The role of social media advertising in hospitality, tourism and travel: a literature review and research agenda

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to provide an assessment of the existing literature on the role of social media advertising in hospitality, tourism and travel (HTT) as well as an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach Covering a 15-year time span (2004–2019), this study is focused on journal papers archived in two academic databases in social sciences: Business Source Complete and Communication and Mass Media Complete. Each of the 192 papers collected was coded for 8 major variables: journal, year of publication, research topic, country studied, type of social media investigated, method, theoretical underpinning and key findings. Findings Three major topic areas are identified in this study: use of social media from consumer’s perspective, use of social media from organization’s perspective and effects of social media. Research limitations/implications Although a few prior papers have provided a literature review of social media in tourism and hospitality, no review-based papers have ever examined social media as an advertising vehicle in the context of HTT. Most reviews to date have been limited to general social media studies, without much advancement of theory building in advertising research. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper represents the first theoretical review of academic research on social media advertising in HTT. The review concludes by suggesting a theoretical framework for studying social media advertising in HTT and offering an agenda for future research.

Marketing China to U.S. travelers through electronic word-of-mouth and destination image: Taking Beijing as an example

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Applications of Social Media in the Tourism Industry: A Review

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Sentiment analysis of social media content in Croatian hotel industry

“…Only a decade ago, social media were considered to be platforms or applications that allow users to socialize, network and share digital content, information and/or sentiments (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). With the development of social media, such definitions no longer reflect the full potential and purpose of social media and it is agreed that social media have become one of the most important advertising venues for marketers Chu et al (2020). Social media may serve today as a channel for a number of marketing activities, such as customer relationship management, customer service, buyer research etc.…”

“…The author found that large datasets, netnography, Travel 2.0 and Web 2.0 were topics that marked a new trend in social media research that emerged between 2011 and 2016. The authors Chu et al (2020) identified three main perspectives in literature, namely: use of social media from the consumer' s perspective, organization' s perspective and the effects of social media, while Knoll (2016) identified seven main research topics on advertising in social media: use of advertising in social media, attitudes towards and exposure to advertising, targeting, usergenerated content in advertising, electronic word-of-mouth in advertising, consumer-generated advertising and other advertising effects. The authors Leung, Bai and Erdem (2017) explored the message strategy and its effectiveness in a study of 1,837 messages from 12 hotel brand Facebook pages based on a quantitative methodology.…”

“…Recently, in a literature review on the role of social media and advertising in hospitality, tourism and travel sectors, Chu, Deng and Cheng (2020) called for qualitative studies, as most studies relied on quantitative methods such as structural equation modelling, content analysis, descriptive analysis and regression analysis. Among others, only two studies with text analysis (Wattanacharoensil and Schuckert, 2015;Chang, Ku, & Chen, 2019) and six studies with thematic analysis were identified ( Chan and Guillet, 2011;Lim, Chung and Weaver, 2012;Line and Runyan, 2012;(Blichfeldt and Smed, 2015;Blichfeldt and Smed, 2015;Moro & Rita, 2018).…”