An Empirical Study on use of Social Media in the Hotel Industry in China: A Study of Customers’ Preferences and Attitudes

With the development of the technology, business corporations start to use social media to promote their businesses. This study focuses on the preferences and attitudes of travelers’ in China with the relationship between usage of social media (based on WeChat and Sina Weibo) with the option of hotel choice in the hospitality industry. There are two instruments used in this study: (1) sending out online surveys and (2) scheduled interviews with people who are working in the hotel industry. From our survey data (N=245) were participants who completed questionnaires located all over China. However, the results of the study indicate that participating hotels and online tickets firms prefer to use social media to attract guests and even potential consumers. The top about three elements that influence decision making of hotel choice are: price (71.84%); location (68.16%); and online rating (33.06%)