Summary:
The aim of this study is to twofold; on the one hand it aims to help broaden our knowledge on the use of social media by National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) and - on the other to improve our understanding of the role of social media in tourism marketing and promotion -, in order to identify the key elements for a successful social media strategy. To this purpose, - some –of the most commonly used message variables (images, videos, length of the text, the topic of the posts, tags or links, the time and the day of posting), employed by NTOs in their communication with their target audiences, and their role in consumer engagement and interaction is examined, in order to determine possible behavioural patterns - that should be taken into account in the design and planning of their marketing strategies. The study used the method of content analysis in 565 Facebook and Instagram posts of top European destinations in terms of tourism arrivals, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO 2018 inbound tourism rankings) and the competence for the promotion of whom belongs exclusively to public sector entities. Greece and Australia were added to this list. Greece because – although a very popular European destination – it still lacks in terms of international tourism arrivals and receipts compared to the other European destinations subject to this research-, and Australia in order to examine whether the fact that it ranks – very high in terms of tourism receipts -, can among other things be attributed to its successful social media strategy. The result of the research has - shown that the number of followers is not influenced by the year the account was created or the number of posts and the languages used. User engagement is also not statistically correlated with the day and time of the posts, or the use of video. On the contrary, there seems to be a strong statistical correlation depending on the social media, the topic of the publications– and the use of hashtags and links. Finally, texts with 101 to 150 characters seem to attract more "likes". Keywords: NTOs, destination marketing, facebook, instagram, travel2.0
Keywords:
NTOs, destination marketing, social media, facebook, instagram, travel2.0
