Tourism and Hospitality (Research Paper Sample)

Topic: Tourism and Hospitality
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Executive summary
This paper demonstrates in detail on whether tourism and hospitality ought to embrace social media as a marketing tool in spite of its disadvantages. Factors that relate to social media as a disadvantage to tourism and hospitality are enumerated as well. Additionally, advantages and negative impact on tourism and hospitality is clarified in detail. In essence this shows that the reasons as to why the social media affects issues of tourism and hospital are demonstrated in detail. This initiates that it is not worth for Tourism and Hospitality businesses to embrace social media as marketing tools in spite of its disadvantages.
Is it worth for Tourism and Hospitality businesses to embrace social media as marketing tools in spite of its disadvantages?
Background information of social media
Social media are internet sites where individuals interact freely, sharing and discussing information about each other and their lives as well. This is where people use a multimedia mix of personal words, images, videos and audio in order to pass their message. Social media has given us the ability to connect with people from all over the world with few clicks of the button, making it easier than ever to keep in touch with everybody. As a result, it is regarded as the biggest industry of our time. Before this, it began in 1978 with the Bulletin Board System (BBS). With time, there has been the development of websites where individuals and groups of create and exchange content and engage in person-to-person conversation. Some of the sites used to initiate conversation via the social media are Facebook, Linkedln, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia and etc (Sumarjan, 2013).
Advantages of Social media
Social media is easier than ever to keeping contact with issues related to tourism and hospitality. This is so as professional networking site Linkedln permits users to request introductions to business people who are known to their contacts. The potential of this enhanced connectivity is huge: whereas once a firm would be left sifting through business cards after a networking event. Furthermore, Social media is particularly vital for entrepreneurs working in the field of tourism and hospitality. Employees can find contacts via professional groups on LinkedIn and Twitter, while employers can make use of the large user bases of Facebook and Twitter to market their products and services (Minazzi, 2014).
Facebook has a range of services designed to help businesses market themselves more effectively, including the ability to target advertising at the precise demographic groups that are likely to respond favorably. Social media in tourism and hospitality tend to facilitate open communication, leading to enhanced information discovery and delivery. It also permits employees to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions and share links. The system improves business reputation, and client base with minimal use of advertising. Social media in tourism and hospitality goes to the extent of targeting a wide audience, making it a useful and effective recruitment tool to the firm involved. It is also seen that social media is essential as it offers free marketing tools, and it is easy to access, hence making it a faster way of reaching potential clients in the market (Raj, Griffin & Morpeth, 2013).
Social media in the tourism industry is essential as when it comes to attempting to plan with colleagues, having access to social media sites expands the available times and places in which meetings can take place. Individuals interested in tourism and hospitality can meet each other and chat over Facebook or even go to the extent of opening chats through Google+. This is better as opposed to having to travel to specific locations. In addition, it permits users to create networks like-minded people, and hence tends to expand the horizons of what sort of contact individuals can make in their professional lives. Moreover, People on social networking sites share what interests them, such as news on current events that are affecting the sector of tourism and hospitality (Munar, 2013).
People who share tourism and hospitality interests, or who just want to stay informed, can read these stories and share them as well via Facebook, Twiter or MySpace. Since stories are shared through "word of mouth," smaller news outlets such as blogs can get exposure, and social network users are overall connected to a larger pool of new information and opinion. Therefore, Social-media marketing is an excellent way for businesses to broaden their exposure to the public at a much lower cost than traditional marketing. Establishing a presence on widely used platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can help target new customers and make tourism and hospitality brand more visible. Additionally, the two-way communication facilitated by social media can improve customer service and enables businesses to gain new information about their customers and tailor communications based on that knowledge (Muller, 2011).
Furthermore, a social media site is a good way to make connections with individuals with similar interests and objectives. They can be a way to connect with or "meet" people that a student may not have had the opportunity to before-including other students, staff, faculty and even alumni. Just as social media offers another possibility for making friends; it also makes it possible to renew old ones. Thus, meeting people and staying connected with classmates and friends is a major benefit of social media sites. Social media sites also offer event listings, group profiles and fan pages that can communicate the pulse of a company culture. They can be a great way to understand and stay connected to your tourism and hospitality community as a whole (Carley, Chapman, Hastings, Kirk & Young, 2000). 
Disadvantages
It is not worth for Tourism and Hospitality businesses to embrace social media as marketing tools in spite of its disadvantages. This is because social media as a marketing tool may affect the reputation of tourism and hospitality when the business does not reply on customers’ feedback. Such an instance comes about when the person put in charge is not efficient enough when it comes to dealing with operation of the marketing tool. As a result, clients get discouraged, and it makes the system unreliable. This is especially when it concerns issues of urgency and rumors concerning the institution of tourism and hospitality. In essence, this entails that it is looked at as a negative implication in the field of tourism and hospitality, and at the end clients get discouraged. In the event of such circumstance, the business is bound to collapse as clients will pull away from the market basing on bad quality services (Smith & Puczko, 2014).
Social media as a medium of advertisement can instantly disrupt the business associated with tourism and hospitality. This is where a wrong message is displayed to the public and the sector of tourism and hospitality is undergoing a peak season. In such a case, the business is bound to instantly undergo a loss which might be difficult to compensate for the lost period. Another issue that might contribute to the instant disruption of the business is when what is being advertised is not being offered. In such a case, the sector of hospitality and tourism is in the position of losing its clients, and hence lead to lose of profits as well (Brown, 2009).
Another negative impact that can be brought about by the social media is that it is easily misunderstood by the clients/public that is illiterate. This is usually possible as some words/language used might not be adequately be understood by the public concerned and as a result, the sector of tourism and hospitality is bound to lose its clients in the market. This usually occurs when the language used is complex. As a result, the sector undergoes a major lose that might lead to collapse of the business in the market (Leigh, Webster & Ivanov, 2012).
There is also the issue related to an anonymous environment which is a negative implication to the sector of tourism and hospitality. This is where competitors might make the sector look bad, by telling the public negative things on the business. They might enumerate to the public that what they are offering is better and that what the tourism and hospitality is advertising is not true. Thus, it is essential to effectively deal with such competitors as they might lure clients to believe that tourism and hospitality being offered by a particular country or firm is inefficient. Thus, it is always imperative to be aware of an anonymous atmosphere in order to strategize on how to deal with such competitors. This is so as without studying the strategies that can be used to counter such competitors, the tourism and hospitality industry would not benefit from the public through the social media as a medium of communication (Burke, 2009).
Use of the social media like Facebook, Twitter, magazines and the television are mediums that are unpredictable and hard to control. This based on the fact that different individuals come in contact with the mediums used, and they respond/understand the message being passed differently. This is the reason as to why the tourism and hospitality sector ought to have a back-up plan that will ensure that that what is being passed to the public does not get distorted. This shows that a social media is a very essential medium of communication that has to be laid down by the firm concerned effectively. This is based on the fact that different people receive the message in an unpredictable way. The response of the public at times is difficult to control, and hence a negative implication to the field of tourism a...