Social Media and Destination Branding:

How Mediterranean Tourism Destinations use Facebook

Paper presented in Academy of Marketing Conference, Liverpool, UK, 5-7 July, 2011

Evgeniya Chernysheva
Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece

George Skourtis
University of Piraeus, Greece

Ioannis Assiouras
Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Michalis Koniordos
Technological Education Institute of Piraeus, Greece

Abstract

This paper aims to provide insights regarding brand building elements in tourism destination
management through Facebook groups and pages. The question thus rises if and how the
groups and pages related to tourism maximize their utility as marketing tools. A total of 370
related to tourism groups and pages were found in Facebook which correspond to 23
Mediterranean countries. The findings of the study underscore the wide diversity of groups in
range of videos, photos, members for each country. The results suggest that only Greece,
Cyprus, Spain Portugal and Malta had a link for social network in their official website, in
order to promote their national brands. The rest of the countries (18) didn‟t maximize the
utility of Facebook as an important marketing tool. Implications of the findings are discussed
and directions for future research are provided.

Keywords: Social Media, Facebook, Destination Branding

Track: Tourism Marketing

1. Introduction
There are numerous indications in the marketplace that managers are concerned about the role
of social media in marketing and branding. This is particularly important as the social media
and especially Facebook have gained millions of users around the world. A number of issues
have emerged, such as: how marketing managers can use social media for promotional and
other marketing activities. Clarifying these issues is critical from both theoretical and
managerial point of view. This article fills the gap of empirical research on Facebook and
destination branding by examining how the Mediterranean destinations use Facebook and
how its users create and manage Mediterranean destinations Facebook groups.

2. Literature Review
2.1Social media
Social media can be defined as websites which are built on Web 2.0 technologies in order to
provide space for in-depth social interaction, community formation, and the tackling of
collaborative projects (Bruns and Bahnisch, 2009). It is definitely an activity that is based on
the notion of influence. Social media can be used to gather valuable information about how a
product, service or brand is perceived in the marketplace. The basic application of these
media is a consideration phase tool that connects post-purchase experiences with potential
customers progressing from awareness to purchase (Evans, 2008).

2.2 Destination Branding

Aaker (1991, p. 7) defines brand as “..distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a logo,
trademark, or package design) intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or
a group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods from those of competitors”. Morgan et al.
(2002, p. 335) identify branding as „the most powerful marketing weapon available to
contemporary destination marketers‟ due to “increasing product parity, substitutability and
competition”. A branding strategy is developed for „„encouraging awareness and establishing
perceptions of quality and favorable associations‟‟ (Henderson, 2000, p. 37). These
associations should be unique and because all the successful branding programs are based on
the concept of singularity. Generally, the objective of branding strategy is to create the
perception that there is no other product in the market with those attributes. Thus,
differentiation through branding lies at the very heart of the marketing concept.
Even though, there is not a generally accepted definition of destination branding Blain et al.
(2005, p. 337) proposed that “Destination branding is the set of marketing activities that (1)
support the creation of a name, symbol, logo, word mark or other graphic that readily
identifies and differentiates a destination; that (2) consistently convey the expectation of a
memorable travel experience that is uniquely associated with the destination; that (3) serve to
consolidate and reinforce the emotional connection between the visitor and the destination;
and that (4) reduce consumer search costs and perceived risk. Collectively, these activities
serve to create a destination image that positively influences consumer destination choice”.
The brand and image of a destination is very important because destinations with a positive
and clear image enjoy stronger market positioning than those without (Cai, 2002). In branding
destination literature, numerous studies documented that a consumer‟s choice for a destination
is significantly linked with destination‟s image or brand. Considering all above, it is obvious
that destination image has become one of the dominant areas in the tourism research field.
Nevertheless, nowadays the building of destination brand and image is revolutionized because
of the communication power of social media. In a social media world the Destination
Management Organizations (DMO) lose large part of their controllability on branding
procedure while social media users generate most of the branding content such as videos and
photos.

