Social media has only a small and waning influence over travellers’ choice of holidays, according to reserach from World Travel Market.
Only one in three UK holidaymakers use sites such as TripAdvisor as part of their research, although more than a third of those who do change their travel plans as a result.
Of the 36% who did use social media sites, two out of three used TripAdvisor, around one-third referred to Facebook and one in five looked at YouTube. Only 17% looked at Twitter.
Travel and tourism chat rooms and forums attracted 28% of the social media users, compared with blogs which accounted for 9%.
WTM concluded from its research that holidaymakers’ interest in social media is not as great as the travel and tourism industry thinks. More than 60% of 1,257 senior travel industry professionals questioned said it had influenced their business over the past year.
More than four out of 10 believe social media represents an opportunity for their businesses over the next five years.
WTM chairman Fiona Jeffery said; "It has long been believed social media plays an important role in holidaymakers’ decisin making process. However, WTM research shows that social medial doesn’t play a centrol role.
"Furthermore, less than a quarter expect to use social media to book next year’s holiday, so its small influence is waning.
"It is a concern that the travel and tourism industry plan to invest heavily in social media over the next five years believing it’s one of the major opportunities for the industry. This investment could be a waste of time and money as holidaymakers do not appear to rely on social media as much as the industry believes."
By Linsey McNeill
