The Impact of Social Media Usage on Customer Decision Making-Process in Holiday Travel Planning Context, Applied Study Among Petra Visitors

Abstract

The study aimed to explore the impact of social media usage on customer decision-making process among Petra visitors in holiday travel planning context. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the analytical descriptive approach methodology and convenience sample technique were adopted, the researcher designed a questionnaire based on previous studies, which consisted of (33) items to gather the information from the study sample. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used to analyze and examine the data and the hypotheses. The research hypotheses were tested using descriptive statistical methods and simple linear regression test. The main results were: There is a moderate level of using social media in customer purchase decision process among Petra visitors, where the average of using social media was (3.05) in search information phase, (3.15) in evaluation of alternatives phase, (3.54) in purchase decision phase and (3.64) in post-purchase evaluation phase. There is statistically significant impact of the using social media on customer decision making process in all phases at the significance level (α ≤ 0.05). Also, the study found that the information provided by friends, relatives or other travelers on social media tools is more trusted in comparison to other source of information. The study recommends for companies and agents engaged in tourism industry to adopt social media as a marketing strategy due to its great advantages. Specially, After the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, so companies operating in the field of tourism are in dire need of promotional and advertising campaigns in line with the modern technologies.