Social Media in Chinese Tourism Industry: The Use of Weibo by Tourist Sites in China

Abstract

The wide spread of social media usage has become an important social phenomenon in recent years. In the tourism industry, the use of social media has shaped the way people travel tremendously. It provides both opportunities and challenges to tourist sites that adopt or intend to adopt social media to their marketing strategies. This report determines in which way tourist sites can use social media, more specifically Weibo (Chinese microblog), as a marketing tool for promotion in China. By using the research methods of content analysis and email interview, the top ten most influential accounts of 5A scenic areas on Weibo are studied. Moreover, this report briefly outlines China’s unique condition of social media and at the same time, explores and evaluates the social media strategies that are used by those top ten tourist site.