The effect of social media on tourism destination marketing: A media-synchronicity-theory based exploration

Nowadays social media are increasingly used in tourism destination marketing. In this paper, we first analyze the distinctive features of social media, i.e., Sociability, Mobility, and Purposiveness. Based on Media synchronicity theory (MST), we then redefine the marketing as a series of communication processes, and elaborate the features of social media on supporting their synchronicity with tourism destination marketing. The main objectives of this study is to explore the effects of social median on tourism destination marketing, and the study entails important theoretical and practical contributions to enhance our understanding of why social media are used in tourism destination marketing, as well as when and how they should be used.