UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN DESTINATION MARKETING

Abstract

Social media in the context of destination marketing is a growing area of study, and judging by the exponential growth in social networks over recent years, the demand for research will continue. This paper provides a review of the literature to date on social media use by destination marketing organizations (DMOs). A growing number of travellers are influenced by user generated content, presenting a number of challenges and opportunities to DMOs. This review seeks to synthesize existing research, theories and concepts, in order to understand how social media applications are being used by tourism authorities, and to provide a bridge from past research to future success.