Relationships between Social Media Promotion, Attention, Interest, Search, Action, and Share of Tourists in Kei Island

Keywordsaction attention interest searching share social media promotion

JEL Classification M31

Full Article

1. Introduction

One industry sector in Indonesia that is very well developed at this time is the tourism sector. The development of the tourism sector can increase regional income and revenues. In addition, tourism accelerates economic growth which creates jobs, demand for both investment and consumption which eventually leads to creating production activities.

According to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), social media has the potential to create an extraordinary relationship between customers and the community. The advantages possessed by social media provide opportunities for official institutions and non-profit institutions to build relationships with tourists, introduce tourism products and become an alternative means of promotion in strengthening the tourism products that have been promoted. Promotion is one of the efforts to offer information on products or services with the aim of making potential consumers interested in using the products or services that have been promoted. In Europe, one of the most important factors that contributed to tourism development is the marketing efforts in promoting travel offseason and also promoting Europe tourism in third markets (Santander, 2019). An essential tool of marketing promotion is social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Blog etc.). The emergence of social media offers a neutral ground that favors open participation and stakeholder dialogue. Employment of social media by individual users, of platforms such as TripAdvisor, are key for initiating dialogues. Nonetheless, individual tourists and institutional tourism are slow in adopting social media as a means to discuss the sustainability of tourism (Budeanu, 2013). Asongu and Odhiambo(2019) examine the relationship between tourism and Facebook from many countries and found that there is a significant relationship between Facebook’s penetration and tourist arrivals numbers; and this relationship can be explained from travel research transformation, the rise in social sharing, customer service improvements and the development of travel agencies. Other research came from Sedera et. al. (2019) who aimed to test whether digital connectedness between family members through social media increases travel overseas intention as it relates to family members visiting those who are currently studying in another country. Their research found that both perceived media richness of social media applications and perceived connectedness gained through social media variable have a positive effect on the intention to travel to the study destination of the family member.

In Southeast Maluku Regency, Kei Island has several tourist attractions. Because many tourist attractions are available, this will lead to a business competition between tourist attractions, thus requiring local governments to be able to provide the best facilities and infrastructure to win the hearts of consumers who will visit. One of them is Kei Long Sand Beach. Kei Long Sand Beach has its own uniqueness, this beach has the most refined sand that has been recognized in the world, besides that, the beauty of the nature and the panorama, the sensation of nature is felt on this long sand beach. Each region must have a type of tourism offered in accordance with tourist attractions. One of the attractions that has a unique and special attraction is Southeast Maluku, Kei Islands. Kei is known as a beach paradise for some lovers of beach tourism destinations, even the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism launched the information that Southeast Maluku tourism is heading for the world’s favourite tourism destination. But in reality there are still many people who do not know the tourist destinations in Kei even many who only know the Kei Islands but do not know of its tourism potential. Kei also known as cultural images that are still very thick with the art that has been owned since time immemorial. Many types of festivals and events are held by the government of southeast Maluku as a routine agenda to promote tourism in this city, as well as efforts to preserve the artistic heritage of the ancestors. Various government efforts in advancing the tourism sector and maintaining culture in Southeast Maluku have been implemented, as evidenced by the promotion of media created in the form of websites, applications, as well as national and international events. However, all of the promotion efforts are felt to be completely unsuccessful because the target has not been reached for tourists outside of the city who do not know the tourism potential, and the role of promotional efforts that has not been effective because the information was not conveyed to reach the wider community. Table 1 explains this situation.

Table 1. Kei Island Visitor Data Year 2013-2017

Source: Pasir Panjang Beach and Kei Island Tourist Visit Data

2. Literature Review

The advertising industry uses a number of models to articulate audience decision-making processes, and AISA is a one of best promotion mechanism models. AISA, which stands for attention, interest, search, action and share, incorporates consumer use of modern internet search tools, and sharing information and processes. According AISA model, customers’ attention and interest are grabbed through exposure to promotional messages on digital channels (Cheah et.al., 2019).

The integration of an online process flow underlines AISAS model in assessing the impact of selfie promotion and celebrity endorsed advertisement on customers’ decision-making processes. These aspects make the AISA model suitable to analyse customers’ online decision-making processes (Wijaya, 2015).

The concept of AISA is in accordance with the current internet era. In this model the consumer who sees the promotion will be interested and then the consumer will be interested, after consumers are interested and interested, consumers will search for more information and take action to visit, after visiting consumers will share their experiences while traveling through social media. (Sugiyama and Andree, 2011). AISA is a model that anticipates consumer behavior, and at the same time functions as a model that operates in accordance with activities in a real environment (Sugiyama and Andree, 2011). By using this AISA model, simplifying the elements in psychological changes in consumers and expanding the elements in the action section in the stages (search, action, share) is the stage of finding information, taking action to visit, then sharing information obtained based on the experience of visiting. The stage which grabs the attention of the consumer, the stages, and the point of view in this model makes it relevant.

Research of Abdurrahim et al. (2019) with respondents from social media users show that promotion on social media has a significant effect on one’s attention, interest, and desire to find information about the product or service being promoted; and tourist’s attention and interest have a significant influence on tourist decisions to visit a destination. Therefore, we propose the following research framework with these hypotheses:

For a general model:

H1a: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s attention.

H1b: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s interest.

