The Impact of Social Media on the Tourism Industry
Social media has made a huge impact on the tourism industry. Consumers engage with social networking sites to research trips, make informed decisions about their travels and share their personal experiences of a particular hotel, restaurant or airline. TripAdvisor in particular has had a wide-reaching effect on the industry. It has 50 million unique monthly visitors who are actively seeking out travel information and advice from the sources they trust the most: other tourists and holiday-makers.
This style of user-generated content is seen by the online community as more credible and authentic and for many hotels, restaurants and visitor attractions, if they are not listed in the top five spots, they are losing out majorly to their competitors. With more than 200 million reviews and opinions posted on TripAdvisor to date, and more than 800 million active users on Facebook posting updates and sharing images, social media is dominating the industry.
To celebrate World Tourism Day this September 27th, The Dunloe Hotel in Co. Kerry, Ireland, created this infographic on Social Media and Tourism. Have a look for more information.