2.3 Facebook and brand tourism destinations

Social media are deeply embedded in the lives of their users as they manage a wide range of
social activities (Bruns and Bahnisch, 2009). Numerous studies show that Facebook is the
sixth most trafficked website in the United States (Abram, 2007), as a million new users
establish accounts each week (Levy, 2007). Users can create profiles that describe various
attributes about themselves such as their hometown, birthday, preferred activities, etc (Tong
Heide and Langwell, 2008). They can expand their social networks by requesting another
person‟s friendship. In line with this, Newton (1999) defines that through Facebook, users
may learn that their contacts possess attributes that make them less attractive, which may lead
to mistrust. Therefore, the more we know about others, the more we may trust or distrust them
(Valenzuela et al., 2003). Consequently, it is expected that social trust and Facebook use may
have a reciprocal relationship (Valenzuela, Park and Kee, 2009).

3. Methodology
In order to estimate if and how the national brand of each country is being spread through
social media, a research has been made. In line with previous research in the field of
marketing through Facebook groups made by Xia (2009) for the library services, we follow a
similar research procedure. The first analysis was made on the content of the groups/pages,
whereas the second examines the link of social media to official websites. For the previously
mentioned purpose 23 Mediterranean countries (Table 1) were selected. Each of them was
chosen based on the geographical allocation of the country in the Mediterranean. That can
guarantee the availability of adequate data and appropriate Facebook discussion on the groups
which were created. Only users which have a Facebook account are allowed to view global
groups and pages. In this case, the authors carried out the research by using their personal
connection to log into their profile for data collection. Inside Facebook, using as a generic
word the name of the country, the result returned all the groups related to the keyword. Upon
careful examination, several groups where not taken into consideration, as they were not
related to tourism promotion of the counties. Each Facebook group, regardless of the creators
being official tourism body or simply a social network user, was visited.
Afterwards, all posts were read and several points of information where recorded. A main
problem in the data collection was that the number of members, photos and videos was
constantly changing. Therefore it was difficult to analyze the status of each group. Particular
attention was paid to groups with a large amount of members because this shows the elements
which attracted Facebook users. While submitting the results of the research, many groups
where passed by. Only those who had more than 1,000 supporters where recorded. After
entering each page individually specific variables where identified, such as the name of the
page, category, number of members, photos and videos. The collected variables were placed
in a table so they could be analyzed. A comparison with external sites has also been made.
Official websites of the 23 Mediterranean countries have been found. After describing the
general impression of the site, the next step was to determine whether there were links that
refer to Facebook. The survey was carried out from the 25th of June 2010 till the 10th of
August 2010.
Table 1: Facebook Groups of Mediterranean Countries

COUNTRY NUMBER OF RANGE OF RANGE OF RANGE OF

GROUPS/ PAGES MEMBERS PHOTOS VIDEOS
1. Albania 19 1,002 - 81,895 0 – 5.000 0 – 22
2. Algeria 20 1,027 - 23,749 0 - 2,625 0 – 285
3. Cyprus 12 1,106 - 24,298 0-456 0-13
4. Croatia 24 1,043 - 76,613 0 - 1,466 0 – 14
5.Egypt 23 1,308 - 515,696 0 - 4,114 0 - 78
6. France 23 1,098 - 65,896 0 – 746 0 – 38
7. Greece 13 1.106 – 239,154 0-2.500 0-35
8. Israel 12 1,335 - 91,772 0 – 3.345 0-26
9. Italy 30 1,063 - 320,616 0 - 9,592 0 – 163
10. Jordan 13 1,583 - 26,656 3 – 237 0–4
11. Lebanon 31 1,110 - 76,377 0 - 2,454 0 – 41
12. Libya 7 1,200 - 3,843 0 – 634 0–9
13. Malta 10 1,665 - 31,850 1 - 1,696 0 – 33
14. Monaco 8 1,672 - 11,779 0 – 700 0 – 16
15. Montenegro 19 1,008 - 153,806 3 - 1,256 0–9
16. Morocco 3 1,714 - 4,155 115 – 196 0
17. Palestine 20 1,654 - 117,370 1 – 686 0 – 58
18. Portugal 23 1,062 - 90,870 1 - 2,959 0 - 21
19. Slovenia 13 1,152 - 32,268 12 – 683 0 - 26
20. Spain 9 1,086 - 185,505 0-707 0-4
21. Syria 17 1,176 - 27,886 4 – 822 0 – 23
22. Tunisia 10 1,300 - 367,808 0 – 979 0 – 335
23. Turkey 11 1.128 – 10.225 0- 432 0-32

