Innovation in Tourism Marketing Based on Social Media

: With the rapid development of internet technology, new media has brought significant changes to various industries, especially the tourism industry, which has started utilizing social media platforms to release travel guides and promote products, successfully expanding its marketing domain. Therefore, how to effectively conduct tourism marketing through social media and provide personalized and accurate services has become an ongoing and in-depth topic for the tourism industry to explore. As a result, innovation in tourism marketing under the development of social media must actively rely on new communication methods and the application of new technologies to achieve effective market positioning, enhance the precision of tourism marketing, and ensure that the tourism industry keeps up with the trends of the times. Based on this, the article starts with the concepts of social media and tourism marketing, analyzes the characteristics of tourism marketing, explores the influence of social media on tourism marketing, and proposes innovative strategies for tourism marketing under the context of social media, aiming to promote the continuous and healthy development of the tourism industry. In the new era, social media provides new opportunities for the further development of the tourism industry, promotes the improvement of the service level in the tourism industry, and becomes one of the important tools to achieve different business objectives. Therefore, tourism marketing should consider social media as a key touchpoint, making it an indispensable reference tool for consumers. Through social media, tourism products and advantages are presented to consumers in a multi-dimensional manner. At the same time, relying on real-time interaction with consumers enhances the brand effect of tourism and brings positive impact to potential customers. To ensure the continuous improvement of the competitiveness of the tourism industry, it is necessary to seize the new opportunities brought by new media to the tourism industry, actively expand the marketing channels of tourism through social media, innovate marketing methods, and broaden the tourism market. It can be seen that the exploration of innovative strategies for tourism marketing under the context of social media is necessary and of practical significance.

images, as well as browse content posted by other users, engage in actions like following, private messaging, liking, and commenting.The main types of social media include social networking sites, microblogs, blogs, messaging apps, and platforms like TikTok.

Tourism Marketing
Tourism marketing involves analyzing the specific needs of the target tourism market, identifying personalized consumer demands, designing corresponding products, and adding diversified services.It encompasses activities such as personnel promotion, advertising, product packaging, brand management, and communication to establish a tourism image.Different methods include tourism brand marketing, interactive marketing, online marketing, and experiential marketing.[1]

Tourism Market
The tourism market refers to the buyers of a specific tourism product in a certain period, region, or area.It includes both actual purchasers and consumers with potential demands.In other words, it encompasses the economic relationship between the supply and demand sides of tourism products and services, with a strong seasonal nature.[2] It is gradually integrating with the internet, creating a "tourism + internet" marketing model.Particularly, the use of social media is significantly enhancing the quality of travel experiences.

Service-Oriented
The tourism industry has always centered around the needs of travelers, providing diverse services tailored to specific situations and locations to satisfy different demands.Therefore, it possesses a strong service-oriented nature.Tourism businesses utilize social media to collect actual traveler needs and engage in interactions to ensure targeted tourism services, expanding economic benefits.[3]

Interactivity
In the process of social media marketing, social networks exhibit strong interactivity.Tourism marketing entities can utilize various channels such as tourism websites, mobile apps, and social platforms to disseminate travel-related information and engage in real-time interactions with travelers.This helps travelers make product and service selections based on their needs.Tourism marketing also identifies traveler needs through social media and actively participates in itinerary planning, adjusting travel plans through interactions, highlighting the interactivity of tourism marketing under social media.[4]

Data-Driven
The integration and innovation of social media and tourism marketing are characterized by datadriven and localization features.Travelers obtain tourism information from tourism websites, social platforms, and apps, gaining insights into local tourism conditions.They create discussion topics to address their own queries.In these discussions, social media users register accounts, forming registration information that facilitates data collection and analysis by tourism businesses.This enables the identification of different user needs and clear market positioning, ensuring focused targeting.Under the data-driven aspect, tourism businesses better design products, formulate comprehensive marketing strategies, and provide users with services featuring digitization, comprehensiveness, and intelligence.

Mobile Integration
Based on the use of mobile terminals, travelers prefer using mobile apps to select and book travel products and services.They also share travel experiences through social media.In the new era, the integration of social media and tourism marketing presents mobile integration, offering convenient and real-time services to travelers through social media.[5]

Positive Impact on Tourism Marketing
With the advancement of information technology, tourism has been able to satisfy new spiritual and cultural pursuits, leading to rapid growth in the tourism industry.Simultaneously, the prevalence of new media has led to the integration of social media and tourism marketing, allowing travelers to access tourism information and share their experiences through social media.In this context, social media has a positive impact on tourism marketing.
Firstly, it affects travelers' desire to travel.Traditional tourism marketing often involves showcasing elements such as local cuisine, attractions, accommodations, transportation, and shopping through website push notifications.Users usually passively receive this information, leading to monotony and lack of interest.Social media allows travelers to document their past routes and share familiar travel destinations.This resonance encourages active sharing and commenting, stimulating potential users' desire to travel and enhancing their willingness to purchase.
Secondly, it influences tourism destinations.Social media innovates tourism marketing approaches, using social apps and multimedia formats like images, music, videos, and effects to share various content related to travel destinations.This generates user interest and effectively stimulates their desire to travel.Advertisements through social media allow users to understand destination features, infrastructure development, brand images, and iconic attractions, thereby promoting regional tourism economic development.
Lastly, it affects the marketing capability of local residents.In innovative tourism marketing, local residents use social media to share travel guides, showcasing authentic local characteristics through photos, videos, and music to attract potential travelers.Additionally, residents use social media to learn about different cultural aspects, contributing to tourism culture preservation and promotion, thereby making tourism marketing more flexible and diverse.

