A proposal of a model to improve the performance of the Destination Management Organizations in the usage of social media in the communication process with tourists’

Abstract

Tourism as an economic sector where information plays a key role is therefore one of the most affected by the arrival of the new reality that are social media. Currently, the widespread use of Web 2.0 applications and especially, due to the exponential growth of social networking platforms, are causing remarkable changes in the promotion of tourism destinations, with a clear strategy for them to switch to the use of user generated content in Internet. Given this new paradigm, the Destination Management Organizations (DMO), as dynamic organizations whose goal is the promotion of tourist destinations have to adapt in order to fit this new reality. This paper intends to present a proposal of a model to improve the performance of the DMO in the usage of social media applications in their communication activities with tourists. This model proposal was based on the observation of the communication strategies in social media applications by national and international DMO as well on the results obtained through the applications of two questionnaires, whose purpose was to perceive the use of social media, by Portuguese tourists and by the Portuguese DMO. Although the results of the application of the model proposal are not included in this article these validated its usefulness.