Social media marketing for hotel businesses: A field study on the perceptions of tourism consumers related to the social networking sites

The emergence of Web 2.0 technology provides the development of a unique platform, called as social media, for communication and information exchange. By the increasing power of social media, consumers are becoming the producers and consumers of the content. This evolution provides a new type of consumers known as prosumers.Since tourism is an information-based sector, it is important to understand the information exchange between the tourism consumers on the social media platforms. There are many social media platforms those have different functions and features. One of the most popular social media platforms are the social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Tourism consumers are forming virtual communities on these social networking sites. Social media marketing provides hotel businesses to reach tourism consumers faster than ever before and with quite low costs. Successful social media marketing campaigns, which are created by hotel businesses for the social networking sites, will turn into viral and buzz marketing campaigns.The main aim of the study is to evaluate the impacts of social networking sites on tourism consumers? perception of tourism product and the attitudes towards the hotel businesses.Key Words: Social Media Marketing, Social Networking Sites, Web 2.0, Virtual Communities, Viral Marketing, Buzz Marketing