The Impact of SOCIAL MEDIA on Tourism
Lebanon’s area is ranked 170th on the globe (CIA, 2014). It is smaller than the size of Connecticut, one of many smallest states in in the us. Moreover, Lebanon is probably the few democratic countries in the Middle East region. Regarding its economy, Lebanon is a free market economy and contains an extremely long tradition of laissez-faire economics. As well as its coastal location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is recognized as the central ‘window’ of the Middle East to Europe, North Africa, and the rest of the world. For this reason, its economy went through some very prosperous times and was even once called the ‘Paris’ of the center East prior to the nation’s 15 year-long bloody civil war which ended in 1990.
Also, although Lebanon is tiny, it is also one of the most diverse nations on the planet. Christians, Muslims, Druze, and other minority sects are spread all over the small nation and even Lebanon’s political system is based on sectarian power sharing.
However, this diversity had played a pivotal role in the nation’s problems. This diversity was a required condition of the country’s sectarian civil war and currently plays an important role in its political paralysis, although other factors (mainly foreign) are to blame as well. There’s currently no acting President and the country’s rival political parties keep bickering and preventing rather than facilitating the country’s development.
Furthermore, Lebanon’s proximity to Israel has managed to get a foreign policy/proxy battleground for foreign nations, each using Lebanon for its own selfish ends.
The sad political realities of the united states have significantly hurt the country’s economy. Also, since Lebanon is a service-based economy, this particular sector has taken the biggest hit.
Tourism plays a substantial role in the nation’s economy. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Economy & Trade (MOET), “Tourism is definitely among Lebanon’s leading economic sectors” (Economic Research Unit, 2010).
Furthermore, The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the travel & tourism sector in Lebanon contributed over $4 billion dollars in 2013 (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014).
The travel & tourism sector composed about 10% of the economy in 2012 but that share dropped to 9% in 2013 (ibid, p. 14). This is due to the political situation in the united kingdom as well as some other factors. Moreover, the quantity of tourist arrivals in the country kept decreasing from 2011 to 2013.
Because the tourism industry has been somewhat floundering before few years, the room for error becomes very small for businesses in this industry. The political & economic situations are squeezing tourist-related (TR) businesses in Lebanon. Which means that these businesses are forced to accomplish more to make up for increasing losses (or decreasing profits) and with fewer resources. There is no telling once the political & economy in Lebanon will improve especially because the civil war in neighboring Syria shows no signs of abating.
There are many ways that Lebanese TR businesses can adapt of these times such as for example implementing downsizing policies and reducing on marketing & advertising budgets. When economic recessions and tough times affect businesses, the first things to get eliminated are usually marketing budgets. But especially since TR businesses should do more marketing to create up for lost businesses, this may not be a good idea.
One solution to this problem is to take full advantage of Social Media Marketing strategies since they cost little to no resources, perfect for the current economy in Lebanon. Social media allows TR businesses to overcome obstacles of limited budgets and decreased business.
Problem Statement
During the past few years, the positive effect of social media marketing on business has been extremely high (Kaplan et al., 2010; Stelzner, 2010; Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 143; Baker & Green, 2014).
Moreover, Premium Vacation Packages and Twitter fans of a specific brand are more likely to recommend and buy from these brands than non-fans (Cruz & Mendelsohn, 2011). But, we don’t need to make certain of social media’s effect on business through research studies. For social media users, which include over 30% of the planet, this fact is known. More and more businesses are inserting Social media tools to their marketing strategies and, occasionally, have even become a fundamental element of their overall business strategy.
Naturally, you might expect that Lebanese businesses would quickly adopt Social Media Marketing as a key role within their overall marketing strategies but this is simply not the case. In terms of the Middle East and especially Lebanon, the region is far behind the West in social media marketing usage. Not only that, with regards to businesses involved in the tourism industry, there’s much room for growth. Little investment in technology is keeping tourist businesses from maximizing marketing opportunities given by social media.
The Lebanese tourism industry is not taking advantage of social media marketing tactics even though the advantages of doing so are apparent. This presents an excellent problem especially because the economy is going by way of a very rough time.
Moreover, Lebanese TR businesses and businesses in Lebanon in general are not adopting social media tools as they should. This presents an enormous problem in the waste of resources in addition to significant missed opportunities as a more substantial target audience can be reached via social media marketing enabling businesses that adopt social media tools gain a better potential for success and prosperity