Geotourism and Destination Brand Selection: Does Social Media Matter?

Geotourism is a profitable business that relies on different elements. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of geotourism on destination brand selection with social media as the moderating variable. This paper falls into the category of applied studies in terms of purpose and follows the descriptivecorrelational methodology. The statistical population consists of tourists who travelled to selected geotourism destinations of Iran in 2019 to visit the geological heritage. As the population size could not be determined, 384 individuals were selected based on Krejcie and Morgan’s sample size table. The data were collected through a researcher-developed questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and composite reliability. The validity of the questionnaire was also confirmed by calculating its content and construct validity. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) in SmartPLS 3.0 was used for data analysis. It was found that all the hypotheses which implied a direct impact were confirmed; however, when social media was introduced as the moderating variable, it was not significant enough to affect the outcome. Sharing pictures and videos about the attractions of Iran is not enough to warrant the selection of a given destination for prospective visitors