 26-35 it shows that this age group social media is being used more than the other age groups.
Figure 2(Source :Author)
Figure 2.1(Source :Author)
Figure 3(Source :Author)
In my third question I have focused on the gender of which I get responses most from the
females. As we can see in Figure 2.1 The percentage of female is 55%, male is 46% & other 3%.
This shows that the most the user of social media are females.
Figure 3.1(Source :Author)
Figure 4(Source :Author)
After gender I have focused on the occupation. According to the Figure 4 we can see that most of the people are Students with a percentage of 12% as compared to others. On this question I have the data if people who use social media most. So now my next questions are focused on
travelling.
Figure 4.1(Source :Author)
As we can see in Figure 4.1 it shows the highest percentage 42% of the people who travel in a year. As compared to other people some 24% of people travel in a month. 32% of people Travel in six months and 21% of people don’t travel that much.
Figure 5(Source :Author)
Figure5.1(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing on what helps people to decide their destination for traveling. So by the responses in the figure 5.1 we can see social media is the most used platform for the people to choose the destination.
Figure 6(Source :Author)
Figure 7(Source :Author)
Figure 7.1 As in previous questions I got the data of the people who travel the most of different age groups. Now this question is more focused on the budged as it plays a big role in traveling and choosing the destination. By the responses we can 34% of people make a
budget of $500-$1000 33% people make a budget of $1001-$2000. 18% of people make a budget of $2001-$3000 and 13% of people make a budget of $3001+.
Figure 8(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing on how often do people post on social media about their travel journey. We can see by the repose that 50% of the people post in a month 32% of people post hourly and 23% of people post weekly. These people play a big role in creating an impact of social media on their friends as watching their post.
Figure 8.1(Source :Author)
Figure 9(Source :Author)
Figure 9.1(Source :Author)
In these questions I am focusing on how people like to travel. And 54% of the people responded International and 45% of the people like to travel Domestic. This shows how social media is making an impact to the people who use social media, because social media is used globally so it connects the people from all around the world which help people to explore beautiful
destinations on their countries and of other countries by just scrolling to some posts.
Figure 10(Source :Author)
Figure 10.1(Source :Author)
This question is focused on how useful social media for selection a destination for the trip. 87%
of people found social media very useful while 12% of the people found it not so useful. These percentage shows that social media is playing a big role in making a decision or deciding a destination for their trip.
Figure 11(Source :Author)
Figure 11.1(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing on how much people trust on the posts they see on social media.
51% of the people trust social media very much while 48% of the people don’t trust social media that much.
Figure 12(Source :Author)
Figure 12.1(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing on the decision making of the people because on social media reviews plays a big role for promoting anything and it’s the same for making a decision for travelling. By the response we can see 50% of the people make their decisions by the reviews while 22% of people not that much affected by reviews and 18% of the people are not affected by the reviews.
Figure 13(Source :Author)
Figure 13.1(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing on how likely do people choose their destination which is recommended online. By the response we can see 57% of the people choose their destination recommended online while 27% of the people somewhat likely 11% of the people quite likely and other very unlikely.
Figure 14(Source :Author)
Figure 14.1(Source :Author)
This question is focused on if people ask for recommendation on social media. As we can see in figure 14.1 82% of the people ask for recommendation while 29% of the people don’t ask for recommendations.
Figure 15(Source :Author)
Figure 15.1(Source :Author)
This question is more focusing in if the social media is the best platform to plan the trip. As we can see in figure 15.1 79% of the people thinks that social media is the best platform while 20%
of the people think social media is the best platform to plan a trip.
Figure 16(Source :Author)
Figure 16.1(Source :Author)
This is one of the most important question of the survey because it shows how much time do people spend on social media and this data helped lot of social media companies to increases their ads services. As we can see 50% of the people spend 2-4 hours. 20% o the people spend 0-2 hours. 20% o the people spend 4-6 hours and 8% of the people spend 6+ hours. This data shows how social media is impacting the society.
Figure 17(Source :Author)
Figure 17.1(Source :Author)
From this question I am focusing how social media helped people to explore the world and how useful it is in the time of pandemic. As we can see in figure 17.1 82% of the people found social media very useful while 12% of the people found social media not so useful.
