Use of Social Media by National Tourism Organizations (NTOs)
Mridula DwivediGD Goenka World Institute
Gurgaon, [email protected]
Motivation for the Work
• Initial motivation from getting a follow from an NTO on Twitter
• Academic Review Process/Attitude to Social Media
• Lack of Data about NTOs
• Lack of Academic Literature on Social Media
Research Questions
• What is the extent of the use of social media by the NTOs?
• Which social media platforms are used by the NTOs?
• Which social media platforms are used more frequently?
Methodology• Largely Searched for Information on the Net
• How Many Countries in the World?
• We merged UNWTO and the UN list to arrive at 198 countries.
• In the end we refined the list to 195 countries.
• Then we located NTO/Embassy websites for 195 countries.
Findings
• 80 out of 195 (41%) NTOs are already using at least on social media platform.
• As there was no data available, we had anticipated it to be a more niche activity.
Findings- List of Platforms Used
• Be Local• Blogs• Facebook• Flickr• Forums • Koprol• Myspace• Orkut• Plaxo
• Plurk• Scribd• Tripadvisor (Links to
their Country)• Tumblr• Twitter • Youtube• WAYN
The Top Platforms
• Facebook- 63
• Twitter- 49
• Youtube- 49
• Flickr- 19
• 16 countries used all 4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Facebook Twitter Youtube Flickr Blogs Myspace Tripadvisor Forum
Chart 1: Use of Social Media Platform by NTOs
Conclusions
• Finding out correct NTO Websites was a task in itself.
• Social media information could be buried somewhere on the website.
• Social media sites could be available to only some countries.
Conclusions
• Using Original Logos
• Not a niche activity anymore?
• Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr emerged as the most popular platforms.
Conclusions
• Presence may not translate into use.
• Parameters for use- Promotion? Interaction? Feedback? Business? Others?
• Contests?
Thank You
• Questions?
• More Ways to Connect– http://blogs.gonomad.com/traveltalesfromindia/
– Twitter @mridulad
– https://www.facebook.com/traveltalesfromindia