Social Media Puts Emerging Markets At Forefront Of Tourism

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

By Briana Garcia

The percentage of savvy travellers booking their own trips, researching local food joints and nearby hotels has sky-rocketed, with more than 55 per cent of travellers across regions like Australia, Europe and East Asia, preferring to research and book overseas holidays themselves via the Internet.

The challenge tourism now faces is how best to reach and capture new search demand for travel, particularly in an environment where people are concerned about privacy. Recent Facebook data indicates that in the past few months, Facebook’s presence in established markets has declined, with four in 10 Americans taking a break from the platform from September last year, after major privacy breaches occurred. Concurrently, Hootesuite and We Are Social’s quarterly findings in 2019 found that in regions like Europe and the Americas, there has been little to no growth in audience reach on social media, adding to concerns that advanced economies have reached their upper growth bounds in internet and social media usage.

By contrast, India and the Philippines have experienced the largest audience growth (+3-4 per cent) indicating more and more people are opening social media accounts in emerging markets.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Source: BW Businessworld (link opens in a new window)

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tourism