Figure 18(Source :Author)
Figure 18.1(Source :Author)
In this question I am focusing which channel do people use for getting all the information about travelling. As we can see in figure18.1 80% o the people use social media 13% of the people use digital media and others use print media.
Figure 19(Source :Author)
Figure 19.1(Source :Author)
After getting all the data of usage and impact of social media on and decision making. Now I this question is more focusing on which channel or influencers do people follow. As we can see in figure 19.1 38% of the people follow “The Shooting Star”. 36% of the people follow “Shivya”.
And 24% of the people follow “Travel See Write”.
Figure 20(Source :Author)
Figure 20.1(Source :Author)
After getting the channels or influencers which people follow on Instagram now I am focusing on the channels which area in YouTube. I am focusing on these two channels the most because these are the most used platforms. As we can see in figure 20.1 43% of the people follow “The Shooting Star”. 36% of the people follow “Mountain Trekker”. 20% of the people follow
“Mumbaiker Nikhil”
Youtube channels 1 The shooting star
2. Mountain Trekker
3. Mumbiker Nikhil
Instagram channel : 1. Travelseewrite
2. Shivya
Stages where buyers will be affected by social media :
1.1Introduction :
In the previous literature, we have covered the consumer studies for social media impact in detail in the sector of tourism and most of the trip and its important points. After setting a point to decide to go on trip users examines how and what level users use the information to make their decisions while they search for the trip and analysis the decision-making process and in the response of the output-driven from the information collection or the decision-making process their feedback. It provides a holistic approach for trips while using social media during deciding and its impact on consumer behavior. Such a holistic approach gives more insights and
manifolds in the future to study more on social media on formulating the message,
communication, information, and the final decisions made. To achieve this target, we will dig into deep the stage levels of the impact and inspiration of the social media, and in relation to this, we must need to understand the level of inspiration to users and the target groups for traveling, holidays trips, or favorite destination point. According to social media, information, self- observations, and sincethe contents, the role of family friends, social networking, etc. is described below.
1.2 Inspiration of social media on holiday trip as a stage :
In the methodologies part in the previous phase, we have discussed the Sentence Completion Task for the understanding of social media for the desired stage on a trip, which provides
different ideas like, gossips, discussions with friends, group conversation, stories, movies and so many.
In the picture, the goal is to analyze the roles or the existence of social media during this process where the traveler is gathering the information and discussion for the desired place or trip as mentioned in the above picture. Social media is there as a means of information and motivation for further trips right before taking the decisions for the desired place. It can be as a quality approach that among three in the targeted group one is inspired by either application or social media for the desired destination trip. For the particular social media, blogs, websites for
traveling. In this context of quality and exploratory finding are providing two important analysis- First, it is supposed that friends, family and close people are the most on top to influencing source of the information, ideas, and suggestions for the travel place. The suggestion of friends and near and dear are considered as most reliable as anything else. Also on social media and on blogging most active users see the activities of their kith and kin about their travel and trip experience. Even the information and ideas of the trip on the social media of kith and kin provide the experience and more ideas to motivate to themselves in future trips.
Moreover, other consumer reviews platforms, bloggers, and other social media platforms figure out that the travel and trips for first-time travelers. The link between users and first-time travelers
is seen as not connected in the offline world but the first-hand experience and the preference and the experiments can be a source of inspiration and guiding principles for others.
In the addition to this approach, there are some people who want to visit the same places again and again. In this context, I can take the covid time as an example as before the pandemic the bucket list used to be Europe, visit new places, go on adventure places and to new and shiny places but after the pandemic, we all have to rethink about the next trip places due to restriction and closed the borders. In the broader-case, there are two kinds of trip planner or travelers, one who prefer to visit the new and adventures places for all the time and the second one those who want to go to the same places to deep dig into the places and explore the same places again and again.
Locations and places have deep influences on us in the terms of how we think, how we place ourselves on this planet. For the travelers going to the same places for the trip have a different reference point to go on that destination points, it can be giving them the mental peace and some feelings that cannot be explained in the words, it can be an emotional attachment. i.e., It can be the place your grandparents have some memories with you, or you have with them, and they are not in this world now. During the pandemic, the situation willbetter slowly, and the travel condition will be with a certain precautionary like wearing the mask, vaccination passport, negative test at the airports and so many when the countries will open their doors for the tourists.
