Social Media in Tourism A Double Edged Sword

Extensive spread of the Internet and speedy technological advancement have revolutionized all industries in the World specifically tourism. The presence of the information and communication technology have fundamentally change the way how tourists collect detailed information, how do they can carefully map decision substitutes, how they book their travel and how they share their unique travel experience with others. A vital step forward in the progress of the internet has been made by a noteworthy growth in the popularity of social media platforms. Social media plays a very important role in tourism which is an information based industry. Consumers need information that can assist them in the process of travel planning and making decisions related to selection of tourism destination and other travel related products. Social media has also extended the reach of industry as now they can easily target consumers sitting far away without even meeting them. Destination marketer use social media before the travel so as to engage and inform the tourists, during the travel so as to facilitate at destination and after the travel to remember and share experiences. But social media in tourism marketing can be both an aid and a threat as social media influences the tourism industry both in positive and negative ways, as the decisions of prospective travellers have been strongly affected by comments and personal experiences of other users on social media. The main objective of the paper is to understand the relationship between social media and destination marketing and to examine the positive and negative impact of social media marketing in tourism industry. Ms. Priyanka Sharma | Mr. Ravi Kumar | Ms. Asha Rani "Social Media in Tourism- A Double-Edged Sword" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-1 , December 2017, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd8222.pd