THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS ON TOURISM INDUSTRY: A LITERATURE REVIEW

The expansion of Internet and growing popularity of social media platforms has affected the field of tourism in many ways, creating both new challenges and opportunities. Social media has changed the way companies communicate with their targeted audience and the way they reach them, It has changed the way travellers research potential destinations and the way they choose the activities that they participate in once they arrive, but most importantly, it has changed the way that travellers use social media to make purchasing decisions. Word of mouth is considered to be the most trusted form of advertising, and Influencer marketing is essentially virtual word of mouth that has become stronger with the strengthening of social media and it is, without a doubt, impacting the behaviours of customers. Importance of Influencer marketing is seen in the fact that consumers are much more likely to positively perceive and react to a message that comes from a trusted friend or persona over a sponsored post that comes from a company. Since influencers have generated their credibility online through their user generated content (personal experience and driving messages), they can speak to certain niches and reach them more effectively. The data for this paper is collected through literature review and the main questions that this paper is seeking to get answers to are what are the benefits of using social media influencers as marketing strategy in tourism and does influencer marketing have impact on tourism industry? The findings of this paper suggest that influencers do bring a lot of benefits to a tourism industry, which can be seen in created content and extended content reach, credibility, cost-effectiveness, image building and incite to action, as well as they do impact tourism industry. This paper proposes a theoretical framework to better understand the unquestionable importance of influencers on tourism industry, but also announces several questions for further research, related to ethics and perceived credibility and trustworthiness. The existing literature focuses mostly on influencer marketing in general and there is a lack of studies specific to the tourism sector, which can be perspective for further research.