FACEBOOK ACTIVITIES OF NATIONAL TOURISM ORGANIZATIONS: SERBIA AND THE DEFINED COMPETITIVE SET
Abstract
Social media are widely used in tourism due to modern trends and changes pertaining to tourism demands. They offer many benefits to national tourism organizations, such as developing a direct relationship with tourists, access to tourists’ feedback and the possibility of adapting the voice of communication according to the needs of individual tourists. Considering the necessity for their use, this paper presents a research on the degree of use and quality of promotional activities on Facebook by the National Tourism Organization of Serbia. In order to provide a more detailed analysis, Facebook based promotional activities of NTOs of Serbia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria were compared. The analysis covered all posts on Facebook by these tourism organizations during the period of one year. The results on the success of promotional activities presented through the engagement rate can be used to further enhance promotional activities of the National Tourism Organization of Serbia on Facebook, as well as other social media. The analysis showed that the promotional activities of the selected NTOs on Facebook are similar to one another with no major differences, even though certain improvements can be advised.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alčaković, S., Pavlović, D., & Popesku, J. (2017). Millennials and gamification: A model proposal for gamification application in tourism destination. Marketing, 48(4), 207-214.
Andreopoulou, Z., Tsekouropoulos, G., Koliouska, C., & Koutroumanidis, T. (2014). Internet marketing for sustainable development and rural tourism. International journal of business information systems, 16(4), 446-461.
Armenski, T., Gomezelj, D. O., Djurdjev, B., Deri, L., & Aleksandra, D. (2011). Destination competitivenes: A challenging process for Serbia. Human Geographies, 5(1), 19.
Bilgihan, A., Barreda, A., Okumus, F., & Nusair, K. (2016). Consumer perception of knowledge-sharing in travel-related online social networks. Tourism Management, 52, 287-296.
Buhalis, D. (2000). Marketing the competitive destination of the future. Tourism management, 21(1), 97-116.
Buhalis, D., & Mamalakis, E. (2015). Social media return on investment and performance evaluation in the hotel industry context. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015 (pp. 241-253). Springer, Cham.
Di Pietro, L., Di Virgilio, F., & Pantano, E. (2012). Social network for the choice of tourist destination: attitude and behavioural intention. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
Díaz, M., Martín, C., & Rubio, B. (2016). State-of-the-art, challenges, and open issues in the integration of Internet of things and cloud computing. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 67, 99-117.
Enders, A., Hungenberg, H., Denker, H. P., & Mauch, S. (2008). The long tail of social networking.: Revenue models of social networking sites. European Management Journal, 26(3), 199-211.
Fotis, J. N., Buhalis, D., & Rossides, N. (2012). Social media use and impact during the holiday travel planning process (pp. 13-24). Springer-Verlag.
Fuchs, M., Scholochov, C., & Höpken, W. (2009). E-Business adoption, use, and value creation: An Austrian Hotel Study. Information Technology & Tourism, 11(4), 267-284.
Fyall, A., Garrod, B., & Wang, Y. (2012). Destination collaboration: A critical review of theoretical approaches to a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 1(1), 10-26.
Hajli, M. N. (2014). A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), 387-404.
Hays, S., Page, S. J., & Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media as a destination marketing tool: its use by national tourism organisations. Current issues in Tourism, 16(3), 211-239.
Huertas, A., Setó-Pàmies, D., & Míguez-González, M. I. (2015). Comunicación de destinos turísticos a través de los medios sociales. El profesional de la información, 24(1).
Ip, C., Lee, H., & Law, R. (2012). Profiling the users of travel websites for planning and online experience sharing. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 36(3), 418-426.
Jabreel, M., Moreno, A., & Huertas, A. (2017). Semantic comparison of the emotional values communicated by destinations and tourists on social media. Journal of destination marketing & management, 6(3), 170-183.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), 59-68.
Kiráľová, A., & Pavlíčeka, A. (2015). Development of social media strategies in tourism destination. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 175, 358-366.
Law, R., Buhalis, D., & Cobanoglu, C. (2014). Progress on information and communication technologies in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H., & Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media in tourism and hospitality: A literature review. Journal of travel & tourism marketing, 30(1-2), 3-22.
Mariani, M. M., Di Felice, M., & Mura, M. (2016). Facebook as a destination marketing tool: Evidence from Italian regional Destination Management Organizations. Tourism management, 54, 321-343.
Mariani, M. M., Mura, M., & Di Felice, M. (2018). The determinants of Facebook social engagement for national tourism organizations' Facebook pages: A quantitative approach. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 8, 312-325.
