Tourism Marketing in Facebook: Comparing Rural Tourism SME’s and Larger Tourism Companies in Finland

This exploratory study compares the use of Facebook of rural tourism SME’s and some larger actors in the field of tourism in Finland to show that there are many differences between small and large tourism companies.

Abstract

Popularity of Facebook as a social media platform is growing. Already more than 500 million people have joined Facebook. Also companies have noticed the possibility of using Facebook as a marketing channel. However, not much is known on how hospitality and tourism businesses should correctly use Facebook for. This exploratory study compares the use of Facebook of rural tourism SME's and some larger actors in the field of tourism in Finland. The results show that there are many differences between small and large tourism companies, as smaller companies have unnecessary pages and a lot less activity than larger companies. However, causal relationships of activities and success are still unknown and more research is needed on the topic of Facebook-marketing in tourism.