engleski

Analysis of The Impact of Social Media on Tourist Destination Choice: An Information Search Stage of The Process

Consumer behavior and the process of tourist destination choice can be divided into five main stages and the key one is the second when tourists are searching for information about their destination and tourist trip. In this paper, the information search stag will be analyzed with a focus on the sociodemographic characteristics of tourists and their attitudes regarding social media. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: “Which sociodemographic characteristics (e.g. gender, age, education level, and personal monthly income) of tourists are affected by tourists’ opinion about social media in the information search stage?”. The empirical research was conducted on a sample of 1, 057 Croatian tourists who use social media at least once a week. The data were analyzed with Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H test and they showed that among four observed sociodemographic characteristics, only ages are statistically significant, i.e. as the respondents are getting older, the importance they attach to social media is lower in the information search stage.

Social Media ; Tourist Destination Choice ; Information Search Stage ; Sociodemographic Characteristics of Tourists

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