The determinants of Facebook social engagement for National Tourism Organisations’ Facebook pages: a quantitative approach

Mariani, M. M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7916-2576, Mura, M. and Di Felice, M. (2018) The determinants of Facebook social engagement for National Tourism Organisations’ Facebook pages: a quantitative approach. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 8. pp. 312-325. ISSN 2212-571X doi: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2017.06.003

Abstract/Summary

This work explores how the National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) of the top 10 most visited countries by international tourists strategically employ Facebook to promote and market their destinations. Based on big data retrieved from the NTOs’ Facebook pages, and leveraging advanced metrics for capturing user engagement, the study sheds light on the factors contributing to superior level of social activity. The findings indicate that the way Facebook is tactically employed varies significantly across sampled NTOs. The panel data regression analyses suggest that engagement is positively affected by posting visual content (namely photos), and posting during the weekends, and negatively affected by evening posting. Post frequency displays no statistically significant effect on social engagement. The study also shows that most of the NTOs (except for Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK) deploy Facebook with a top-down approach, and spontaneous user generated content (UGC) is allowed to a very little extent.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/74561
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Henley Business School > Leadership, Organisations, Behaviour and Reputation
Publisher	Elsevier
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