Travel from the point of view is a regime situated on the availability of the airlines, currency to the countries, classes in the airlines and the hotel and the place itself, visa for those countries and so many things but these things are always continuous and unable to describe.
Social media like personal blogs Instagram stories or tweets give direct information to strangers and the chances to communicate and keep on looking for further information. while on the other hand In the day to day life or the physical life, very less product or means to give exposure or any media give chance to strangers for their feedback because in the physical world the observation of the strangers can not the measured until and unless they do the two ways communication and further keep on an eye on the posts.
1.3 From the above statement now we will understand the means or the source from which users gather information.
In this section, we will understand in detail the function and the means of information or the sources for the travel or trip. In the analysis part, while the users are on the active stage on deciding the designation point and are excited about the trip, users or strangers are on retrieving the information from the social media from either from corporate or the personal.
In the given picture and in the study the source of personal is considered as kith and kin as their close circle on the social media as friends and family members, users contact them on the regular basis they share their ideas and all. On the other side the unfamiliar or unknown is consider that user have no connection or the social media circle with.
A) Friend- In the friend those who are connected to each other’s on the physical world or they are connected on social media in other words can be said SNS (social networking sites)who influence others with their experience, views, pictures, stories, videos for their holidays, trips.
These sharing, if I talk about me gives me inspiration sometimes even, I am not having any plans for holidays or trips but it motivates me to explore new places. One of the Instagram accounts I am following, which is for pilot slim, and she is a pilot. she always posts on her account about her trips to different countries and places also little bit talk about places, after watching I always check that place and feel like to go to that place. Those tempting and mesmerizing videos and pictures makes me to fly and go that place. Also, the questions she asks on which she engages to followers about that place and ask for the next destination places and followers best destination places name for the trip or holidays or honeymoon which really feel like go and explore that places. It provides the SNS to the followers the inspiration and knowledge for the new and beautiful places with the detailed information which is being experienced by friends. These kinds of experienced trip are always good because you can ask friends what to skip and what should for better preparation do to make it more detailed and what we must not do because your friend
has experience so he or she can guide you in the right direction and you can enjoy more rather than you go first time and do experience and do it again in better way.
In this context friends are not only the friends we meet or have friends face to face but also on social media and we are connected through Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp or many more social networking. They could be sitting in any corner in the world bit connected through social media platforms. Some people want to go to only those places where they have their friends in the world. For examples let's assume Peter is from Canada and his friend mark is in UK and Peter wants to visit to for holiday so Peter prefer to go on trip to UK because Mark is there so he feel good and prefer to go to UK. In most of the cases for the holidays trip user prefers to take some advice or suggestion to their friends, their experience as the inspiration for their decision.
B) Family- Family members are also consider as very good influencers while planning holiday trip. In fact if we see in the trip or tourism agencies they have advertisement with family and relatives. Each family member in the family can influence the holiday trip.Even on the basis of Facebookwe find in suggestion list called people you may know and in that we find people our friend's friends or relatives.Social media again and again give room to relative and family members for the role as influencers in the decision making for the holiday trip. In the earlier stage and in the absence of social media the interaction between the friends and relatives was limited also due to distance. Though the time and distance problems, emailing was there as a source and then SNS came into existence and the limitations of distance and time removed and we can talk in the real time without any delay and exchange the ideas and also virtual pictures, videos and they can share and inspire and influence to family members. Some family members are living in other countries can invite to their family members can be the best holiday trip because the family members have nothing to thing and the inviting family member knows everything about that place.
C) Unknown/ Unfamiliar- A part from family members and family and relatives, there are so many influencers on social media we do not even know. Strangers inspire through their accounts, their stories on social media. Even we can see so many movies, theaters are based on the
influencing for travelling, and cartoons have special impact on the kids because they may affect the decision in the family while planning for trip. In the movies directors' film in the famous location and some time in movies they introduce the fantastic new places and viewers look for the place. In the songs nice locations are captured. Some places movie makers pick which are famous and on the other hand some locations are famous due to movies, which are absolutely unknown but the influence to their audience. On the social media some are travel, micro blogs they visit to the places and gives information and influence to users.
