Digital Marketing for SMEs in Tourism: History
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Contributor:
Rishaa Abdulaziz Alnajim
,
Bahjat Fakieh

Social media has become an essential tool for travel planning, with tourists increasingly using it to research destinations, book accommodation, and make travel arrangements. Small and medium-sized enterprises’(SMEs) most common use of social media is to promote their products or services, but they can also use it to build customer relationships, provide customer service, and gather feedback.

  • digital marketing
  • machine learning
  • SMEs
  • travel planning

1. Introduction

Tourism is a primary industry that generates significant economic and social benefits for many countries worldwide. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) declared that the travel and tourism sector contributed 7.6% to the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022, an increase of 22% from 2021 [1]. Tourism positively affects culture, healthcare, education, communications, infrastructure, and transportation [2]. Tourism generates economic growth and long-term sustainability by providing jobs and directing exports.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia launched Vision 2030 to develop diverse economies and focus on expanding the non-oil sectors and generating long-term sustainability. Vision 2030 aims to develop numerous sectors, including tourism [3]. Until recently, tourism in Saudi Arabia was limited to Muslims visiting the holy towns of Makkah and Madinah for Umrah and Hajj [4]. Today, Saudi Arabia is issuing tourist visas for tourists worldwide, transforming Saudi Arabia from a religious tourism destination for two to three months to a year-round tourism destination [5]. According to the Saudi Tourism Ministry’s tourism indicators report for the third quarter of 2022, the number of tourists exceeded 22 million, with total spending of SAR 26 billion [5]. The Saudi Tourism Ministry works with other Saudi National Government Organizations to develop the tourism sector, which includes attracting heavy investments and arranging global events and festivals [5].
Moreover, Saudi Arabia empowers small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a crucial pillar in economic growth, development, and job opportunities [6]. Saudi Arabia aims to raise SMEs’ contribution to GDP to 35% by 2030 [3]. SMEs are an essential part of the tourism industry, as they often provide personalized and unique experiences that larger businesses may be unable to offer [7]. SMEs include hotels, restaurants, tour operators, travel agencies, and other businesses that provide tourist services. However, SMEs in the tourism sector face several challenges that can make it difficult for SMEs to compete in the market and achieve long-term sustainability [8]. One of the main challenges is the rapidly changing digital landscape, which requires SMEs to constantly update their digital marketing strategies to keep up with new technologies and platforms [9]. Another challenge is the increasing competition for online visibility, as larger businesses with more significant resources and marketing budgets can dominate search engine rankings and social media platforms [9].
Additionally, SMEs may need help to create high-quality digital content and engage effectively with customers online, particularly if they lack the necessary skills or resources. Finally, SMEs may need help measuring the effectiveness of their digital marketing campaigns, which can make it difficult to justify continued investment in this area. Despite these challenges, digital marketing presents significant opportunities for tourism SMEs to reach new audiences, build brand awareness, and drive bookings and revenue [10].
Recently, social media platforms have become a popular tool for travel planning. Many tourists rely on social media content and recommendations to decide where to go, what to eat, and where to stay. According to a recent survey by Statista, 75% of tourists use social media to research and plan their trips. In comparison, 47% of tourists depend on the experiences of friends and family [11]. Tourists use social media primarily to seek destination information, with visual content such as photos and videos being particularly influential. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the most popular sources of destination information for tourists, who also use social media to book hotels and flights and purchase travel-related products and services. Moreover, social media is vital for sharing travel experiences and connecting with other travelers, and significantly impacts tourists’ satisfaction and destination loyalty [12].

2. Digital Marketing

Several investigations have been conducted to evaluate the increasing importance of digital marketing and its evolving strategies based on consumer preferences. Social media and websites are increasingly popular in marketing operations since they provide more personalized connections between consumers and vendors, strengthening the relationship and enhancing market involvement [13]. Online business marketing professionals create a content network on popular digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, then switch to business-to-business social media platforms like LinkedIn to publish more specialized content [14].

