The Role of Instagram in Destination Branding and Marketing: The Case of Turkey

Abstract

The almost infinity of the growth potential of the tourism sector, the increasing number of visitors despite all the global variables and negativities, and the economy created by the sector encourage the emergence of new destinations. However, this situation brings with it intense competition. Destinations, on the other hand, actively use many elements, especially social media platforms and tools, in this process to provide competitive advantage. Considering that physical marketing and distribution were preferred more in the past, today this situation has almost turned into the opposite. The sale of touristic products through distribution channels such as agencies and sales offices has now been replaced by e-commerce and social media has become the most used dynamic of this trade has started to use social media actively in destination branding studies and in the promotion of the destination. In this study, it is aimed to analyze the evaluations of ten city destinations, which are accepted as brands in Turkey, through the instagram application, which has reached incredible numbers in terms of usage prevalence in the last ten years. In addition, within the framework of the findings obtained in the study, suggestions were developed on destination branding and marketing.