In addition to this food is also play an important role as some food only you can fine on some specific places for example Goulash you can find in Czech Republic only. Real pizza in Italy and so many famous foods also influence to the holiday to push to have their favorite food on their favorite destination place. On the social media we find and follow so many travel holiday
influencers, food videos, pictures. On the social media we buy and discuss the experience through their post and informative videos which influence for next destination for holiday. In these ways social media increase the will to travel and experience to the users to consume the information and millions of users inspire and they set a point to take that location into
consideration.
Some of the famous festivals are organized on the particular place i.e. La tomatina is organized in Spain, tomorrow land in Belgium and so many places are famous for the events which increase the tourist on that place. These events invites to all over the world by sharing
information on social media and followers further share on their social media to their friends, followers.
D) Corporate- Some corporate strangers can also be an influencer on the social media to influence through destination organization, events, meetings in the SNS which motivate users to share their experience on social media.
There is one famous quote in Hindi language which I am translating in English "oh man go and travel the world because you will have this life and if you will be having life you will be old and can't explore like a young man". In Hindi it inspires to youngsters a lot for the travel and in Indiait's inspiring. On the Facebook there are so many pages for travel and holiday trips and in the result some of the users they just get inspire through the post and some pictures and videos.
In fact some of the users or friends they post on social media very normal or natural but the viewers and users find it more inspiring for them. The thing id it is not important to make it more attractive and inspirational but he viewers can fine it in the favor and it inspires them. It is
inspiring if any kith and kin or known person shares itturns out captivating and inspiring.
Some of the users are also inspired by the company or business model based on the trip, travel and holidays for example trip advisor, expedia group, booking holidays, BCD travel etc. users subscribe their e-newsletters, subscribe page or channels. These are also having sections on the customer reviews site on which the users can share or gain some reviews based on the ratings or positive, negative or neutral. Companies are working on the reviews given by the users are it is considering the most valuable data.
These kinds of companies send emails, provide positive reviews, ratings for a particular place, some applications for their website and on that application, there are updates for the trip, some discounts, special offers, weekend's trips, couple discounts, couple trips, summer trips and so many inspirational things companies provides and motivates to the users to travel and go on holidays. There are some special kind of users who prefer to travel on some specific occasions like on new year's, Christmas time, some travel when the flights tickets are cheap so the y get mailing for the companies and companies target to those who subscribe their news or page on social media.
1.4Tourism inspiration:
On the searching stage of the trip users can go with the positive responses for the location or holiday travels. Potential inspiration on the social attention posted by the kith and kin can be passive information because during the searching on the social media the passive information can be seen or uses take on the lighter side the post on SNS when posted by friends. What happen when we are thinking for the holiday someone among our social media circle is already on trip and on that time we see the posts on the same time. So for those locations, places users do not search and not even go in details and if user wants to know for that place, they either see those pictures or talk to that friend.
Similarly some potential information for the trip can have attention on friends posts when the users figure out that the post of user's friends have the same location they are looking for and in the leisure time they may gather relevant information.
We can say when users are on the social media platforms and they are passively looking for some information and they have interactions with their friends they can find the source full information based on the experiences of their holidays trips.
Sometimes users even are not thinking for the trip or holiday trip but on the social media on Facebook or Whatsapp friends are posting some post for a small get together trip, which is very lucrative and inspiring. Without any notions for the trip only for the sake of meeting with friends and get together it is also involving the trip. These kinds of parties, gathering between old friends are very common.
In the above paragraphs it is shown that on the social media which gives information, gives real experiences, provides more and new holidays ideas and motivates for trip is always considered on important source of inspiration. It always gives suggestions and share posts of friends, kith and kin and so many unknown but gives motivation for travel, holiday trips without any, times laps, distances problems and also sometimes removes the language barriers as we can see on Facebook on every post which is not in our language gives option to translate the post. In
addition to this it also provides the option for two ways communication it means we can have the feedback or information or like dislikes, emotions recognition on the same post and after we can analysis. in the content of content makers on the social media is the important tool to design the strategy for making new post and sentimental analysis for the post in the reviews comment.
