Journal of Organisational Studies and Innovation
Vol. 1, no.2, Autumn, 2014
Social media influence on the holiday decision-making process in the UK
Rajab Ghandour & Rumyana Bakalova
University of West London

Abstract: This study investigated the influence of social media on Generation Y travellers throughout the holiday decision-making process. The researchers examined the use of social media websites before, during and after holiday, evaluated the level of trust in user-generated content and identified how Generation Y shared their holiday experiences on social media.
This study adopted the quantitative/deductive methodology using online questionnaire. The findings suggested that social media platforms were mostly used prior to the holiday as a source of gathering information such as destination, accommodation. However, findings showed although people used social media to search for information, it was less trusted compared to official state tourism websites and word-of-mouth. But the findings showed that social media was also considerably used during the holiday only as medium for posting photos and searching for local entertainment. On the other hand, the results showed that there is a trend of changes toward social media as a source of travel information which indicated respondents’  illingness to use social media for their travel in near future. 

Keywords: Social media, holiday decision making process, generation Y, word of mouth, electronic word of mouth, UK.