3. Social Media as a Channel of Digital Marketing

Social media marketing has branched out from social media as a new marketing strategy that relies on electronic word of mouth (eWOM), promoting services and products via social media to reach many targeted consumers [15]. A social media marketing strategy is capable of reaching more consumers than conventional marketing strategies due to its flexibility in reaching consumers more cheaply than traditional media such as TV, radio, and newspapers [16].
The findings of previous studies have shown a relationship between business performance and social media usage. Utilizing social media for business has been proven to have the potential effects of reducing costs, reaching target consumers, increasing sales, and improving consumer service [17]. Social media marketing activities implicitly impact consumers’ satisfaction through social identity and perceived value. Simultaneously, social identity and perceived value explicitly influence consumers’ satisfaction, affecting the desire to stay, the intention to join, and the intention to buy [18].
Social media data can be an essential source of customer analysis, market research, and crowdsourcing new ideas. Capturing and creating value through social media data represents the development of a new strategic resource to improve marketing outcomes [19]. It is essential to consider social media’s future in consumer behavior and marketing, since it has become a strong marketing and contact channel for businesses, organizations, and institutions. Consequently, businesses need to switch from traditional to digital marketing to remain competitive in today’s market [20]. Social media and digital marketing are becoming strategic tools for building brand awareness and marketing campaigns. Additionally, consumers now rely significantly on social media platforms as a source of information when making purchasing decisions [21]. According to a study by GlobalWebIndex (2018), 54% of consumers use social media platforms to research products before purchasing, highlighting the importance for businesses of having a solid social media presence [22].
Overall, social media has become an important channel for digital marketing. It allows businesses to contact their target audience more effectively while giving data on essential consumer habits and preferences. Furthermore, social media can help companies to build relationships with their customers by providing personalized content and engaging with them regularly, increasing customer loyalty and retention rates.

4. Social Media Marketing in SMEs

SMEs’ most common use of social media is to promote their products or services, but they can also use it to build customer relationships, provide customer service, and gather feedback. However, many SMEs do not understand how to utilize social media to achieve their business objectives, which indicates a need for more education and training on social media marketing, since using social media effectively can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace [23]. For example, SMEs need to track the results of their social media campaigns to target their marketing messages to specific audiences.
On the other hand, SMEs face several potential barriers and challenges in using social media marketing, such as experimentation with different strategies, the lack of evidence concerning best practices, launching campaigns without a clear goal, consumers’ public assessment of the quality of services, and the quality of social media interactions being critical factors [24].
Furthermore, SMEs face the challenge of creating a consistent and engaging social media presence, which requires time, effort, and creativity [25]. SMEs may need to hire specialists to manage their social media accounts or outsource their marketing to a third-party agency [26]. Another challenge for SMEs is measuring the return on their social media marketing investment. While tracking metrics such as comments, likes, and shares is relatively easy, it can be more challenging to determine how these metrics translate into sales or revenue [26]. SMEs may need to utilize tools like Facebook Insights or Google Analytics to measure the effect of social media marketing on investment returns [27].
These challenges may make it challenging for SMEs to use social media marketing successfully, but those that do so will have a significant competitive advantage. Numerous experiments have investigated SMEs’ challenges in social media marketing to provide effective solutions that might confront the challenges and develop marketing strategies. In 2020, a sample of 35 SMEs from various industries in Trinidad and Tobago, including clothing, food and beverages, and sporting goods, participated in a study on using social media platforms as a marketing tool [28]. The interviews were conducted to understand the SMEs’ strategies in social media marketing and how their experiences impacted their overall business performance. As a result, a structured framework was proposed for SMEs to utilize social media effectively in their marketing efforts. This framework included monitoring social media output, carefully evaluating social media platforms before selecting one, and developing a comprehensive marketing strategy.

5. Social Media Marketing in Tourism

Tourism SMEs can also improve the quality of their services and design new services for tourists based on social media data. Tourists use social media for travel planning, booking accommodation, reservations, confirming and cancelling, inquiring about itineraries and packages, reading other tourists’ reviews, and sharing their travel experiences with others by rating, writing reviews, commenting, and sharing photos [29]. Several studies have examined the content generated by tourists, often known as UGC, on social media and its use to enhance tourist marketing. It was discovered that social media advertising strategies such as influencer marketing and UGC might disseminate sustainable tourism [28].
However, there are also potential barriers and challenges to utilizing social media for marketing tourism. For example, social media platforms are continuously developing, and tourism SMEs must keep up with the newest trends and features to remain relevant [30].
Furthermore, social media is time-consuming and needs a significant expenditure of resources. Tourism SMEs may use several tactics to efficiently handle these problems, such as building a social media calendar to prepare content ahead of time, employing analytics tools to measure performance indicators, and engaging with influencers to reach a larger audience. Tourism SMEs can also keep up with the newest trends and features on social media platforms by attending conferences and seminars or employing social media professionals [31].

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/data8120179

References

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