A Research on Social Media Use of the Youth Regarding Their Service Purchasing Behaviors

Purpose – Social media, which allows tourists to share travel experiences and communicate with other people, has become the main source of information especially for young people when purchasing tourismrelated products and services. Tourism products and services are considered to be highly risky because they cannot be evaluated in advance as material products and services. Therefore, the use of social media has gained importance. The purpose of this study is to determine the social media usage of young people related the tourism products and services and to determine social media involvement in social media usage. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected with face-to-face survey technique from 413 participants. Reliability, Factor, Correlation and Regression tests were applied to the data set the help of SPSS program. Findings – As a result of the factor analysis of the scale that was employed in the study, it was found out that there is a positive, strong and significant correlation between the factors of social media consumption, social media creation, perceived enjoyment, trust and involvement. It was also determined that social media was used more for the purpose of searching for information before traveling. Discussion – Tourism businesses and marketers need to analyze the role of website design and mobile technology and especially social media well in order to attract and retain customers. Businesses should increase the number of social media tools they use and they should endeavor to create social media creation with content that will attract the attention and appeal to young people. It is important that the contents are prepared to enhance the sense of reality. In addition to content and creation, updating social media tools should be prioritized.

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