1.5 Inspiration for holiday trips with beloved
Going on a trip with your beloved is also one of the dreaming stages of so many.
1. Trip with friends- Friends prefer to go with friends to club, birthday parties because are precious we all wants to spend time with friends, we have on the social media list of friends.
Going on trip or to holiday destination with friends is dreams of so many people. We can see very often on the social media friends are making some planes to go on trip together and they all give their suggestions for the location and plans. Some of them prefer to visit the places where any of them have already visited and they share their experiences, some of them say to visit to new places and do adventures. Going with friends on trip is so different from so many aspects.
With friends they enjoy more together and they fell to explore more, users with friends also more open to do adventure and in that context they prefer to go to more and more places to enjoy more and adventure more.
2. Trip with family- Some people are more attach to their families and they enjoy more with family. Travel and go on holiday with family is the dream of so many users. In this context some families are very religious and they prefer to go on holiday trip on pilgrimage, which is very common on social mediapeople are traveling to some religious places and posting and then a family package on the religious places can be take places and so many users are inspired with that and decide next holiday to that location.
In the summer time when the children have holidays in the school in some of the countries specially in Asia people have holidays for 2 months in summer time and on that time people prefer to go on holidays with family. Social media plays very important role on that time so may family holiday's advertisements, suggestions and on the same time when users are looking for the
places some of their friends already on the trip they share their pictures, post and it inspire to users family trips. Family trips are always safe and less adventures, they prefer to the placesmore common and happy places. For example family will prefer to go on trip to Switzerland or Paris compare to Himalaya for mountain climbing or Spain for scuba diving.
3. Couple trip- Couple trips are more romantic, less adventures; couples prefer to make the trip on the romantic side like Paris, Italy, Amsterdam, and London they want to spend time with each other and on romantic places. There are some hotels and amusement places worldwide which attracts to young couples on social media which are providing nice hotel in Paris the city of love, beautiful couple party in the Prague the city of love, love in Amsterdam for young couple attracts couples on social media. Things go viral on the time of love and some special occasions if we talk about Valentine's Day. So many captivating ideas on social media users can see and inspire for this special occasion and they do not want to let go the moment to impress to their beloved.
Young couples always like holiday trips because they make their memories on all the places. If we see some post that a couple from Australia went to Paris and a boy proposed to his girl for marriage in front of Eiffel tower. They came all the way from Australia to make the moment memorable to them in Paris. This story on Facebook was so inspiring and in the comments so many people appreciates and inspired for their own love life motivation.
4. Honeymoon trip- Honeymoon trips are one of the very much inspiring for the youngsters.
This is a very special trip newly married couple's design for the beginning to their new married life. Honeymoon trip never fade away. On the repeating location on the social media so many users post the location of their honeymoon and after sometimes they travel to the same places where they went for honeymoon.Sometimes on Facebook, it gives the notification that 5 years before on this day you were on this place and it gives users to visit that places again to make the memories fresh. On the interest of both the person of couple they decide to go to honeymoon and on social media they try to show that they did the best trip and everything they try to make viewers to feel it and it inspire them. On the other hand these kinds of trips always inspire to users as in some of users set a point to decide the place or some wants to go on the same places where they have already made their honeymoon trip.
5. Trip with favorite people- On the social media there are always some post for the location or places where small groups are going their favorite activities. Some of the same interested they are going on cycling to one place for 10 days trip. Some concerts are organized kind of post we see every day. This post always inspires to the people who wants to travel with their favorite person, with the same interested. Sometimes people want to go to get rid of or want to spend some time in peace they go on small trips with their favorite person, can be peers, friends, and lover.Trip with favorite people gives positive energy not only in life but also have influence on social media by posting pictures, memories for forever and also inspire to the users by posting on stories on social media.
One small team from office visit to forest camp to get off from all technologies except filming on camera for 3 days no office, no calls, no internet nothing just in one small group of their favorite peers together and after their trip successfully they all posted on Instagram, share on
Whatsappand Facebook and the consequently they inspired so many users on social media. In the comments so many people who work in the stress can connect to their life and have dream to go and relax.
