Travel Intention and Behaviour Role of Social Media in Tourism on

Millennials in Madhya Pradesh

Namrata Kishnani, Alpa Ghosh and Rasmeet K. Malhi

Dept. of Management, the Bhopal School of Social Sciences, India

Keywords: Social Media, Destination Marketing, Tourism Intention, Tourism Behaviour.

Abstract: Emerging internet technologies and smart phone penetration have transformed the marketing communication

in tourism industry. Social media has enabled tourists to search, share and co-create tourism related content

making it as one of the most potential source to plan, organize and fulfil their expectations. Purpose: This

paper aims to explore the role of social media on tourists’ intention to visit tourism destinations in Madhya

Pradesh among millennial. Design: The research is a quantitative study that relies on structured questionnaire

for collecting responses from tourists and analysis of the same was conducted using descriptive techniques

and anova.Findings: The key findings reveal a strong positive influence of social media on decision making

and travel behaviour to gather and share tourism information and experiences on social networks resulting

into greater engagement and retention. The study aims to facilitate destination marketing communications on

digital networks for enhanced branding and customer experience. Originality: The study explores new

paradigms of destination marketing communication by means of relevant user generated content on targeted

group.

1 INTRODUCTION

Social Media in yester years have significantly

changed the arena in tourism marketing. According to

United Nations World Tourism Organization reports

(2012) there is a surge of more than 300 % among

travellers who have begun using social media for

searching travel destinations , its where about and

gathering information. India rising to second position

in terms of social media users with more 755 million

active users just after China as per Statista has

connected modern travellers with the tourism

suppliers and managers during the process sharing

their experience (Gretzel et al., 2015). Smart phones

and easy access to information has redesigned the

complex relationship between tourism destination

organizations and tourists who are in constant need of

information during their travel experience (Buhalis,

2019). Increased penetration of internet have

leveraged growth of social media as an interactive

platform for real time communication on travel

planning, decision making and sharing experience

during or post trip (Bg & Skills, 2020). Most of the

tourists’ marketing organization including

government have adopted social media apart from

interactive websites for making use of user generated

content (likes, share, tagging, blogging, reviews,

reels, pictures or video stories) as a marketing

component to transform their travel experience.

(Srinivaasan & Kumar Kabia, n.d.) strongly

advocated smart phones are an integral part of

destination marketing emphasizing their role as travel

companion throughout their journey from seeking

information, planning to sharing their experience on

online space having a strong influence on decision

making. (Gupta, 2022) pointed the social media as an

efficient and cost effective informational tool for

reaching out to customers and addressing changing

consumer behaviour and interactions. In order to be

competitive destination managers and organizations

must engage in strategic use of social media for

communication and meeting their expectations. Thus

it supplements the need to study role of social media

as a critical marketing component to ascertain travel

motivations and behaviour of millennial population in

Madhya Pradesh for tourism.

1.1 Literature Review

Digital technologies and social media with the

widespread use of internet and increased penetration

of smart phones have facilitated more interactive and

868

Kishnani, N., Ghosh, A. and Malhi, R.

Travel Intention and Behaviour Role of Social Media in Tourism on Millennials in Madhya Pradesh.

DOI: 10.5220/0012516100003792

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 868-871

ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3

engaging marketing communication converging the

two disciplines for more effectiveness. (Gvaramadze,

2022a) Travel behaviour and motivation have been

widely researched to identify the factors inspiring

travel, planning tourism activities, attitude of tourists

or else subjected to several internal or external factors

with mediating effect of destination marketing and

image (Cohen et al., 2014). Understanding travel

behaviour and motivations is strategic to increase

tourism demand and policy formulation using digital

media like websites, social media or else to build

competitive advantage with development of new

business models integrating information sharing, co-

creation and dissemination (Vuuren & Slabbert,

2011).

Social media engagement, tourism websites and

other virtual networks are most reliable source of

information that explains use of digital

communication mix by government and other

destination marketing organizations in recent

times(Chatterjee & Dsilva, 2021). Facebook,

Youtube, Instagram and other online content sharing

websites are looked forward as highly relevant and

influential on consumer decision making, choice of

destination, tourism activity and travel behaviour.

Social media has primarily altered travel behaviour of

consumers with increased access to technology from

Generation Y or Z who seek information through

travel blogs or reviews during all stages of travel,

unlike friends or relatives as traditional source of

information to unfamiliar destinations(Werenowska,

2020)(Java et al., 2014). Recent studies have made a

calibrated effort to dig deeper into understanding the

conceptual framework of personality, attitude and

expectations of consumer with relation to technology,

sustainability and decision making. Previous studies

conducted on Georgian university students or Polish

target groups show a clear evidence of use of social

media handles on smart phones to identify

destinations, attractions or amenities that influence

their decision making and expectations during all

stages of travel buying(Gvaramadze, 2022b)(Bora &

Sahu, 2022). Quantitative and qualitative account of

literature and digitally administered surveys evident

social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook and

Instagram as top rated mediums used by travellers

sharing reviews, videos or images seeking to

collaborate on virtual networks as cost effective and

time efficient tool(Chourasia, 2018)(Java et al.,

2014). Digital engaging mediums have attracted

young travellers to wildlife destinations with

interactive and promotional content (reviews, images,

videos, stories etc.) on shared platforms to fill the

current gap in expectations. Social networks has

increased awareness on environment sustainability

and raising living standard of the community with

nature based tourism apart from adding stickiness and

reduced dependency on traditional systems. Ministry

of tourism and government of India and several states

like Assam, Odisha, Goa, Madhya Pradesh to name a

few has recognized the competence of social

networks for collaborative value addition and

sustainable development from nature based tourism

designing strategic campaigns and adjunct

resources(Gohil, 2015) (Jayanna, 2019).

