Keywords

1 Introduction

Social media (SM) is defined as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” [1]. SM is extremely valuable for marketing and their value is increasing rapidly. On one hand, SM can provide information on what customers prefer and their personal characteristics (demographic and psychographic), information that is critical for developing a marketing strategy [2]. On the other hand, SM can be used to effectively engage customers and create value for customers [3, 4]. Furthermore, sport tourism provides authentic, personal experiences through participation in sport activities or through attendance of sport events [5]. The use of social media in sport tourism helps to disseminate these experiences in communities that actively engage in sport tourism activities. Social media create online communities that serve the increased communication of people with shared interests [6, 7]. As a result, sport tourism businesses have established social media marketing (SMM) as a functional necessity for communicating effectively with customers [8]. Although the use of social media as a marketing tool is increasingly important for service businesses [2], previous research on such use is limited [9]. Also, there is a lack of literature regarding the strategic use of social media by sport tourism businesses [10]. The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of SM as a marketing tool by Greek sport tourism businesses at each stage of the consumer decision making process.

2 Theoretical Background

Social media, or networks, is a concept that derives from the communication field and are essentially internet-based media used by firms to make communication with customers better and easier. The use of SM is increasing globally in a fast pace. SM includes Collaborative Projects such as Wikipedia, Social Networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, Virtual Communities such as Twitter or Tripadvisor, Content Communities such as YouTube and Pinterest, and Virtual Games such as Second Life [11].

SM provides many benefits to businesses such as the creation of well-targeted communication efforts; wide geographical reach of customers; increased perceived service quality and brand loyalty; lower costs; higher sales; faster new product adoption; enhanced and longer relationships with customers [2]. Social media work strategically to create online loyalty relationships in an effort to influence consumer behavior [12]. The strategic use of social media has offered businesses a powerful social media marketing tool by modifying the structure of communication with their audience and establishing a new field in the marketing of goods and services [13]. Falkow [14] claims that modern social media marketing creates a way for businesses to tap into user conversations about their brand, products and services, engage in conversations with consumers, and then use this data to make better business decisions. Various studies stress that social media help companies to communicate more effectively with customers, increase brand awareness, affect customer attitudes, acquire customer feedback, develop more successful products and services and improve sales [15, 16]. Many service businesses use SM as a strategic marketing tool for communication purposes, for managing customer relationships and for developing new services with customers through the integration of user-generated content in the development process [2, 17,18,19,20].

On the other hand, the sport tourism experience is indeed a complex construct involving motivational, emotional, social, environmental, organizational and physical attributes [21,22,23]. Modern tourism experience marketing is based on the personalized satisfaction of customers through the prediction, study, and diagnosis of their consumer behavior [24]. Social media enhances its role as a management tool for an audience that actively participates in the service provided (watch or participate in sporting events). Social media experiential marketing encourages the tourist-consumer to form his/her own opinions about the goods and services being provided to them [10].

According to Fornell et al. [25] the transition from the simple provision of services to the offering of unique experiential experiences is structured in three dimensions with social media adapting its function as an important marketing tool to them. First, the interaction between reliable staff and customers. Second, the physical environment in terms of infrastructure which is very important since Greece has not made significant use of its natural space for the development of sport tourism and lags behind in terms of infrastructure in relation to competition. Third, the satisfaction of customers’ expectations and the effective management of complaints. The immediate response to negative comments in the tourism industry is an important factor for successful social media use since such interaction restores the relationship between business and consumers. Also, Sigala et al. [26] argue that social media have now redefined the participation and role of tourists in the process of production and distribution of tourism value by empowering them to become involuntary and voluntary co-designers, co-advertisers, co-distributors, and co-producers of tourism experiences.

For all these reasons, social media are very important for managing the sport tourism experience. Taking into account that globally in 2023 4.48 billion people use social media, more than double than 2015 (2.07 bil), we can easily understand the power they have into the life of modern individuals [27]. As the penetration and use of SM increases rapidly around the world, firms realize the importance of incorporating social media into their marketing strategy. Although the use of SM as a marketing tool is very important and beneficial for service businesses, there is still limited research on how SM can be used strategically as a marketing tool [2, 20] and on the sport tourism industry specifically [10].

The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategic use of SM as a marketing tool by Greek sport tourism businesses at each stage of the consumer decision making process. Specifically, three stages are analyzed, before the consumption experience, during the consumption experience and after the consumption experience. In doing so, we aim to analyze all the stages of consumer decision making process.

3 Methodology

This study is qualitative in nature. First, we reviewed the literature on Sport Tourism, Social Media, Tourist Consumer Behavior, Social Media Marketing, and all strategic applications of social media in tourist consumer behavior. Second, two pilot interviews were done in order to conceptualize further the questions needed. Pilot interviews were conducted in order to ascertain the content of the semi-structured questionnaire. In total, 20 interviews were conducted with managers of Sport Tourism businesses using a semi-structured questionnaire. The sample was split into two groups, 6 companies that have scientific knowledge of marketing and use it in their strategy (Group A) and 14 firms that treat marketing as a supplementary process that is not very important (Group B). Data was analyzed based on this categorization and using content analysis. Data was collected and analyzed based on three stages of the consumer decision making process using the stages developed by Williams and Buswell [28] and Ayeh et al. [29] to describe tourist consumer behavior. The three stages used include before the experience (Need recognition, Information search and Evaluation of alternatives), during the experience (purchase decision) and after the experience (post purchase behavior).

4 Results and Discussion

Results show that the A Group have a specific marketing strategy that includes the strategic use of social media for segmentation, targeting and positioning. They understand customer motives and use appropriate metrics to measure such motives (e.g. informational motives measured with engagement metrics or self-promotion motives measured with content sharing metrics). Also, they have an integrated presence on social media and target specific communities of sport tourism fans. They perceive that SMM is very useful and strategically aim at its exploitation in all stages of the consumer decision making process. For them, the advantages of social media use include increased brand awareness, effective targeting and positioning, effective communication with customers and development of customer relationships. On the other hand, disadvantages include high costs because of constant advertising in multiple platforms and time spent in responding to bad comments. These findings are in line with previous studies in this specific area [2, 15, 16, 18,19,20], who claim that businesses can benefit from the appropriate and strategic use of social media. Furthermore, group B (14 businesses) have a passive strategy in the market, they wait for customers to come to them. There is no active segmentation, targeting and positioning and they expect the Greek Tourism Organization to do the promotion of sport tourism activities. They consider social media as complimentary to other promotional efforts and do not believe that having a social media strategy is important. The main advantage of social media for them is direct communication with customers. They understand customer motives through their personal experiences and are not familiar with concepts such as storytelling. Also, they use SMM mainly in the information search phase of the consumer decision making process and in the consumption phase but not in the post consumption stage. Brand loyalty is not used strategically since communication with customers does not continue after the consumption experience. Finally it seems that companies don’t invest in employee training in social media use even if various researchers agree that firms should invest further on employee training in the proper use of social media [30]. According to Bonson and Flores [31], important determinants of whether organizations fully utilize social media are the size of the organization and the area of operation. Group B companies are mainly small businesses and this maybe the reason why they adopt a passive strategy and lag in the strategic use of social media.

5 Conclusions-Suggestions for Further Research

Results show that sport tourism businesses benefit from using social media strategically as a marketing tool in all stages of the consumer decision making process and it is important to recruit specialized staff that will handle a social media marketing strategy. Future research can extend the sample, use quantitative methodologies, and research different sport tourism activities or events, or research two types of customers, spectators and participants.