Emerging Innovation and Technologies for Social Media in Tourism

Question: Discuss about theEmerging Innovation and Technologies for Social Media in Tourism. Answer: Introduction The social media which includes the YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and whats app greatly uses the Internet to facilitate communication and therefore, has an impact on strategic decisions and marketing regarding the tourism industry. Therefore, the communication through social media facilitates the engagement of the consumers and it enhances the progress of the Information Technology increasing the social networking of the individuals (Davis et al, 2013). For this reason, various practitioners are attracted and hence devote their time to investigate significant effects and roles of social media in the tourism industry. For this paper, I have integrated various articles which are related to the social media in the analysis of the content. Materials and Methods I identified various articles which contain information regarding social media and tourism from various websites such as the Complete Tourism Database, the Google Scholar and Web of Science (Hoffman Novak, 2012). To obtain a comprehensive overview of the research topic and the literature regarding tourism, main words of the social media, tourism, social sites for networking and travel were put into consideration to acquire information from articles which were published between 2010 to 2016 include some journals which include Journal of Maintainable Tourism, Tourism Management, Research Travel, Contemporary issues in Tourism Industry and Annals of Research in Tourism. A thorough process of review was employed to analyze the articles as well as the content analysis technique (Mkono Tribe, 2016). I also developed a framework as seen in Table 1below in the supplier, consumer and research perspective prior to the analysis for this research paper. Another Table 2 also indicates the theor etical view of social media in tourism. Table 1 Subject in % CIT N=2 JTR N=9 AOT N=3 TM N=17 Total N=31 Consumer Perspective Use of Social Media Attitude Motivations Satisfaction 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 22.0 0.0 0.0 35.3 17.6 5.9 5.9 19.4 16.1 3.2 3.2 Suppliers dimension Promotion Communication Product distribution 0.0 0.0 1 50.0 0.0 33.3 22.0 0.0 0.0 5.9 0.0 22.0 12.9 0.0 9.7 Tourism Research Research Method 0.0 50.0 0.0 0.0 3.2 Not that the abbreviations CIT, JTR, TM, and AOT stands for Contemporary problems in the Tourism, Journal regarding Research Travel, Management Tourism and Annals of Tourism respectively. Table 2 Perspective Theory Consumer Information Theory. Technology acceptance Theory, Protection motivation Theory and Herzbergs motivationhygiene model (6.4%), Expectation model 3.2%, Social cognitive 3.2%, no specific models 35.4%. Supplier Stakeholder network model 3.2%. Moral Affordance theory 3.2% Research no specific models 3.2% Results By investigating the table above, I realized that 54.8% journals entailed Tourism Management and above 29% of the articles used were written in the Research Journal which regards Travel. Basing the argument with Leung et al, 2013, the article indicated that several studies concerning social media in tourism were written from the perspective of the supplier. In addition, it was clear that other articles which have been written recently focus on travelers and the consumer perspectives. Comparing Kaplan and Haenlein 2010, the study indicated that 74.2% social media articles based on the behavior of the consumer in tourism unlike what was indicated in the Leung et al 2013 (Kaplan Haenlein, 2010). Both online and the offline use of social media was put into consideration as well the attitudes, engagement, and search of information. It is clear that in the theoretical view less effort is put to develop theories which predict the concept of social media in tourism. Mostly, the theory concerning technical acceptance was used in the context of this paper. The theories regarding motivation and the commitment were used past the studies regarding tourism which were also used in this research paper (Leung et al, 2013). Also, the theories which were sociology-based which include the social identity model were employed in the same research to explain the concept of social media in tourism. Discussion This study reviewed articles which were published between 2011 and 2016 regarding social media in tourism. In the same study various research topics, methods, and theories which were discussed in the articles were discussed in the research. It is clear that for this research paper, I presented the literature surrounding social media in tourism. A reviewed framework and the processes were explored in this research to review studies such as the Leung et al 2013 and Kaplan and Haenlein 2010. However, the articles lacked a proper development of theories since there were no new theories to explain the phenomenon regarding social media in tourism hence the theories in the future should focus to develop new theories (Oh, Kim Shin, 2004). In addition, the articles employed the qualitative research hence the future studies should focus on both the qualitative and quantitative methods of research regarding the social media in tourism. Conclusion In conclusion, this research paper explored various sites for social network which include YouTube, Facebook, Blogs and Twitter. It is evident that the social media was used as a stage for information within the tourism industry. However, the main challenge is that the opinions of the customers, expressions and the thoughts are not presented and hence may cause negative criticisms. Therefore, individuals need to apply social media differently within the Industry concerned with Tourism to minimize spammers as well as other unimportant messages which may impact the Tourism industry (Xiang Gretzel, 2010). However, through the good usage of the social media, the field of tourism can keep theer customers posted with the sufficient information. References Benckendorff, P. J., Sheldon, P. J., Fesenmaier, D. R. (2014). Social media and tourism.Tourism information technology, (Ed. 2), 120-147. Davis, D. F., Golicic, S. L., Boerstler, C. N., Choi, S., Oh, H. (2013). Does marketing research suffer from methods myopia?.Journal of Business Research,66(9), 1245-1250. Hoffman, D. L., Novak, T. P. (2012). Toward a deeper understanding of social media. Kaplan, A. M., Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media.Business horizons,53(1), 59-68. Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H., Buhalis, D. (2013). 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