The Impact of Social Media Marketing on Tourism

Lebanon’s area is ranked 170th on the globe (CIA, 2014). It really is smaller than the size of Connecticut, among the smallest states in in the us. Moreover, Lebanon is one of the few democratic countries in the Middle East region. Regarding its economy, Lebanon is really a free market economy and has an extremely long tradition of laissez-faire economics. As well as its coastal location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is considered as the central ‘window’ of the center East to Europe, North Africa, and all of those other world. Because of this, 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, additionally it is the most diverse nations in the world. 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 country’s problems. This diversity was a necessary condition of the country’s sectarian civil war and currently plays a significant role in its political paralysis, although other factors (mainly foreign) are to blame as well. There is currently no acting President and the country’s rival political parties keep bickering and preventing instead of 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 because of its own selfish ends.

The sad political realities of the country have significantly hurt the country’s economy. Also, since Lebanon is a service-based economy, this specific sector has taken the largest hit.

Tourism plays a substantial role in the country’s economy. In line with 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 made up 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 country as well as various other factors. Moreover, the amount of tourist arrivals in the united kingdom kept decreasing from 2011 to 2013.

Since the tourism industry has been somewhat floundering in the past few years, the area for error becomes very small for businesses in this industry. The political & economic situations are squeezing tourist-related (TR) businesses in Lebanon. Because of this these businesses are forced to do more to create up for increasing losses (or decreasing profits) sufficient reason for fewer resources. There is absolutely no telling when 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 what to get eliminated are often marketing budgets. But especially since Private Jet Travel should do more marketing to create up for lost businesses, it isn’t really a good idea.

One solution to this problem is to make the most of Social Media Marketing strategies given that they cost little to no resources, ideal for the current economic situation in Lebanon. Social media marketing allows TR businesses to overcome obstacles of limited budgets and decreased business.

Problem Statement

During the past couple of 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, Facebook and Twitter fans of a particular brand are much more likely to recommend and purchase from these brands than non-fans (Cruz & Mendelsohn, 2011). But, we don’t need to make sure of social media’s effect on business through clinical tests. For social media users, such as over 30% of the world, this fact is known. A lot more businesses are inserting Social media tools to their marketing strategies and, in some cases, 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 in their overall marketing strategies but this is not the case. With regards to the Middle East and especially Lebanon, the region is far behind the West in social media usage. Not only that, in terms of businesses mixed up in tourism industry, there is much room for growth. Little investment in technology is keeping tourist businesses from maximizing marketing opportunities distributed by social media.

The Lebanese tourism industry is not taking advantage of social media marketing tactics even though the advantages of doing this are apparent. This presents a great problem especially since the economy is going by way of a very rough time.

Moreover, Lebanese TR businesses and businesses in Lebanon generally are not adopting social media tools as they should. This presents an enormous problem in the waste of resources and significant missed opportunities as a more substantial target audience can be reached via social media enabling businesses that adopt social media tools gain a better chance of success and prosperity