The effect of digital marketing on consumer purchasing behavior: An application for hospitality consumers

Along with technological developments, the tourism sector is becoming a more technology-oriented sector today. For this reason, the need to understand the digital marketing applications of the marketing departments in the accommodation businesses becomes more important. The main purpose of this study is to try to understand how digital marketing practices applied in accommodation businesses in Turkey affect consumer purchasing behavior. For this purpose, people using social media in Turkey were reached and data were collected using online survey method. The questionnaire form consists of two parts and there are 29 questions in total in these two parts. In the first part of the survey, questions about the demographics of consumers and question "what is your current Internet travel purchases and confidence in payment technology?" is included. In the second part, for the main purpose of the research, there are 5-point likert-scale questions containing statements to measure whether consumers use online platforms when choosing a hotel and how digital marketing activities that lead consumers to search for information about hotel services and make purchases on online platforms. The results show that digital marketing influences the purchasing decision. In addition, in this study, it is suggested that accommodation business managers should increase their digital marketing budgets and use new communication and distribution technologies to encourage customers to complete all purchasing stages over the internet.