On Instagram users can see this kind of relaxing and soothing location just for relaxing and giving yourself stress free moment and if you have your favorite person with you on this trip that is cheery on the top.
1.6 Sharing of the images on the social media and its impact on users in the context of trips- On the social media especially on Facebook there is ratio or the frequency of the responses how people react, get involved and comment and share picture and that was the pictures of holiday trip. People were more engaged to like, comment and asking for the location, details for the trip, cost of trip and getting inspire for the pictures. Most of them in the comments they were serious for planning their next trip on that places just on the basis of sharing the pictures.
That approach gives ideas for the next time better to give details for the each picture because it's hard to respond all questions in comments personally.Also it is important to choose the right social media platform. Some people are not using Facebook actively but for the beautiful locations and traveling and new places they also likes and wants to know more about it.
Facebook pictures gives inspiration to viewers they wants to go and motivates them for trip.
They start feeling about the places to have feelings to want to go there and eventually motivated to make a trip. Let's understand this concept in details.
1.7Feelings for travel- Is the inside some dream which everyone have and social media gives the kick to those feelings to be motivated by sharing pictures watching co large, share on reels on Instagram and some pictures of favorite music concerts.Feeling to see the whole world or at least favorite places seen on social media to meet mental satisfaction.Feelings are inspired by the social sharing and give the happy feeling sand inspiration and ideas for the next trips. While people are share on social media gives peaces and happiness and in the same timer jealous to some people because they cannot go but them wants to go and enjoy those moments.
1.8 Inspiration for travel- Some locations on the repeated basis can give more stick ideas for that places posted on the social media as picture. Pictures of friends, kith and kin can give good ideas for the next trip of other friend's bases on good experiences and post, pictures and videos posted on social media gives and motivated them to see that location on holiday trip. Some adventures are also inspires users to visit some particular places like on the social media users see sky diving pictures on which the palm jumeirah is visible from sky and users set point to do the sky diving only in Dubai otherwise no. So sometimes some adventures are also associated
with the location and it inspires you in a package. It will give you the pleasure of sky diving along with the happiness of trip to Dubai.
1.9 Generation of WANT stage for trip- If we ask to the visitors why they have chosen this place for trip? In the background there is social media working in the big pictures. Visitors say when we say Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, in pictures on Facebook or Instagram we want to go there and then we planned trip for this place.Users posted on social media about places which are unique in the world which can be find only in this places and it gives special feelings to visitors.
Sometimes this wants occurs because of get out from home and break the boring rhythms of life and do some adventures in life. In addition to this there are some weathers people wants to enjoy for examples snowfall in Europe, summer in Spain, sea in Mallorca, new year celebration in new York have some special impact.
WANT, also gives ideas for making some memorable trips like honeymoon trip in Maldives, trip with friends in Dubai,destination wedding for some famous people.
1.10 plan of actions- At the end who have decides to visit to some destination place are inspired with post and social media pictures to go to that particular trip or location. Some of the used ask for he places in the comments on the posted pictures on Facebook.
We can say in the above paragraph analysis part sharing the pictures on the social media is a big and great impact to inspiring and deciding for the holiday trips not only for those who were looking for the trip but also who were just having some no idea and not even thinking about the trip. Image of any location gives the right desire and motives for trip.
Usage of social media in each stage
This research presents eight types of social media applications in content to travel and tourism, Social networking sites, blogs, micro blogs, wikis, content community sites, consumer review sites, Internet forums, and location based social media.
Blogs
The word blog is derived from the term weblogs which was made by John Barger in 1997, then in 1999 Peter Merholz broke the word into “we blog”, from then the word “blog” was used. A blog is a personal website which is regularly updated and contains frequent entries and contains link to other websites. In relation to level of interactivity blogs occur at the same time, and in relation of communication scope they are a “many to many” medium. Several scholars, primarily from thetourism field, acquire an enlarged approach on a blog considering product review sites such as Trip Advisor and Holiday check as blogs. Approach like these clearly does not please two of the previously mentioned defining characteristics of a blog (frequent entry and journal like content). Henceforth these are not adapted by this study. Blogs are mainly used for personal publishing and expressing oneself feeling, presenting ideas and commentary. The masses of
blogs serve consumer to consumer bridge, but there are also blogs serve the needs for business to consumer, government to consumer, business to business and government to business. In terms of types of blogs, there are generally four types: Personal, Corporate, industry specific (e.g., travel blogs), and Publication based.
Blogs in tourism context
Travel blogs expose “kaleidoscopic aspects of a visitor’s experience at the destination”.
Revealing allaspects of the travel experience and the tourism product such as access, accommodation, attractions, dining, and overall impressions. Travel blogs are considered
“expressions of tourism consumption”.
Using the AIDA model to classify the comments given by the viewers, and blog comments caused attention to 45% of the viewers, interest to 10%, desire to 39% and elicited action to 6%
of them. Personal or corporate travel blogs are significantly less reliable than conventional way, assuming the identity of social relationship between viewers and content creators as a possible factor to explain this difference. The factors that influence trust among eight types of websites that can host UGC and how it affects their use in travel planning. They showed that UGC is perceived as more credible when posted to official tourism bureau websites, followed by travel agents’ websites, review sites e.g. Trip Advisor, travel company websites and then travel blogs, personal websites, social networking sites and sharing sites e.g. YouTube. In terms of
trustworthiness, influence on company image and influence on tourists’ choices, travel related blogs were found second only to OTA websites incorporating rating/review functions. However, the differences observed between the two media in the three variables stated above were found statistically significant only in the case of influence on tourists’ choices. Lastly, in the case of holiday travel to unfamiliar destinations, travel blogs were found to provide better advice than friends and relatives.
Micro-blogs
Micro blogs have been defined as “internet-based applications which allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links”. Among the range of micro blog applications are twitter, jaiku, plurk, and weibo, to name a few. However, it is Twitter that is the largest of all and the one that drives the growth of microblogging. n 2014 Twitter has more than 255 million monthly active users who send on average 500 million tweets per day (Twitter 2014)(Anon., 2014).
Mobile devices are extensively used in Twitter: 78% of active Twitter users access it via a mobile device (Twitter 2014).
By analyzing 11.5 million twitter accounts, (CHENG et al.2009) found that 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update per day; 21% of users have never posted a Tweet; and 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity. The operational conceptbehind micro blogging is about like all micro blogging applications: For example, in Twitter, usershave their own
webpage where they post messages. All micro blogging applications share three characteristics:
(a) Short messages, limited to a specific number of characters, (b) instant message delivery, usually supported via multiple platforms i.e., instant messaging, SMS, RSS, e- mail, Facebook etc.; (c) users subscribe to users to receive posts.(Anon., 2009)
Micro blogs in the tourism context
Although findings represent assumptions based on professional experience it is suggested that Twitter is used (a) as a tool to learn about the destination both from other individuals but also from local organizations; (b) as a group formation platform consisting of potential travelers to a destination who are sharing information, particularly useful for first-time visitors and single travelers; (c) for communication between tourists and tourism product providers at the
destination; and (d) as a reminder mechanism for past and future trips offering promotions and functional information such as official entry requirements. Microblogs have been proposed as a tool for identifying and monitoring expression of travel and tourism related sentiment. Tourism in Thailand and in Cancun. In the study referring to the 2010 political unrest in Thailand, it was shown that tweets related to Phuket as a tourism destination were not concerned with political and security issues to the extent that this was the case in Bangkok, as if the former “have been insulated from the detrimental effects of the situation”. Regarding the context of travel related decision making, Twitter users tend to use travel related information they read on tweets depending on three factors: (a) Source reliability and credibility; (b) source expertise and knowledge; and (c) degree of involvement. Based on the above discussion, in the context of this study’s research methodology, microblogs need to be assessed primarily as sources of more specialized travel information. The fact that the relationship between users does not require reciprocation extends the reach of the medium to sources well outside the network of friends and relatives when compared to other types of social media such as Social Networking Sites. It can therefore be investigated whether information was received both from socialmedia contacts known in person as well as from other users not known in person. Source reliability and
expertise may also need to be assessed in case information from tweets was used in any stage of the decision process. Finally, the immediacy of micro blogs when compared to other types of socialmedia may be a factor contributing to their use during the trip.