Mazilu, M. (2012). Sustainable tourism of destination, imperative triangle among: Competitiveness, effective management and proper financing. In Sustainable Development-Policy and Urban Development-Tourism, Life Science, Management and Environment. InTech.
Michaelidou, N., Siamagka, N. T. & Christodoulides, G. (2011). Usage, barriers and measurement of social media marketing: An exploratory investigation of small and medium B2B brands. Industrial marketing management, 40(7), 1153-1159.
Molinillo, S., Liébana-Cabanillas, F., Anaya-Sánchez, R., & Buhalis, D. (2018). DMO online platforms: Image and intention to visit. Tourism management, 65, 116-130.
Munar, A. M. (2012). Social media strategies and destination management. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 12(2), 101-120.
Narangajavana, Y., Fiol, L. J. C., Tena, M. Á. M., Artola, R. M. R., & García, J. S. (2017). The influence of social media in creating expectations. An empirical study for a tourist destination. Annals of Tourism Research, 65, 60-70.
Pike, S., & Page, S. J. (2014). Destination Marketing Organizations and destination marketing: A narrative analysis of the literature. Tourism management, 41, 202-227.
Popesku, J. (2016). Menadžment turističke destinacije [Tourism destination management]. Beograd: Univerzitet Singidunum.
Popesku, J., & Pavlović, D. (2013). Competitiveness of Serbia as a tourist destination: Analysis of selected key indicators. Marketing, 44(3), 199-210.
Rival IQ (2018). 2018 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report. Accessed February 12, 2020, retrieved from: https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/2018-social-media-industry-benchmark-report/.
Roque, V., & Raposo, R. (2016). Social media as a communication and marketing tool in tourism: an analysis of online activities from international key player DMO. Anatolia, 27(1), 58-70.
Sánchez-Franco, M. J., & Rondan-Cataluña, F. J. (2010). Virtual travel communities and customer loyalty: Customer purchase involvement and web site design. Electronic commerce research and applications, 9(2), 171-182.
Stankov, U., Lazic, L., & Dragicevic, V. (2010). The extent of use of basic Facebook user-generated content by the national tourism organizations in Europe. European Journal of Tourism Research, 3(2), 105-113.
Stankov, U., Jovanović, T., Pavluković, V., Kalinić, Č., Drakulić-Kovačević, N., & Cimbaljević, M. (2018). A regional survey of current practices on destination marketing organizations' Facebook pages: The case of EU and US. Geographica Pannonica, 22(2), 81-96.
Slovenska turistična organizacija (2019). Program dela STO 2020/2021. Accessed February 18, 2020, retrieved from: https://www.slovenia.info/uploads/program_dela_2020-2021/program_dela_2020_2021_web.pdf.
Teodorović, M., & Popesku, J. (2017). Serbia’s competitive position in the regional tourism destination market. The European Journal of Applied Economics, 14(1), 1-12.
Tham, A., Croy, G., & Mair, J. (2013). Social media in destination choice: Distinctive electronic word-of-mouth dimensions. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 144-155.
Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., & Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2014). Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), 703-708.
UNWTO (2019). International Tourism Highlights 2019 Edition. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.
Uşaklı, A., Koç, B., & Sönmez, S. (2017). How'social'are destinations? Examining European DMO social media usage. Journal of destination marketing & management, 6(2), 136-149.
Uşaklı, A., Koç, B., & Sönmez, S. (2019). Social media usage among top European DMOs. In Tourist Destination Management (pp. 1-14). Springer, Cham.
Villamediana, J., Küster, I., & Vila, N. (2019). Destination engagement on Facebook: Time and seasonality. Annals of Tourism Research, 79, 102747.
Wang, Y., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2006). Identifying the success factors of web-based marketing strategy: An investigation of convention and visitors bureaus in the United States. Journal of Travel Research, 44(3), 239-249.
Wang, Y., & Pizam, A. (Eds.). (2011). Destination marketing and management: Theories and applications. Cabi.
Weinberg, B. D., & Pehlivan, E. (2011). Social spending: Managing the social media mix. Business Horizons, 54(3), 275-282.
Yang, X., & Wang, D. (2015). The exploration of social media marketing strategies of destination marketing organizations in China. Journal of China Tourism Research, 11(2), 166-185.
Yoo, K. H., & Gretzel, U. (2016). Use and Creation of Social Media by Travellers. Social media in travel, tourism and hospitality: Theory, practice and cases, 189.
Zeng, B., & Gerritsen, R. (2014). What do we know about social media in tourism? A review. Tourism Management Perspectives, 10, 27-36.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22190/TEME190515054Z
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
© University of Niš, Serbia
Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND
Print ISSN: 0353-7919
Online ISSN: 1820-7804