Social connectedness and tourism demand

This study employs a new measure of social connectedness, based on Facebook friendship links, to investigate the relationship between social networks and tourism demand. Using a standard gravity model and a sample of 39 destination countries and 167 origin countries, we document a positive, and highly significant, relationship between social connectedness and tourism demand. The results remain robust when we control for factors that may affect tourist flows between countries. Our findings bear important implications for tourism policy makers and professionals in their effort to attract visitors from origin countries.