The Role of Social Media in the Luxury Tourism Business: A Research Review and Trajectory Assessment

Abstract

The luxury tourism industry immediately conjures up thoughts of exclusivity, with access to it confined to a small and elite group of travelers often located within their own social bubble. Our systematic literature review seeks to understand how tourism scholarship has addressed the issue of luxury travel based on social media pronouncements and the areas of concentration in which earlier studies have been conducted. Literature was sourced using the following key terms “luxury tourism”, “elite travel”, “social media”, and “sustainability” in various combinations using the OneSearch online platform, the Proquest Database, and Google Scholar. Only peer-reviewed journals were used for the critical analysis. Three main thematic areas were identified and reviewed: (1) the role of social media in luxury tourism; (2) the behavioral attributes of luxury travelers’ when using social media; and (3) the methodologies employed in the extant literature, given the limitations of accessing specific data for the luxury tourism market. The selected period for the journals and articles reviewed was the last ten years, from March 2010 to March 2020. NVivo version 12 was used to decipher the themes and focus areas as well as quantify the significance of social media to luxury tourism. Drawing from these literature review outcomes, the study explores future research areas and issues that require new theoretical and methodological frameworks to further our understanding of the intersection between social media and the luxury tourism business.

A content analysis of Asian countries’ tourism video advertisements: a luxury travel perspective

“…The underpinning factors comprising the hierarchy of LTNs provide an important direction toward understanding, promoting and predicting tourism trends. Luxury is an important feature in developing a tourism product and this can benefit luxury tourism providers by giving attention to developing strategies and carefully planning the content of video advertisements (Thirumaran et al , 2021).…”

“…Berhanu and Raj’s (2020) study suggest that there has been a shift in the luxury travel market, from the traditional rich to younger demographics who are heavy SM users. Thirumaran et al (2021) focused on exploring SM and tourism and identified two key findings. First, how SM is associated with a sustainable approach to luxury travel.…”

Marketing of luxurious gastronomic experiences on social media: The visual storytelling of luxury hotels

“…This is also relevant in relation to specific targets, where Millennials and Generation Z people are a growing market segment (Deloitte, 2018). This paper departs from the understanding of the relevance of social media in luxury tourism (see Thirumaran et al, 2021) to the development of a co-created relationship between businesses and customers (Leung et al, 2017;Wu & Gao, 2019). According to Harkison (2018), who studied the luxury accommodation sector, 'active interaction between a company and a customer creates value, and this value is centred on the customer's experience ' (p.11).…”

Tourism research progress: comparing tourism literature reviews published in English WOS and Chinese CNKI language journals

“…Tourism systematic literature reviews provide insights into research topics, theories, methods and potential gaps (Brendel et al , 2020). Scholars intend to review tourism research based on the specific field and period: luxury tourism (Iloranta, 2022; Thirumaran et al , 2021), live tourism (Lin et al , 2022), smart tourism (Hamid et al , 2021; Shafiee et al , 2021) and sustainable tourism (Santos et al , 2021). Reviewing precious tourism literature review articles published in English Web of Science (WOS) and Chinese China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) language journals has yet to be conducted.…”