Social Media and Its Influence on Travel Decision-Making

Abstract

Tourism serves as a prominent illustration of the crucial role that social media has assumed in the contemporary digital age. The present study aims to examine the influence of widely used electronic platforms, namely Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and TikTok, on the decision-making processes of tourists. Adopting the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) model as a conceptual framework, the study collects feedback from 100 participants to evaluate the impact of their social media engagement on their travel decisions. The findings demonstrate that social media exerts a substantial influence on the formation of travel preferences and the choice of destinations by effectively attracting users' attention and generating desire through well selected material and influencer marketing. Furthermore, the research investigates the application of machine learning to examine large datasets obtained from social media platforms, particularly Twitter, for the purpose of predicting tourist demand.