The impacts of social media advertisements on the number ofreservations in tourism sector: A comparative case study in turkey

As the usage of the internet has rapidly accelerated, the developing marketing sector emerges in a new area: social media channels. Companies in social media platforms have started to develop the tools according to their users who are affected by these social media platforms in different ways. Small- or large-scale businesses can confidently make advertisements via these tools and reach their target audience through social media platforms. In the context of my thesis, we achieved practically usable results by analysing the effects of digital advertising campaigns on the number of reservations for the tourism industry which plays an important role in Turkey's economy. As a result of our research, we can conclude that the usage of social media is very common and important in the tourism sector as it is in almost every sector today. The number of reservations created by the guests based on the impression of a digital advertising campaign are more likely to give a valuable return which are also much higher than the investment on digital advertising campaigns. Digital experts who work in the marketing departments in the chain or boutique hotels can gain insights about how often they perform an advertising, how much they should spend money for advertising, and how they identify strategies for the advertisements. Since, the algorithms of social media platforms are updated every day, the users are also affected by these changes and react them with the same speed. For all these reasons, people who are interested in the social media communication department should either be highly specialized in their fields or cooperate with digital marketing companies.