The influence of social media in destination choice

The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of social media in destination choice. The evolution of social media within tourism has provided further impetus towards destination information search and image formation. To this end, existing studies have presented the influence of social media at destination micro-levels, such as accommodation and restaurants. At a macro-level, some studies have investigated the influence of social media on a destination. However, current scope is limited to a particular type of tourist visiting specific destinations. The extant literature has suggested that social media influence in destination decisions has occurred across a continuum from being highly influential to having no influence at all. Furthermore, each destination decision varies due to other contextual factors such as travel purposes, composition of travel party and budget considerations. Yet, against such a backdrop, little is known as to what contextual factors account for social media influence in destination choice. Such a knowledge gap has provided a timely justification for the conducting of this research. Derived from the knowledge gaps is the main research question: • What are the contextual factors characterising the various levels of social media influence in destination choice? A total of 39 semi-structured interviews with destination decision-makers were conducted. The findings suggested for most participants, social media appeared to be utilised in support of a pre-selected destination. The findings illustrated that social media use and influence are contextual and appear to be reflective of participants’ social media involvement levels. In addition, the outcomes of the research suggest that experiences characterised by the need for extensive planning and coordination are more likely to be linked to social media use and influence. Social media influence occurs across a continuum from being highly influential in some cases, having no influence in others, with many the participants reporting moderate influences levels to validate a pre-selected destination. The thesis makes four theoretical contributions to destination choice. First, social media engagement is an indicative antecedent to distinguishing levels of social media influence in destination choice. Second, levels of destination familiarity and planning complexity should be considered when analysing for social media influence. Third, social media exhibits varying levels of influence due to perceived levels of credibility. Fourth, the research showed how six different criteria were employed to assess for social media credibility. These were volume of information, recency, valence, visuals, perceived similarity and need for elaboration. Collectively, the thesis demonstrated that social media influence should be understood within the composition of individual characteristics, purpose of travel and destination types. The contribution that this thesis makes to existing destination choice models is to integrate the role of contextual cues to conceptualise social media influence. The practical outcomes of the research elucidate that social media’s influence in destination choice should be framed across a continuum, with each facet of high to low influence each having distinguishing characteristics to guide future studies.