Tourism and social media in the world: an empirical investigation
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between tourism and social media from a cross section of 138 countries with data for the year 2012.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical evidence is based on Ordinary Least Squares, Negative Binomial and Quantile Regressions.
Findings
Two main findings are established. First, there is a positive relationship between Facebook penetration and the number of tourist arrivals. Second, Facebook penetration is more relevant in promoting tourist arrivals in countries where initial levels in tourist arrivals are the highest and low. The established positive relationship can be elucidated from four principal angles: the transformation of travel research, the rise in social sharing, improvements in customer service and the reshaping of travel agencies.
Originality/value
This study explores a new data set on social media. There are very few empirical studies on the relevance of social media in development outcomes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to the editor and reviewers for constructive comments.
Citation
Asongu, S. and Odhiambo, N.M. (2019), "Tourism and social media in the world: an empirical investigation", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 46 No. 7, pp. 1319-1331. https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-07-2018-0239
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited