Marketing of Tourism Products through the Russian Social Media Channel VKontakte

Abstract

Nowadays, social media influences tourists in their decision making process and plays an important role in the digital marketing strategy of tourism service providers. The purpose of this study is to examine the presence of tourism businesses in the most popular social media channel in Russia – VKontakte (VK). The data consist of Finnish and Russian groups devoted to tourism in VK: 10,000 Finnish groups and 5,000 Russian groups were found and the 12 most popular out of each group were chosen for the analysis. The findings show that VK is widely used by Finnish and Russian tourism firms, but there is still potential for more effective implementation of the channel. The group discussions on the most popular topics can provide firms with useful knowledge for planning their digital strategies for the Russian market.

Citation

Miettinen, E. (2016), "Marketing of Tourism Products through the Russian Social Media Channel VKontakte", Tourism and Hospitality Management (Advances in Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 61-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1871-317320160000012006