Tourists frequently rely on social networks to provide information about a product or destination as a decision support tool to make adequate decisions in the process of planning a trip. In this digital environment, tourists share their travel experiences, impressions, emotions, special moments, and opinions about an assortment of tourist services like hotels, restaurants, airlines, and car rental services, all of which contribute to the online reputation of a tourist destination. The Handbook of Research on Social Media Applications for the Tourism and Hospitality Sector is a fundamental reference source that provides vital theoretical frameworks and the latest innovative empirical research findings of online social media in the tourism industry. While highlighting topics such as e-business, mobile marketing, and smart tourism, this publication explores user-generated content and the methods of mobile strategies. This book is ideally designed for tour developers, travel agents, restaurateurs, hotel management, tour directors, entrepreneurs, social media analysts, managers, industry professionals, academicians, researchers, and students.

This comprehensive Handbook offers an overview of current research on the use of social media within the tourism industry, investigating a range of social media practices and proposing strategies to address key challenges faced by tourist destinations and operators.

In today’s modernized society, certain technologies have become more applicable within many professional fields and are much easier to implement. This includes the tourism industry, where smart technology has provided a range of new marketing possibilities including more effective sales tactics and delivering a more personalized customer experience. As the scope of business analytics continues to expand, professionals need research on the various applications of smart technology within the field of tourism. The Handbook of Research on Smart Technology Applications in the Tourism Industry is an essential reference source that discusses the use of intelligent systems in tourism as well as their influence on consumer relationships. Featuring research on topics such as digital advertising, wearable technology, and consumer behavior, this book is ideally designed for travel agents, tour developers, restaurateurs, hotel managers, tour directors, airlines, marketers, researchers, managers, hospitality professionals, policymakers, business strategists, researchers, academicians, and students seeking coverage on the use of smart technologies in tourism.

The tourism industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with more people from all cultures and nationalities choosing to spend their leisure time traveling and visiting new locations. To exploit this burgeoning market, tourism agencies must carefully consider the desires and goals of travelers from around the world. The Handbook of Research on Global Hospitality and Tourism Management contributes to the body of knowledge on travel and tourism by presenting a global view of the hospitality industry, including theoretical research into industry trends as well as case studies from around the world. This handbook provides travel agents, owner-operators, and students and researchers in the hospitality industry with the latest research, findings, and developments in the field. Within this handbook of cutting-edge research, readers will find chapters and cases on topics such as travel and tourism in a global economy; local, glocal, and international hospitality; challenges in environmental management; cultural cuisine; and destination management, among others.

Social media is fundamentally changing the way travellers and tourists search, find, read and trust, as well as collaboratively produce information about tourism suppliers and tourism destinations. Presenting cutting-edge theory, research and case studies investigating Web 2.0 applications and tools that transform the role and behaviour of the new generation of travellers, this book also examines the ways in which tourism organisations reengineer and implement their business models and operations, such as new service development, marketing, networking and knowledge management. Written by an international group of researchers widely known for their expertise in the field of the Internet and tourism, chapters include applications and case studies in various travel, tourism and leisure sectors.

This comprehensive Handbook offers an overview of current research on the use of social media within the tourism industry, investigating a range of social media practices and proposing strategies to address key challenges faced by tourist destinations and operators. International contributors analyse both conceptual and practical social media topics, addressing cutting-edge social media issues in destination management and marketing. Drawing on empirical case studies and examples, chapters explore dark tourism, gastro-tourism, travel blogs, electronic word-of-mouth, sentiment analysis and a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The Handbook also defines central social media concepts and explores the impact they have on the success of tourist destinations, setting the stage for a better understanding of the relationship between social media and tourism. Through an examination of current trends in social media, as well as future trajectories, it provides critical insights for the successful development and implementation of social media marketing strategies. This Handbook will be a critical read for scholars and students of geography and business management, with a specific interest in tourism and hospitality management. Its practical considerations will also be beneficial for planners, policy makers, managers and marketers in the tourism industry.

This book describes ongoing developments in social media within the tourism and hospitality sector, highlighting impacts on both the demand and the supply side. It offers a combination of theory and practice, with discussion of real-life business experiences. The book is divided into three parts, the first of which provides an overview of recent trends in social media and user-generated content, clarifies concepts that are often used in an overlapping way and examines the “digitization of word of mouth” via online networks. The second part analyzes the impacts that social media can have on traveler behavior for each step in the travel process and also on suppliers, highlighting opportunities, threats and strategies. In the third part of the book, future potential trends deriving from the mobile marketing technologies are explored and possible methods for social monitoring by means of key performance indicators are examined. It is considered how engaging customers and prospects by means of social media might increase customer loyalty, foster electronic word-of-mouth communication, and consequently have important effects on corporate sales and revenues. The discussion encompasses methods to measure company performance on each of the social media in order to understand the optimal mix that will support and improve business strategies.