Communication Strategies based on Facebook: the case of the Praia da Barra Tourist Office

Abstract

Besides being a technology, social media is a reality and a transdisciplinary dynamic, which has grown and that is difficult to follow in all its areas of intervention. With a clear and growing influence on numerous development sectors, namely the economic sector, of which tourism is a part and where communication and agile information management are unquestionably determining factors for its operation and success. Nowadays, Internet access and the steadily increasing adherence to social media applications has led to a change in the strategies used to promote tourist destinations, and now much of the information used to promote destinations is based on content generated by users. Since the goal of Destination Management Organizations (DMO) is to promote tourist destinations, this reality had to be look upon as an opportunity worth understanding and exploring.

Based on a guidance model for the use of social media in DMO communication with tourists, this article presents some of the results obtained from an investigation that aimed to contribute to a communication strategy, based on Facebook, and applied by the Praia da Barra Tourism Office – located in Gafanha da Nazaré, municipality of Ílhavo, Portugal. This challenge, closely linked with a local DMO, allowed us to collect a set of results that demonstrated the usefulness and practical evidence of the use of these type of strategies in scenarios with very well defined resources, ranges of action and intervention.