27
March
2015
Tourism relies on social media for promotion and attraction
Social media sites: free business platforms
Social media sites, notably Facebook,
have become advanced and preferred
platforms used by businesses to attract
customers and promote their services and
products.
Recent studies have shown that tourism
sector is the leading user of and interactor
with social media sites, such as opportuni-
ties to promote travel destinations and at-
tracting the largest number of tourists from
all over the globe.
Social media channels are considered
an integral part of marketing operations
sought out today by most enterprises, in-
cluding small to medium enterprises.
Small enterprises and start-ups attempt to
reel in successful business by mastering
social media skills and strategies to reach
a high level of promotion and engagement
with their markets and communities.
Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Devel-
opment Authority stated that social media
sites have caused a big leap in the tourism
sector in recent years.
The Authority not only adopted social me-
dia sites as a key method of promotion, in-
teraction and attraction of different groups
of tourists, but is also keen on organizing
events, seminars and bringing experts in
this field to highlight the best practices ad-
opted worldwide in optimum use of such
sites.
The 6th Arab Social Media Report pro-
duced by Mohammed Bin Rashid School
of Government’s Governance and Innova-
tion Program indicates the many benefits
of using social media.
Social media is particularly important as
many organizations in society use social
media sites to introduce their services,
activities and events easily on such plat-
forms. This is particularly beneficial for
certain organizations that fail to achieve
the required penetration and expansion.
According to the report, 42% of respon-
dents indicated that non-governmental
(civil society) organizations in their coun-
try were using social media to deliver ser-
vices that government was not providing.
Internet users in the Arab region finally
reached the global average in 2014 for the
first time ever - a developmental milestone
for the region.
With around 82 million Arab users today
at 22 percent penetration rates regionally,
social media is already providing the me-
dium for overcoming many of the monu-
mental barriers for re-inventing public ser-
vice in the Arab world.
This huge penetration is expected to
boost the influence of social media over
the coming years as well as boost oppor-
tunities of cooperation and engagement
between society individuals, governments
and awareness agencies.
Social media platforms open up a me-
dium before all groups of society to voice
their opinions. There is also an increased
engagement from Arab women in devel-
opment operations in the Arab world and
voicing their opinions via social media
channels. However, women’s engage-
ment on such media is still low compared
to male counterparts.
The report adds that social media sites in
the Arab world are still dominated by male
youth below the age of 30, thus females
make up 1 out of 3 social media users in
the region.
