OPPORTUNITIES OF USING THE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TOURISM

Spletna družbena omrežja so ena od podskupin družbenih medijev, zato smo na kratko predstavili, kaj so družbeni mediji in katere podskupine zajemajo. V poslovnem svetu so zelo priljubljena oblika oglaševanja storitev in promoviranja podjetja ter navsezadnje tudi samega turističnega kraja. V diplomski nalogi smo raziskovali, kako so nekateri najbolj poznani spletni družbeni mediji prisotni pri poslovanju gorenjskih turističnih ponudnikov. Sestavili smo spletni anketni vprašalnik in ga poslali različnim turističnim ponudnikom na Gorenjskem. Prejete odzive smo analizirali in primerjali s predvidevanji. Izsledki raziskave prikazujejo najbolj aktualne družbene medije pri turističnih ponudnikih, njihovo pomembnost pri poslovanju ter pomanjkljivosti in težave, ki jih srečujejo anketiranci pri uporabi družbenih medijev. Na podlagi raziskave smo ocenili, ali so družbeni mediji dovolj zastopani v turistični panogi na Gorenjskem in kje vidimo dodatne možnosti, kako uporabo razširiti. Družbeni mediji so zanimiv vir informacij in zaradi svoje razširjenosti omogočajo turističnim ponudnikom veliko možnosti uporabe. Glede na izsledke raziskave smo zapisali šibke točke pri uporabi in pripravili priporočila, kako bi lahko še bolje izkoristili družbene medije pri svojem poslovanju.Internet social networks are only one of the subgroups of social media and in the thesis we focus firstly on introducing social media with its subgroups. They are becoming increasingly popular in businesses for advertising and promotion of companies, services and tourist destinations. In our thesis we have investigated the use of some of the most well-known social media by tourist service providers in Gorenjska. We compiled a web questionnaire that we sent to various tourist service providers in the region. We have analysed their responses and compared them with our initial assumptions. The results indicate the most popular social media used by tourist service providers, their impact on business and the issues that they are facing when using them. The research helped us understand whether social media is used widely enough in tourism in Gorenjska and where we see additional possibilities to expand. Social media represent a rich source of information and because they are so widely spread, they offer tourist service providers a lot of opportunity to take advantage of them. With the help of our research we identified areas for improvement of the existing use and prepared a list of suggestions on how businesses could take even better advantage of social media in the future