eWOM and Tourism

The process of “globalisation” has led to greater travel, and India although not anywhere near to being a travel destination of any great preference, does appear to be emerging and developing to enable itself to become a decent-sized tourism player internationally. Globally, the research shows that travel and tourism currently employs nearly 240 million people and creates approximately 10% of the world GDP. Research on the world’s strongest travel and tourism performers by World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), defined countries set to grow the fastest in 2007 and over the coming decade. The result show that China, Montenegro and India are at the top of the list with the demand in the respective countries growing at each year at the rate of 9.1 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively. These countries have consistently ranked in the top three  positions over the past four years, consolidating their growth year on year.

Within India, the tourism sector has witnessed impressive growth. Travel and tourism contributes about 5.6 per cent to India’s GDP. In addition, the contribution of the travel and tourism economy to employment is expected to rise from 31 million jobs in 2009 that comes to 6.4% of total employment. This would further grow to 40 million jobs with 7.2% of total employment by 2019. Real GDP growth for the travel and tourism economy is expected to be 0.2% in 2009 and to average 7.7% per annum over the coming 10 years.

The growth of tourism in India has made it one of the largest foreign exchange earners. Arrivals are rising at a steady pace, and tourists have a longer length of stay than other international destinations.

Destination Marketing

Destination marketing is the process of communicating with potential visitors to influence their destination preference, intention to travel and ultimately their final destination and product choices. 

Social Media Marketing And Promotion of Tourism 

Word of Mouth (WOM) communication is a major part of online tourists interactions, particularly within the environment of online communities. Both scholars and practitioners of tourism marketing are particularly interested in WOM communication behavior in the context of online communities because of extraordinary popularity, growth and influence of such communities.

Growth of social sites has been a world wide phenomenon.  A 2009 Nielson report states that two thirds of the global online population visit social sites and this  sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet time. Twitter is a real time messaging service that has encountered a tremendous  growth in users over the past several years. Twitter’s market has exploded 3700 % in 2009. Twitter served as a major hub of information, and many aid and relief organizations began to use Twitter to spread the word and gather donations, augmenting their other channels.

This is now the time for Tourism marketers to understand the influence of eWOM on tourism industry. eWOM communication on Twitter refers to any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual and former customers about a product or a Company or a brand. eWOM communication on Twitter can take place in various settings, some normal users discussing a place interest, their experience, sharing of photos , selfies, some data and facts about the place. The speed and scalability of  eWOM communication on Twitter is unprecedented.