Eureka! Institutional Repository

Tourism is an information intensive industry and consequently it is critical to pursue the technological developments that affect information accessibility and distribution in order to stay close to the way that consumers take their decisions. Cyberspace has provided hospitality marketers with new ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of communication and new approaches for the acquisition and retention of their customers. Social media Websites have gained popularity among travelers. Many of these Websites assist consumers in posting and sharing their travel-related comments, opinions, and personal experiences, which then serve as information for others. Consumers gain substantially more power in determining the production and distribution of information due to the flattening of access to the Internet. At the same time, the Internet mediates tourism experiences as tourists use these social media sites to portray, reconstruct and relive their trips. The purpose of the study was to analyze the effect of Social Networks Advertising on Greek consumers and their behavior. To this end, a questionnaire based primary survey has been conducted in order to explore Greek travelers’ attitudes towards Social Media advertising. The survey data have been analyzed using Multiple Correspondence Analysis, in order to detect complex relations among the variables and identify the profiles of the main population segments. Based on the responses of the sample, the population has been clustered into three classes: (a) people who are particularly positive to commercials, have proceeded in buying touristic products and maintain a profile in social networking websites, (b) people who have a neutral position regarding commercials, consider that the volume of commercials is excessive but still observe them and are affected by offers and gifts and (c) those who are negative and also do not participate in social websites and consider web usage unreliable. The above clustering has been found to be independent of age, gender and education level. By applying a hierarchical clustering method on the statistical units, it was possible to estimate the percentage of the sample which corresponds to each of the above classes. Specifically, it was found that 17,7% of the respondents fall into the profile of positive standpoint, while the 39,2% can be categorized as neutral and 37% as negative. Additionally, the interpretation of more factorial axes has revealed secondary tendencies where the use of websites and individual interests are related to specific age groups and education level.