Impact Of Social Media On Tourism Performance In Nepal (Essay)

Discuss about the Impact Of Social Media On Performance Of Tourism In Nepal.

Tourism is described as main industry in Nepal. It is considered as one of the main sources of foreign income and revenue where it contributes more to the growth of the national economy of Nepal. It is small land rock country in South-East Asia. Nepal’s is one of the most adventurous destinations for the visitors to be taken in order to diverse culture and for the people who are also looking for various knowledge, learning and entertaining. There are different purposes of the people visiting in Nepal.

Nepal is the attraction for the endangerment and happening ambition for the people around the world. Not only for Nepal but also tourism is studious as one of the most important sectors to give rise to foreign exchange and revenue for different nations. Tourism is a germinating industry for any country with great future for investment. Nepal is building up the value of its beauty, adventurous destination, colorful places and also its highest peak in the world - Mount Everest, historical background, hospitality, etc.

Nepal is rated as the top ten targeted places for the adventure trip of the world. Nepal has a lot of history attracting the mind of people willing to experience the different lives and concepts of the decades. Mainly it is the attraction point for the Mountaineers, rock climbers and especially people looking for the adventure journey. As Nepal is rich in tourism sector but only being appropriate is not sufficient and now here comes the social media. Social media plays a role of supporter where it helps to promote the adventure sites of Nepal in all around the world.

Nepal is a small beautiful country. It’s not important that all people around the world are well known about the place. The social media helps to mention and encourage the tourist to visit and experience the beautiful feeling of the amazing views of mountains and rivers. Nepal is expressed as the sources of natural beauty. Besides this, the social media adds the direct and indirect promotions that increase the number of tourists and hence the induced opportunity for income. As the internet is one of the major ways in today’s world to generate the new information and for communications. Social media is not only useful for the exploration but also can be very useful for the decision making and visual impact of the designed destination.

The Scope of the Research

The following are the objectives of

1. To understand the role played by the social media in the tourism sector.
2. Analyze components of the recognized worth of the people through the social media for the purpose destination stop.
3. To understand the polished assistance or services that the social media can offer and make it flexible.
4. To recognize the development in revenue of the tourism sector in Nepal.
5. To analyze the encounter how social media is impacting tourism industry.
6. To establish how social media can be integrated into the tourism sector for the purposes of travel networking.
7. To describe the potential of tourism with possible data sources

This paper focuses on establishing the relationship that exists between social media and tourism sector. The report will also show how social media has impacted, either positively or negatively, the performance of tourism sector in Nepal.

Review of Conceptual Framework

According to the Admin (2010), the Social media platform is a key tool to make the advertisement of the tourism industry for making people realize the things around the world and travel and experience their passion of traveling. Social media is mainly used during before the trip stage for information search purpose (Cox et al, 2009 as cited in Fotis et al, 2012).

Gretzel, Yoo, and Purifoy (2007) reported how the tours and travel and hospitality players use the social media opinions and posts from the prospective clients’ to make informed decisions in the tourism industry. Usually, people post their travel experiences in their social media platforms, using these social interactions, tourists and tour & travel agencies make decisions on travel destinations (Beresford Research, 2009; Buhalis & Law, 2008 as cited in Lange & Elliot, 2012). Nguyen and Wang (2011) explain that the marketing variables of social media such as encouraging the expected destination for tourist or visitors and make the potential visitors to enlist the customers to influence the criteria. In the contemporary business world, social media is crowned for use by the business people as an important network to be managed for the business to make the area growth and put the strategies in order to gain the expected goal or objective.

Review of Empirical Studies

Monica (2013) reported that Facebook alone generated some 1 trillion page visits every month, and social media sites, from Facebook to Twitter, have 2.1 trillion hits (page views). Hudson, Roth & Madden (2012) reports on how Facebook has impacted positively in information dissemination by the tourists through sharing of their tourism experiences from various parts of the world. It has been established that 76% of people post their tourism experiences on their Facebook pages from which 40% reaches new people who as a result learn about various touring destinations. The report also found that more than 90% of prospective tourists fall for the information they gathered from social media platforms. They claimed to depend on that information to make their travel decisions. However, 48% of the tourists social who use platforms stick to their travel plans regardless of the recommendations.

