Role of Social Media in Shaping Local Youth Tourists' Behaviour Across the Sri Lankan Tourism Industry

Abstract

The integration of social networking and new technologies has changed the way of communication and information sharing among the people, especially of young people is a fact. As well as, the development of Social Media (SM) has conveyed important changes in the behavioural pattern of tourists. Therefore, it is very essential to understand this new influential trending among the youth tourists, in order to accelerate the tourists’ arrival and contribute to the development of Sri Lanka tourism. Therefore, this research aims at providing an insight to the Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka with regards to how social media platforms influence youth tourists’ behavior. A sample of 103 youth tourists’ response attained through online. The data obtained from the online survey were analyzed with descriptive, reliability test, mean and regression analysis. Results from the survey have identified that Social Media does influence in the youth tourists’ behaviour.  In detail, eWOM and Online reviews/comments significantly influence in the behavior of youth tourists.  And also the study confirmed that in order to attract tourists to a destination mainly revolves in the ability to convey the information to create positive images in the mind of youth tourists via social media. Thereby this study has recommended many suggestions for the Tourism and authorities. Including tourist authority should make its social media pages more interesting, appealing, informative and interactive so the customers can enjoy their social media experiences and they could spread eWOM and online reviews. And also they need to focus on how to create a positive and satisfactory image to their social media users in many other ways.