Sociology of Travel. How Media and Communications Impact Tourists

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Media, Art, Music, grade: 1,7, Bielefeld University, course: Sociology of Travel, language: English, abstract: This paper presents a critical review of literature related to use of social media in the tourism sector, specifically, to investigate the important role of media and communication technologies for tourists/travelers and the travel industry. The main questions is how changes in the former transform the dynamics of the latter. Over the past years, the tourism industry had depended heavily on marketing using the power of the word of mouth. It used to be family and friends, who would assist in the planning of our traveling, with the assistance of travel agencies, magazines and tourism guides. With the emergence of digital technologies in the present world however, the word of mouth has been prolonged to a limited group of people who are widely spread all over the world. Social Media, a greater outcome of digital technology is now being used to connect travelers to the recommendations and opinions of people all over the world. The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), within the last two distinctly different decades, have greatly transformed the tourism sector in almost all parts of the world. Within its tactical level, ICT makes it possible for the e-Commerce to thrive and subsequently assist the tourism organizations to fully maximize their general efficiency as well as effectiveness while at the strategic level, ICT has helped in restricting the tourism and travel chain together with the relationships which are there between the individual tourism organizations and the relevant stakeholders to the sector.