Social media management in the traveller's customer journey: an analysis of the hospitality sector

ABSTRACT

In hospitality, consumers rely on social media during the purchase decision process, e.g. to search for information, compare alternative destinations and share media content of their travel experiences. While previous research has mainly analyzed the consumer-side, the aim of this paper is to examine how hospitality firms manage social media within their marketing strategies considering the phases of the traveller's customer journey. To achieve our research objective, we conducted a multiple-case study by interviewing key informants from two hospitality companies. Results discuss the main touchpoints activated and their respective objectives, highlighting the growing usage of social media in all the phases of the traveller's consumer journey. The paper also presents managerial implications for the social media marketing strategies of hospitality companies.

KEYWORDS:

• Customer journey
• digital marketing
• hospitality
• social media
• traveller’s customer journey

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Co-Editors of Current Issues in Tourism Chris Cooper and C. Michael Hall for their valuable feedback, and two anonymous reviewers for the comments that contributed to improve our article. We also acknowledge the participants and organizers of the 2020 Conference of Digital Marketing and eCommerce, where preliminary findings of this study were presented.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.