The Use of Social Media in Edinburgh's Tourism Organisations

Social media has dramatically changed the way in which people communicate, socialise, and build relationships. Since the emergence of the main social networking sites in 2004, the use of social media as a marketing tool has become increasingly common. Moreover, this has led many organisations to put social media at the forefront of their marketing campaigns. However, qualitative research about how and why this is the case is in short supply, especially across the tourism sector. Therefore, the focus of this qualitative study is to answer the key questions of how and why tourism organisations use social media. A qualitative approach was chosen for this research in order to obtain a rich set of detailed information which may not have been available in another way. Six face to face interviews were conducted, each with a member of the digital and/or marketing staff from selected tourism organisations in Edinburgh. The research showed that there are many benefits to tourism organisations using social media including, customer feedback and market research, brand and relationship building, engagement and increased customer loyalty. It was further discovered that social media plays an important part in organisations' marketing strategies and that a significant amount of staff time is dedicated to monitoring the medium and responding to consumers. However, there are contrasting views as to whether social media generates business for tourism organisations - is it used purely as a marketing tool or should it also be viewed as a means of adding value to a business by improving its quality of service?ba_hosptourunpub1411_ethesesunpu