Negative Impact on Tourism Marketing
In the process of innovation in tourism marketing through social media, negative effects can also emerge.Firstly, some tourism marketing attempts to elevate the expectations of potential users by enhancing images and videos through beautification, which can lead to a gap between the visual representation and the actual travel destination.This can result in a psychological disparity and reduce travelers' satisfaction with their experience.Secondly, excessive emphasis on tourism benefits can lead to premature promotion of unfinished tourist attractions.When tourists arrive at the destination and find incomplete infrastructure, it can negatively affect their satisfaction and willingness to explore, hindering innovative tourism marketing.Thirdly, while social media-enabled tourism marketing satisfies users' needs for communication and real-time reviews, it can lead to negative consequences by encouraging excessive tourism, thereby impeding the development of the tourism industry.

Advantages of Tourism Marketing
Firstly, quantity advantage: The number of social media users continues to grow rapidly, especially the number of active users on platforms like Xiaohongshu and TikTok, which become key entry points for tourism marketing and consumer decisions.Secondly, low cost: Social media enables users to obtain travel information and engage in communication and interaction through information sharing and video dissemination.Most social media platforms are free to use, allowing for widespread information dissemination and interaction, reducing advertising costs while expanding the marketing impact.Thirdly, comprehensive functionality: Social media marketing in tourism encompasses both wide-scale promotion and one-on-one interactions.Social media apps enable real-time interaction and communication, allowing for product or service discussions, providing comprehensive understanding of tourism products, services, brands, and local conditions, and stimulating travel desires.Furthermore, live streaming and e-commerce through social media enhance exposure and attract target customers, keeping marketing promotion up-to-date.

Disadvantages of Tourism Marketing
Firstly, diverse content quality: The overall quality of content on social media is challenging to control, and promotional content can vary significantly in quality.Travelers tend to prioritize trendy destinations, but the information they receive through social media can be asymmetric and sometimes sensationalized, which directly affects the branding effect and image of the destination.Secondly, unfavorable environment: The construction of new and old media marketing environments is insufficient, leading to a lack of innovation and attractiveness in tourism marketing.Similarities in marketing methods and content result in uniformity and repetitiveness in advertisement content, affecting travelers' immediate perceptions.Thirdly, low efficiency: Some tourism marketing environments fail to communicate promptly with travelers.While they can push tourism products and services, they might not respond promptly or collect traveler information, resulting in user attrition.

Precision Marketing Technology
Traditional tourism websites often lack comprehensive visitor information due to technological limitations, leading to inadequate analysis of traveler behavior.In the new era, tourism social media marketing technologies have advanced location capabilities, such as demographic and technical positioning, allowing for precise targeting of different user behaviors.User-oriented marketing and precision marketing technologies have wide applications, assisting tourism marketing entities in utilizing positioning and data analysis technologies for precise marketing.Tourism marketing achieves positioning and precision marketing based on tourists' consumption preferences, travel intentions, timing, and economic capacity.

Tracking and Evaluation Technology
In online marketing, input and output can be accurately calculated and comprehensively measured, compensating for the limitations of offline marketing evaluation.Through advanced tracking and evaluation technologies, websites collect various data for marketing analysis, such as browsing figures, first-time and repeat visits, content viewed, pages visited, time spent, and visit frequency.These data are cross-referenced to facilitate targeted tourism marketing, expand marketing benefits, and provide decision-making bases for marketing, product promotion, brand shaping, and advertising through a data + algorithm approach.

Wireless Marketing Technology
"Internet + tourism" and "tourism +" have become new concepts in tourism marketing under social media.Wireless marketing technologies can establish a model of connection + experience + wordof-mouth through smart tourism platforms and mobile internet, thus innovating tourism marketing approaches.Users can use digital media such as smartphones, computers, and tablets to learn about exciting, interesting, and attractive products and services at tourism destinations.This not only engages users but also interacts with them, facilitating real-time communication between tourism marketing entities and travelers through instant information technology.

Online Community Marketing
Online community marketing includes electronic bulletin boards, chat rooms, instant notifications, emails, etc., enabling travelers to access travel-related information, publish travel notes, invite friends to travel together, and seek assistance, providing support for tourism marketing.Some online community marketing services also offer experiential testing and writing of travel reviews, bridging online and offline O2O flow paths, and boosting tourism marketing.

