The Impact of Social Network in Tourism - Thesis Example

Earlier travelers used to be dependent on travel agencies, their suggestions, and advice while planning any trip. However, over time individual traveling is gaining popularity. People have become more internet savvy nowadays and they are using various online information sources like official websites of travel companies, blogs, social networking sites, etc. to make their decision regarding any future travel. A number of studies have tried to find out how social networking is used by travelers as well as travel companies in this tourism market.

Travel agencies are also increasingly realizing the need for promoting their services through social networking sites as members of various social networking sites are increasing significantly day by day.In the age of social networking, the Travel and Tourism industry is growing rapidly. There are thousands of travel operators who have their websites through which one can book his tickets, hotels or plan his holiday anywhere in the world at just a mouse click. These social networking sites not only enable the tourists to get in touch with his or her respective tourist operator but also to communicate with the previous users of those sites.

The latter helps the new users to get first-hand information about the operator and making the right choice.Previously the travelers had to depend on many tour organizing intermediaries such as the traveling agents for their travel-related queries (Akehurst, 2009). But with the growing popularity of internet usage and social networking, this trend is changing. The whole pattern of information searching and decision making is much different for the new age travelers. Therefore the Tourism industry has almost completely become internet and social network-oriented.

As far as internet use and online dealing are concerned this industry is ranked at the lead by Werthner and Ricci (2004 pp. 103-104).