The Impact of SOCIAL MEDIA on Tourism

Lebanon’s area is ranked 170th on earth (CIA, 2014). It is smaller compared to the size of Connecticut, one of the smallest states in in America. Moreover, Lebanon is probably the few democratic countries in the centre East region. Regarding its economy, Lebanon is a free market economy and contains an extremely long tradition of laissez-faire economics. As well as its coastal location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is recognized as the central ‘window’ of the Middle East to Europe, North Africa, and all of those other world. Because of this, its economy went through some very prosperous times and was even once called the ‘Paris’ of the Middle East prior to the nation’s 15 year-long bloody civil war which ended in 1990.

Also, although Lebanon is tiny, it is also probably the most diverse nations on the globe. Christians, Muslims, Druze, along with other minority sects are spread all around the small nation and even Lebanon’s political system is dependant on sectarian power sharing.

However, this diversity had played a pivotal role in the country’s problems. This diversity was a required condition of the country’s sectarian civil war and currently plays an important role in its political paralysis, although other factors (mainly foreign) are at fault as well. There’s currently no acting President and the country’s rival political parties keep bickering and preventing rather than facilitating the country’s development.

Furthermore, Lebanon’s proximity to Israel has managed to get a foreign policy/proxy battleground for foreign nations, each using Lebanon because of its own selfish ends.

The sad political realities of the united states have significantly hurt the country’s economy. Also, since Lebanon is a service-based economy, this particular sector has taken the largest hit.

Tourism plays a substantial role in the nation’s economy. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Economy & Trade (MOET), “Tourism has long been among Lebanon’s leading economic sectors” (Economic Research Unit, 2010).

Furthermore, The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the travel & tourism sector in Lebanon contributed over $4 billion dollars in 2013 (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014).

The travel & tourism sector made up about 10% of the economy in 2012 but that share dropped to 9% in 2013 (ibid, p. 14). This is due to the political situation in the country as well as some other factors. Moreover, the number of tourist arrivals in the country kept decreasing from 2011 to 2013.

Since the tourism industry has been somewhat floundering before few years, the area for error becomes really small for businesses in this industry. The political & economic situations are squeezing tourist-related (TR) businesses in Lebanon. Therefore these businesses are forced to do more to create up for increasing losses (or decreasing profits) and with fewer resources. There is absolutely no telling once the political & economy in Lebanon will improve especially because the civil war in neighboring Syria shows no signs of abating.

There are many techniques Lebanese TR businesses can adapt of these times such as implementing downsizing policies and reducing on marketing & advertising budgets. When economic recessions and a down economy affect businesses, the first things to get eliminated are usually marketing budgets. But especially since TR businesses need to do more marketing to make up for lost businesses, this may not be a good idea.

Motivational Content to this problem is to make the most of Social Media Marketing strategies since they cost little to no resources, ideal for the current economy in Lebanon. Social media marketing allows TR businesses to overcome obstacles of limited budgets and decreased business.

Problem Statement

During the past few years, the positive effect of social media on business has been extremely high (Kaplan et al., 2010; Stelzner, 2010; Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 143; Baker & Green, 2014).

Moreover, Facebook and Twitter fans of a specific brand are more likely to recommend and buy from these brands than non-fans (Cruz & Mendelsohn, 2011). But, we don’t need to make certain of social media’s effect on business through research studies. For social media users, which include over 30% of the planet, this fact is known. Increasingly more businesses are inserting Social media tools to their marketing strategies and, in some instances, have even become an integral part of their overall business strategy.

Naturally, you might expect that Lebanese businesses would quickly adopt Social Media Marketing as a key role within their overall marketing strategies but this is simply not the case. When it comes to the Middle East and especially Lebanon, the region is far behind the West in social media marketing usage. Not only that, when it comes to businesses involved in the tourism industry, there is much room for growth. Little investment in technology is keeping tourist businesses away from maximizing marketing opportunities given by social media.

The Lebanese tourism industry isn’t taking advantage of social media tactics even though the benefits of doing so are apparent. This presents an excellent problem especially because the economy is going through a very rough time.

Moreover, Lebanese TR businesses and businesses in Lebanon generally are not adopting social media marketing tools because they should. This presents an enormous problem in the waste of resources in addition to significant missed opportunities as a more substantial target audience could be reached via social media enabling businesses that adopt social media tools gain a better chance of success and prosperity