Exploring the Influence of Instagram on Travel Destination Choice

Abstract

The emergence of social media has brought great changes to the tourism industry. Various such platforms have become an almost inevitable tool in all phases of travel, including organization of travel, during travel, and post-travel. Given the growing popularity and widespread use of social networks, their influence on users is becoming the focus of many studies. Since Instagram is one of the most widely used social media, the main goal of this research was to find out how much it affects the choice of travel destination. To achieve that, a survey was conducted among 853 participants. The target group included people between 18 and 54 years of age, who are the most frequent users of Instagram. The findings showed that Instagram is an important source of information and inspiration in the destination selection process. In addition, it has been found that travel-related content is one of the most followed on Instagram and that it definitely increases the interest of users to visit certain destinations. The paper also discusses the influence of Instagram on the choice of travel destination depending on certain sociodemographic characteristics of respondents.

Citation