Social media usage behaviours of religious tourists: The cases of the Vatican, Mecca, and Jerusalem

CABER M., Drori N., ALBAYRAK T., Herstein R.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, cilt.23, ss.816-831, 2021 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 23
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1002/jtr.2444
  • Dergi Adı: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, ABI/INFORM, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, CAB Abstracts, Geobase, Hospitality & Tourism Complete, Hospitality & Tourism Index, Index Islamicus, Psycinfo, Veterinary Science Database
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.816-831
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: motivation, religious tourism, social media, social network sites
  • Akdeniz Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The study examines social media (SM) usage preferences of religious tourists, their motivations for sharing travel experiences on SM, and the motivational differences by demographics and SM usage characteristics. Employing three field studies in the Vatican, Mecca, and Jerusalem, we show that instant messaging applications were the most popular SM platforms for all religious groups. In addition, motivation for experience sharing on SM differed by age, visit frequency to destination, religiosity level, and SM usage experience. Although there were significant differences between the groups in terms of using SM to share their travel experience, 'maintaining social connections & friendships' was identified as the most important motive for all.