WeChat and Weibo Marketing
Weibo has always been a key media platform, characterized by its informative and interactive nature, as well as its autonomy.Tourism marketing entities can use Weibo operations to disseminate travel information and implement multi-level precision marketing through evaluation mechanisms.As of March 2023, Weibo has an average daily active user count of 255 million, with 593 million monthly active users, and 95% of users are on mobile devices.In tourism marketing, Weibo trending topics, Weibo proxy operations, and matrix-style propagation are used to disseminate travel and brand information.Brand information can fill in basic brand information, build brand reputation, and create IP personas, making social media tourism marketing more comprehensive and innovative.WeChat marketing involves information transmission through features like Video Accounts, Search, Official Accounts, and community promotion.Tourism information can also be promoted in WeChat Moments, enabling multi-channel comprehensive tourism marketing.

Online Video Marketing
With the application of digital technology, online video marketing has opened up new avenues for tourism marketing, uploading real-time video images of tourist destinations and surrounding environments to the internet.Coordination between print media, online media, and visual media supports social media tourism marketing.This marketing method combines H5 technology, online shopping, mini programs, and official websites to achieve tourism marketing goals through compelling, interactive, cost-effective, and content-rich formats.Platforms like Xiaohongshu, Zhihu, Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishou publish text and images, while users watch various short videos, enhancing tourism brand visibility.

Virtual Experience Marketing
Tourism marketing employs technologies like VR and AR to achieve virtual experience marketing, particularly in showcasing tourism landscapes in three-dimensional and virtual ways.This stimulates tourists' auditory and visual senses, providing clear practical travel information and making tourism consumption more flexible to meet travelers' pursuit of happiness.

Harnessing Creative Innovation to Unearth Marketing Resources
In the new era, innovative social media marketing in the tourism industry should focus on creative approaches and resource exploration.Travel agencies and related businesses should embark on the following key areas: Resource Optimization and Brand Reshaping: Travel agencies and related organizations should prioritize the exploration of ethnic and cultural tourism resources, including those with untapped development potential and real-life experiences.They should conduct in-depth research on existing ethnic cultural resources, optimize the current tourism assets, and utilize creative means such as videos and virtual experiences for marketing.
Emphasize Depth and Incorporate Care: In the realm of creativity and marketing, travel agencies and related industries should identify the right entry points for theme refinement.This approach will infuse tourism marketing with depth, systematicity, and high-quality attributes.Special attention should be given to the marketing of tourism products, settings, and environments, ensuring that they embody cultural elements to underscore cultural tourism care and satisfaction.
Skillfully Utilize Competition and Expand Customer Base: Travel agencies and related sectors should use flexible thinking to innovate tourism marketing.They can integrate traditional marketing with various methods from social media, and enhance the impact of their tourism brand through website development and community marketing on the internet.This will help attract more customers, stimulate urban economic prosperity, and achieve the fusion of economy and culture.

Embrace a Fresh Operational Philosophy and Prioritize Media Marketing
In social media marketing for the tourism industry, travel agencies or related entities should prioritize content as the core and deliver high-quality travel content.They can utilize video marketing on platforms such as WeChat Official Accounts, Toutiao Accounts, Douyin Accounts, Kuaishou Accounts, and Xiaohongshu, showcasing travel products and the surrounding environment through a combination of text, images, and short videos.Popular platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu can be leveraged to drive tourism marketing.In the specific marketing process, various innovative models such as "Internet + Tourism," "Internet + Media," and "Internet + Transportation and Tourism" should be employed, with an emphasis on achieving intelligent marketing through 5G technology.Tourism marketing entities can also use social media for travel narratives, narrating travel stories in vivid colloquial language and utilizing H5 technology and short videos to depict geographical landscapes and regional culture.Within social media, travelers can access diverse information, including dining, accommodation, tourist attractions, transportation, shopping, and entertainment, allowing them to watch food videos, read life insights, and browse travel tips for a more enriching travel experience.

Utilizing Social Media to Achieve Development Goals
The application of social media in tourism marketing is diverse and personalized, optimizing and improving tourism marketing platforms.Tourism marketing entities should pay attention to leveraging technologies like AR, VR, and artificial intelligence to attract travelers.The use of social media should revolve around customer interaction, advertising, brand shaping, and transaction facilitation to create a top-tier social media tourism marketing model.

Conclusion
In the process of tourism industry development, tourism marketing methods have evolved into being networked and diversified.Traditional text and audio marketing models no longer meet the ever-changing needs of consumers.Various methods, such as personalized websites and apps, should be utilized for tourism marketing.The emergence and application of social media have become new channels for tourism marketing.Platforms like WeChat, Weibo, Kuaishou, and Douyin can effectively promote events and advertisements, attract different consumer groups, increase exposure for tourism products and services, and successfully build tourism brands.In the new development environment, tourism marketing needs to be approached from multiple angles, using various methods to achieve effective marketing.The use of social media should be flexible to enhance brand visibility, conversion rates, and engagement, pushing the level of tourism marketing to new heights.