An analysıs of socıal medıa use durıng the tour process wıthın the framework of the technology acceptance model

Social media applications, frequently used as a means of communication and networking in the tourism sector, are widely used by tourists to obtain information before the tour, communicate during the tour, share their impressions, and share their experiences after the tour. These applications are also frequently used by tourist guides to promote the tour before the tour, communicate with the tour group during the tour, and share information about the tour after the tour. Based on this, the main objective of the study is to determine the effects of tourists’ and tourist guides’ levels of perceptual acceptance of social applications used during the tour process on their levels of satisfaction with these applications, and to reveal the effects of tourists’ and tourist guides’ levels of satisfaction with social applications on their intentions to continue using these applications and their usage behaviors. The data for this research, prepared with this focus, were collected from tourists who participated in a guided tour and tourist guides using the survey data collection technique. A total of 402 valid survey data were collected from the tourist sample group and 323 valid survey data were collected from the tourist guide sample group. The results of the exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling conducted using these data indicate that the perceived acceptance levels of tourists and tourist guides toward social media applications have a significant positive effect on their satisfaction levels with these applications. Similarly, the satisfaction levels of tourists and tourist guides with social media applications have a significant effect on their intentions to continue using these applications and their usage behaviors toward these applications. At the end of the study, recommendations regarding social media usage were presented to travel agencies, tour companies, tour operators, and tourism businesses.