2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

The research is an ongoing study part of research

thesis which will further quantitatively analyse the

influence of social media in promoting tourism in

Madhya Pradesh. It will give insights on active social

media platforms and influence of social media

engagement on motivation and behaviour of tourists

for their travel planning and decision making.

2.1 Research Methodology

The research aims to find prominence of social media

for destination marketing communication with

effective use of user generated content in Madhya

Pradesh. It is empirical work that relies on self

administered structured questionnaire as a tool for

colleting responses along with secondary reviews.

The tool is divided in two parts – demographic profile

and frequency of using social media and other part

reflects their perception about social media to gather

information, travel planning and decision making and

lastly sharing experience. The survey was conducted

during January to February 2023 using google forms

shared through social media groups and forums.

Likert scale of agreement was used for measuring the

responses of a homogeneous sample of millennial

(same frequency of using social media) which was

analyzed using mean and one way anova in SPSS.

The questionnaire was circulated initially among 50

respondents of target population in selected

universities of Madhya Pradesh through judgement

sampling to check the reliability of the same. The

cronbach coefficient value of each factor as examined

to check the reliability and construct validity is more

than 0.785. The questionnaire was floated through

Google forms using snowball sampling technique, of

which 168 complete responses were suitable for

analysis.

Travel Intention and Behaviour Role of Social Media in Tourism on Millennials in Madhya Pradesh

869

2.2 Findings & Discussion

The demographic findings of the survey reveal,

58.2% respondents consisted of women while

majority of respondents (56.4%) are within the age

group of 18-25 years. Most respondents are graduates

(68.2%) , 71.2% are students and 80.6% are

unmarried. Most of the respondents (74) use social

media for 2-3 hours in a day. Facebook ,

Youtube,Whats app and Instagram are among the top

rated platforms.

Table 1: Description of the respondents (n=168).

Category Frequen

Percent

Gende

Male 71 41.8%

Female 97 58.2%

e 18-25

rs 94 56.4%

25-32 yrs 64 37.6%

32-39 yrs 8 6.0%

Education Graduation 114 68.2%

Post Graduation 30 17.6%

Diploma 7 4.2%

Any othe

17 10%

Marital

Status

Unmarried 135 80.6%

Married 33 19.4%

Occu

ation Student 119 71.2%

Service in Govt. 12 7.1%

Business 13 7.6%

Service in Pvt. 24 14.1%

Annual

Income

< 5 lacs 84 50.6%

lacs 53 31.1%

10-15 lacs 20 11.7%

Above 15 lacs 11 6.5%

Source of

Information

(Social

Media)

Instagram 51

Twitter 18

Websites 42

Facebook 84

Whats App groups 58

Youtube 91

Use of Social

Media in a

0-1 hour 9

1-2 hours 44

2-3 hours 74

3 hours and above 41

The second part comprised of three independent

variables social media usage to identify and gather

information about destination and activities (3 items),

influence of social media on choice of destination and

travel planning (3 items) and sharing of experience on

social networks during or post travel (4 items) and

dependent variable is travel related decision making

and behaviour. F test confirms significant relationship

(significant value < 0.001) of three independent

variables in the construct with dependent variable to

indicate positive influence of social media on travel

intention and behaviour on decision making.

3 CONCLUSION

Web 2.0 has been a game changer in revolutionising

several industries tourism being one of them. It has

gathered momentum with use of internet on smart

phones to fill the demand and supply gap. Tourism

marketing in recent years has undergone a paradigm

shift with strategic use of digital communications to

share and disseminate content on highly interactive

and engaging virtual networks. Incredible India

campaign has been a tremendous success among

netizens with huge likes, comments and shares. It was

replicated by other states like Goa, Odisha or Madhya

Pradesh who have dedicated social media platforms,

interactive websites and online forums. Optimizing

social networks /platforms along with diverse digital

promotional campaigns #SabKuchJoDilChahe.

(Patricia et al., 2021), tiger tourism #Buffer mein

safar (Vasan, 2018) and post covid 19 #Intezaar

Aapka and other interventions by Madhya Pradesh

tourism generated high interest among travellers and

branding. (Gohil, 2015) Digital communication has

empowered all the stakeholders alike to create, share

and disperse relevant information in real time cost

effectively creating suitable ground for personalised

interaction that influence consumer buying

behaviour. Strategic social media usage has gathered

support on virtual networks leveraging tourism

benefits for sustainable environment and community

development. Collaboration among public and

private destination managers on digital mediums to

develop innovative business models will be

competent future tool to influence travel behaviour,

motivation and decision making of tourists’ alike.

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