THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN PROMOTING TOURISM IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA FROM INTERNAL TOURISTS' PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is paying considerable attention to social media platforms to promote its tourism programmes and enhance the competitiveness of its tourism destinations, especially since the concept of tourism has become more active recently in the Kingdom as a result of the directives of Vision 2030. Therefore, this research describes the roles that social media platforms play in promoting tourism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from the perspective of domestic tourists. The study follows a quantitative research approach. Tourism content published on social media on five specific accounts that fall into three different classifications on the Twitter and Instagram platforms are analysed. A total of 596 social media posts were subjected to content analysis and the data were analysed using SPSS. The study concluded that the role of social media as a tourism guide for domestic tourists and the prominent role of social media in delivering tourism advertising to the target audience is increasing due to several attributes that distinguish these platforms. The findings also confirm the key role of social media in establishing the brands of destinations and embedding these brands in the domestic tourists' mindset by providing them with continuous tourism information. This research is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia. There has not previously been a study exploring the role that social media plays in promoting domestic tourism by understanding the strategies adopted to attract domestic tourists in Saudi Arabia. Tourism promotion practitioners can use the findings to better understand the importance of social media in this industry in order to develop successful tourism promotional campaigns in future. In addition to the academic contribution of the findings, several recommendations were also suggested for researchers to adopt in future.