4. Findings
Facebook groups of the 23 Mediterranean countries, which are related to tourism, have been
organized in a table of five columns. A total of 370 related groups and pages were found in
Facebook. Most of the groups/pages attracted a big amount of members. Albania had the
smallest group which contained 1.002 members. It has been noted that Algeria and Tunisia
had a big range of videos in their groups and pages. By examining the range of videos, it was
found that most Facebook Groups suffer from the lack of videos despite the great amount of
groups and pages of each Mediterranean country. That may occur because the creators of the
Facebook groups/pages do not promote strongly the official videos for each country. Tunisia
and Algeria where found to have the majority of videos in their groups/pages, having 335 and
285 videos respectively. This constitutes the first finding in this research.
The highest rate of visitors belongs to Egypt and possesses about 515.616,00 of members as
opposed to the smallest group that has 1.002 members and belongs to Albania. It was
observed that some groups did actually gain ground and kept a relatively healthy operation.
The group with the biggest range of photos was “Discover Albania” of Albania, having 5.000
photos. Many groups were found to have zero photos.

5. Discussion and Conclusion

This paper is the first that examines the brand building elements of tourism destinations
through the social network of Facebook. The results provide evidence that Spain has the
unique attribute to posses the group with the biggest number of members, which is being
promoted via the official website of the country. The general finding is that only Greece,
Cyprus, Spain Portugal and Malta had a link for social network in their official website, in
order to promote their national brands. The rest of the countries (18) didn‟t have a link to
Facebook in their official sites.
A key take-away from this paper is that the groups-pages which had the biggest range of
members were from unofficial users versus to the official websites of the Mediterranean
countries, which only few had been created from professionals marketers. Based on this
statement, Egypt and Tunisia had 515.696 and 367.808 members respectively in their
unofficial Facebook groups-pages, while the government agencies didn‟t provide social
networks with such groups. One explanation is that Facebook has not yet been treated as a
major marketing tool. Another plausible explanation is that social networking is still a new
term and only a few marketing acts have already given results. Our findings suggest also that
the low photos and videos range does not automatically imply the low range of members.
Based on this result we observed that the participation of members in each group is not related
to videos and photos, something that establishes other parameters which attract the attention
and participation of the Internet users, i.e. the topics of discussion and the information
available on the tourism destinations.
The most general managerial implication arising from this study is that Facebook should be
taken more seriously into consideration, as an important marketing tool because it has an
enormous impact on decision making process on the behalf of tourists. Social media
marketing is a cheap alternative to traditional marketing with high returns (Weinberg, 2009).
Participation and transparency are central to success in Facebook groups and pages. This can
be detected from the various conversations and the number of members. Furthermore,
marketers need to know how to optimize the effectiveness of Facebook in order to achieve
bigger participation from the users. This means that the creator has to plan carefully the
construction of the Facebook page, regarding on the target group and goals of each
Mediterranean country. Social media marketing facilitates natural discovery of new content,
boosts traffic numbers and builds strong relationships (Weinberg, 2009). The attributes of
promotion differ by the medium of promotion (Eastman S., Ferguson D., Klein R. 2006).
Instead of enlarging audience size, some messages have more subtle goals, such as raising
awareness or building trust. It may be difficult to isolate one target group for a promotional
campaign, or social conditions may change without time to alter video or promotional
messages (natural disasters, scandals). The present findings suggest that attention should be
paid on the video and photo content as they promote specific features of each destination
brand. Attention should be also given to the topics of discussion in the “Walls”, so that
marketers could focus on the concrete elements which reinvigorate the users‟ interest. Besides
all mentioned above, the referred subjects have to agree with the content of the official site of
the countries.
6. Limitations and Scope of Future Research
The most significant limitation encountered in this study relates to the method of the research.
In this case the research was limited only on the Mediterranean geographical area. Another
limitation is that in order to have access to the groups, a Facebook account is required. Future
research using a bigger sample of countries and emphasize more on the elements which
motivate users to participate in the Facebook context. Non-observational measurement could
be useful to corroborate our results.

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