Impact Of Advantageous And Disadvantageous Factors On Consumer Perception In Indian Tourism Industry

Project Scope

What Is The Impact Of Advantageous Factors On The Consumer Perception Making In The Tourism Industry In India?

What Is The Impact Of Disadvantageous Factor On The Consumer Perception Making In The Tourism Industry In India?

How The Social Media Positive And Negative Factors Impact The Consumer Decision Making In The Tourism Industry In India?

What Are The Recommendations For The Tourism Industry In India Regarding The Use Of Social Media For Its Promotion?  

In recent time the technological disruptive development has impacted many industries around the world in regards to the way of doing the business traditionally. There is great deal of dependency on the data or information in this industry. The people who are travelling, like to gather as much as possible information regarding their schedule, location and other facilities to reduce the risk associated with this process (Hudson and Thal, 2013). But there used to be gap in the information and that place is now currently fulfilled by the social median. In recent time the rapid internet penetration rate along with the increasing use of mobile devices created appropriate environment for the social media popularity. The information gap is fulfilled through the social media information source and this process also has high reliability as the information provider is the original user (Bramwell, 2011). Considering this the business in the tourism sector has to adapt with this situation by understanding the positive and negative side of it.

The project would evaluate the current tourism business in India and how it is impacted by the advantage and disadvantages of the social media network.

The specific design of the research would evaluate the advantage and disadvantage created by the new social media on the tourism industry. For the location, the research would focus on India which has a diverse population, language, culture and geographical area (Mishra et al., 2011). So the exploration and information need from a tourist’s perspective would also be diverse. It would be interesting to explore these needs and how the social media fits into this by creating advantages and disadvantages to the industry.

In India the technological advancement, increasing use of the mobile phones, increasing reach of mobile and internet connections has positively influenced the use of social media which in turn like many other industry also impacted the tourism industry.

Social media network is the forum where people share their views, experience and opinion with their peers’ groups over the virtual technological platform (Fotis et al., 2012). On the other hand the traveller gives a great important to the other travellers account. So in the social media this becomes the base of interaction sometime (Sigala et al., 2012).  The industries in this sector can use this factor and influence positive consumer behaviour where they can encourage their previous customer to share their experience on the platform.

Literature Review

In the social media the promotions are well targeted unlike the traditional media (Luo and Zhong, 2015). So a presence in the social media becomes a must for the tourism sectors. In India big of small venture in this sector has accepted this reality and interacts with their customer through this media. A sense of belonging is generated from these virtual communities and that is exploited by the sector to improve the awareness and image of the brands (Hvass and Munar, 2012).

In India most of the business in this sector is not too organised or running on low budget (Mishra et al., 2011). Under that circumstance they find it difficult to go for advertising through the traditional media. There the social media provides a good opportunity to such businesses to go online and promote their businesses through social media (Hudson and Thal, 2013). The activities on the social media are well targeted with much lower cost than the traditional media. On the other hand because of the ease of use the larger organisations also using this platform and that save a considerable time with more impact.

Privacy became one of the important issues in the recent times. So any privacy rules violation can impact the organisations adversely. Like the positive word of mouth on the social media, the negative word of mouth also spread rapidly on this platform (Leung et al., 2013). So it can create damage to the brand fast in the short run. The necessity of the social media in Indian tourism sector is accepted but a proper dedicated approach can only make this process a success. The spammer or some ill intendment mind can easily spread negative message about any tourism company or brand over the online social media and can cause great damage to the brand (Luo and Zhong, 2015). Presence in the social network needs constant update from the tourism brand which could be demanding sometime (Sigala et al., 2012).  The attention span of the consumer over this platform is very short so developing right content with fast attention seeking power becomes the challenges sometime (Fotis et al., 2012). Because of the huge interconnectedness, now the customers view lot of information on this platform and there the information overload is a real scenario.

The literature review shows the advantageous and disadvantageous aspect of the social media. It also provided the information of the growing acceptance of the social median in the tourism industry. But there is a need of the impact measurement of the advantage and disadvantages.  Considering this the research would focus on the following questions.

Research Questions/Hypothesis

How much impact does theses advantageous and disadvantageous factors makes on the consumer decision making in the tourism industry?

The current research is on the advantage and disadvantage of use of social media on the Indian tourism industry. Considering this the positivism philosophy is found to be most appropriate for the research. This philosophy is based on the actual observation and measurement to gather the factual knowledge (Cooper et al., 2006). The researcher only plays the role of data collector and the interpretation of those data is done through objective methods.

Considering the positivism approach of the research the deductive approach is found to be most suitable for this current research (Bryman and Bell, 2015). The deductive approach of research is based on the existing theory. The literature review would produce that theoretical background. The impact of the social media’s advantageous and disadvantageous factor on the Indian tourism industry is the subject of the research. Here the deductive approach of research would analysis the impact of those factor on the customer perception and decision making process by consulting the literature. 

The research would use the qualitative and quantitative method to reach to its conclusion. The different positive and negative factors of social media in the Indian tourism industry would be analysed to understand the impact on the consumer perception about tourism brands. On the other hand how those things would influence different consumer decision making factors would also be analysed (Cooper et al., 2006). The qualitative and quantitative method in this regard would prove wide range of information to provide appreciate recommendation.  