Literature Review

(O’Donnell, 2012), acknowledge how the social media has played a great role in shaping travel decisions by the tourists and tours firms and agencies. From the findings, 44% of the participants used the other people’s opinions to make travel decisions.  Others accepted to have used other online platforms to make their decisions. The 37% of those questioned use inline travel forums, 27% use Facebook, 24% use Youtube, and 22% use Pinterest. PYC Nepal Journal of Management, 9(1), 2016/Social Media Marketing in Nepal/ Sthapit & Khadka acknowledged having depended on other tourists reviews to make travel decisions. It was observed that they use online travel communities and travel companies’ websites to derive their travel plans and make important travel decisions (Jashi, 2013).

Khadka (2016) and Gauchan (2015) probed into the use of social media in tour/travel and air ticket marketing in Nepal, respectively. Khadka (2016) found travel agencies’ use of SMSs target to give information to tourists mostly on product and price in Nepal.

Social Media and Social Media Marketer

Nowadays, Facebook has been the most important source for the social media which provides essential figures with more than one option in the related field. The countries like Canada, United States, Australia and the United Kingdom has the highest number of trekkers who use social platforms today. Below is the table of a country showing the population of users and Facebook users’ national proportion is stated below:

Number of tourist departure from Nepal (2016)

Social media is the most utilized method in traveling the world. New technologies around the world have made the advertising easy and quicker. Online networking has offered new ways in which customers of travel business connect socially, by incorporating data and correspondence innovation, social cooperation, and the development of words, pictures, recordings, and sounds. (Sthapit & Khadka, 2016)

Online promotion can be considered as a reliable instrument to promote tourism and friendliness industry in any nation. Z?ivkovic?, Gajic?, and Brdar described web-based social networking, as minimal effort and predisposition free and it would speak to a favorable position for showcasing interchanges. (Z?ivkovic?, Gajic? & Brdar, 2014).

Questions

What are the impacts of social media on the performance of tourism sector in Nepal?

1. What is the importance of social media in the tourism industry?
2. What are the services that the social media offer makes tourism sector flexible?
3. How tourism sector contributes to the generation of revenue for Nepal?

1. What is the encounter of the social media in the tourism industry?
2. What are the abilities of the social media in networking process for the travels?
3. What is the potential growth of tourism sector in Nepal?
4. What is the influence of social media on travel customers?

Hypothesis

1. Nepal has attractive tourist destinations.
2. Tourism is the largest contributor to the economy in Nepal
3. Social media plays a bigger role in the growth of tourism sector.

1. Most people use social media platforms to share their tourism experience.
2. Social media is being used by tourism players to advertise their services.

A mixed approach consisting of the qualitative and quantitative designs has been adopted to attain the study objectives. Based on descriptive and analytical research design, the study made use of both primary and secondary data. As the social media in question, the study chose the travel intermediaries’ sites on Facebook and Google+; as AET report (2013), as well as Monica (2013) and Jashi (2013),  identified Facebook as one of the best places for a travel intermediary to start off the marketing action on any social media.

Review of Conceptual Framework

The study made use of both primary surveys (through a self-administered questionnaire separately) and secondary data search from the social media. Using a convenience sampling technique, it chose 100 travel intermediaries from a “random draw of lottery” from the list of intermediaries, which as per the Nepal Government’s MoCTCA (2013) number nearly 2,200 in part of Nepal, main tourism and travel business hub of Nepal. For primary data survey, it sampled 100 potential travel-service customers intercepted at the key travel intermediary offices. The survey was performed in three months’ time between March and May 2016.

The study suffers from a few limitations. It was conducted within a limited period and with limited resources; and secondary data were drawn from the travel intermediaries’ Facebook and Google+ sites only. On the other hand, the primary survey was based on a convenience sampling method, the non-probability sampling technique; and the survey was limited only to small area, the main tourism and travel business hub of Nepal. Likewise, only a limited number of analytical and statistical tools were used in analyzing the data.

Conclusion

The social media is the best way for marketing in the tourism sector. It has become a necessity for today’s world to cope up with their expectations. It has become the part of people's everyday life. The social media has been the unique tool for the business people who are using this tool for their living purposes. The presence of social media in tourism industry makes the process reliable for the users all around the world. The beauty of Nepal has an extinct power to attract the tourist around the world. The tourism population percentage is in increasing trend each year in Nepal. The above data shows the population using the social media and the chances of the tourism sector of Nepal are rapidly higher in attracting the tourist.

References

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