The non numerical information would be gathered in the research through the qualitative research (Bryman and Bell, 2015). This approach would be useful in the research to have the general trend and opinion of the tourism industry in India regarding the social median use and its advantage and disadvantage.

The main research strategy for the qualitative research would be the interview process. Here the information gather from the industry experts would be useful for the trend and opinion determination (Zikmund et al., 2013). Here managers or the owners of different tour operating businesses would be interviewed for this process.

The selection process of the managers or the owners of the tour operator would be done through the non probabilistic methods (Hair, 2007). That means they would be specifically selected according to the convenience of the research.

For the current research six managers or owners of the tour operator would be appropriate.

Research Philosophy

In this part of the research the numeric data would be required. From the qualitative research the general opinion and trend regarding use of social media in the Indian tourism industry would be understood (Zikmund et al., 2013). For the further specific understanding about the level of impact of those positive and negative factors the objective statistical quantifiable data is required.

In the quantitative part of the research the survey questionnaire would be used. In the survey questionnaire closed ended questions would be asked to gather the data which would be later analysed to produce quantifiable observations (Hair, 2007). The customer of this industry would asked these questions to develop the understanding about the level of impact of these positive and negative aspect of the social media use in the Indian tourism industry. The data would also be used to produce the insights about the impact it has in the consumer decision making process.

In this part the customer of the tourism industry would be surveyed. The selection of the customer would be done through the probabilistic sampling method (Hair, 2015). That means the selection would be based on the random process.

For the current research 80 consumer survey would be done. This size of sample would be useful for the development of the correct insights for the research.

In the research the secondary as well as the primary method of data collection would be used. The secondary data are those which are already in existence. The sources like the books, journals, research articles, govt records which are relevant in this research would be used as the secondary sources of information (Saunders, 2011). On the other hand the primary sources of information would be the interview and survey information. These are the new sources of information. For the process of interview the questionnaire would be semi structured where some open ended and some closed ended questions would be there. This would help the research to find out the actual opinion and trend in the Indian tourism industry regarding the use of social median.  

The collected data from the qualitative interview method would be analysed through the objective analysis. Here the patterns would be indentified from the replies of the managers or owner of the tour operator business (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). The data gathered through the questionnaire would be analysed through the statistical approach.

The main limitation of the research would be the time factor. Completing the research within the time period would be a difficult task (Saunders, 2011). On the other hand the budget of the research is also another constrain for the research.

Research Approach

The project introduction is important as the starting approach of this process needs to be correct and that is why this process is given 1 week time period. For the project scope, purpose and objective analysis next week is dedicated and along with this process the relevant secondary data would also be collected within this time period (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). Next week will be dedicated for the literature review as this will form the base for the research. Within in the literature review period the appropriate methodology for the research would also be decided. Primary data collection would be laborious process and there minimum 1 week would be required (Hair, 2015). After that nest two week would used for the data analysis and conclusion and recommendation development.

Criteria	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
Introduction
Defining project objectives, scope and purpose
For collecting the secondary type of data.
For conducting review of the Literature
Contemplating and developing appropriate Methodology for the research.
Completing  primary data collection
For the completion of data analysis of the  primary data
For the development of the conclusion and recommendation

Conclusion

In recent time the business especially in the tourism industry are developing strategies for the social media purpose (Leung et al., 2013). The use of social media in this sector has increased. Many businesses have learned the right approach which is able to balance the advantage and disadvantage of this process. An actual impact analysis of these advantages and disadvantages on the perception of the customer and hence on their purchase decision making process in the Indian tourism industry, would helps to provide effective recommendations to the business for their social media strategy.

Reference List

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Bryman, A., and Bell, E. (2015). Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Cooper, D. R., Schindler, P. S., and Sun, J. (2006). Business research methods(Vol. 9). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Fotis, J., Buhalis, D., and Rossides, N. (2012). Social media use and impact during the holiday travel planning process (pp. 13-24). Springer-Verlag.

Hair, J. F. (2007). Research methods for business.

Hair, J. F. (2015). Essentials of business research methods. ME Sharpe.

Hudson, S., and Thal, K. (2013). The impact of social media on the consumer decision process: Implications for tourism marketing. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 156-160.

Hvass, K. A., and Munar, A. M. (2012). The takeoff of social media in tourism. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 18(2), 93-103.

Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H., and Buhalis, D. (2013). Social media in tourism and hospitality: A literature review. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 3-22.

Luo, Q. and Zhong, D., (2015). Using social network analysis to explain communication characteristics of travel-related electronic word-of-mouth on social networking sites. Tourism Management, 46, pp.274-282.

Mishra, P. K., Rout, H. B., and Mohapatra, S. S. (2011). Causality between tourism and economic growth: Empirical evidence from India. European Journal of Social Sciences, 18(4), 518-527.

Saunders, M. N. (2011). Research methods for business students, 5/e. Pearson Education India.

Sekaran, U., and Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Sigala, M., Christou, E., and Gretzel, U. (Eds.). (2012). Social media in travel, tourism and hospitality: Theory, practice and cases. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd..

Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., and Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods. Cengage Learning.

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