H1c: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s search to find information about destinations.

H2a: A tourist’s attention has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s action.

H2b: A tourist’s interest has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s action.

H2c: A tourist’s search has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s action.

H2d: A tourist’s action has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s desire to share his/her experiences.

Patterson (2004) and Wang et. al. (2016) state that gender can influence consumer’s behavior intentions, particularly in services. And for gender as a variable control, the hypotheses are:

For male respondents:

H3a: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a male respondent’s attention.

H3b: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a male respondent’s interest.

H3c: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a male respondent’s search to find information about destinations.

H3d: A male tourist’s attention has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H3e: A male tourist’s interest has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H3f: A male tourist’s search desire has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H3g: A male tourist’s action has a positive and significant effect on his desire to share his experiences.

For female respondents:

H4a: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a female respondent’s attention.

H4b: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a female respondent’s interest.

H4c: Social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a female respondent’s search to find information about destinations.

H4d: A female tourist’s attention has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H4e: A female tourist’s interest has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H4f: A female tourist’s search desire has a positive and significant effect on his action.

H4g: A female tourist’s action has a positive and significant effect on his desire to share his experiences.

Figure 1. Research Model

3. Methods

Research design is survey design with questionnaire; the questions in the questionnaire consisted of 29 closed questions. The sampling technique is purposive random sampling, in which respondents were social media users, domestic tourists and foreign tourist at Kei Island. Variables and indicators in this research are presented in Table 2. The analysis technique used to answer the existing hypotheses uses Structural Equation Models (SEM).

Table 2. Variables and its Indicators

3.1. Data Collection

Data collection in Kei Island was conducted from September to November 2018. Information about the 200 respondents is available in Table 3.

Table 3. Profile of Respondents

Sources: Primary Data

Table 3 shows that the female respondents dominate the survey with 68%. Many of the respondents are young (age between 18 to 25 years old), they get Kei iIland information mainly from friends and spouses and electronic social media, and their important WOM activities during visit Kei Island is taking selfie photos.

4. Results

Further, data was processed for research models by Structural Equation Models (SEM) using AMOS software. The collected data will be analyzed using a structural model analysis to test the research model. Several tests of goodness of fit have been developed to interpret the structural equation model, to determine the degree of compatibility of a model with the empirical data obtained. These tests include Chi-Square/DF, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Non-Normed Fit Index or Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), and Comparative Fit Index (CFI). Some criteria for the goodness of fit in SEM can be seen in Table 4 below:

Table 4. Goodness of Fit Criteria

Sources: Hair, Black, Babin and Anderson, 2014; Rose, Markman and Sawilowsky, 2017

Table 5. Goodness of Fit Model Results

Source: Primary Data

Goodness-of-fit test results show that CMIN / DF values of 1.282 (below 2.00), GFI has a value of 0.861 (above 0.90), AGFI has a value of 0.837 (above ≥ 0.80), TLI has a value of 0.996 (above 0.90), CFI has a value of 0.914 (above 0.90) and RMSEA has a value of 0.038 (below 0.08). With all results, it can be concluded that research model meets the goodness of fit requirements and we can proceed to the research hypotheses testing. The Research Model in AMOS Software is displayed in Figure 2, which presents the general model that is analyzed.

Initially, a general model with 7 hypotheses (H1a-H2d) was tested and the results are presented in Table 6. Based on the results of data processing using the AMOS program, hypotheses that can be rejected because the significance level (p value) is below 0.05 are H1b, H2a, H2b, and H2d. However, we accept hypotheses H1a, H1c and H2c because the p value is greater than 0.05. With these results, it has been proven that social media promotion of tourist destination can influence tourist’s attention (H1a), a tourist’s search to find information about destinations (H1c), and a tourist’s search has a positive and significant effect on a tourist’s action (H2c). Most notably, a high standardized coefficient identified for H2c, of 0.625, highlights the importance of the direct relationship between search and future actions of tourists. Further, social media promotional has a high impact on grabbing the attention of current or potential tourists (H1a with a standardized coefficient of 0.473).

In their research result, Kim and Jun (2016) found that event advertising as a tools promotion have a significant effect on people's attitude toward the destination. Also, the effects of event advertising on peoples' attitude toward the type of city are greater if the city is relatively unknown. In other research, Karnowski et. al. (2017) stated that social media have become an integral part of online news use, including share news; by applying Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to German social media users, this research showed that news-sharing attitude and subjective norms have a positive effect on news-sharing intention, which in turn has a positive effect on actual news-sharing behavior. This finding thus reflects the double nature of social media as a means for both social grooming and information retrieval.

Figure 2. Model results for general model

Table 6. Variables Relationship

Source: Primary Data

Notes: Significance levels: ***<0.001, **<0.005, *<0.010

This study also examined the role of gender as a control variable. This test used AMOS’s feature of Multiple Group Analysis method in SEM. Results are presented below, in Table 7 and Table 8.

Table 7. Results for Male Multiple Group

Source: Primary Data

Notes: Significance levels: ***<0.001, **<0.005, *<0.010

Table 7 reflects the results for male multiple group. Based on the results of data processing using AMOS, for Male respondents’ Group, all examined hypotheses have to be rejected (Table 7).

Table 8. Results for Female Multiple Group

Source: Primary Data

Notes: Significance levels: ***<0.001, **<0.005, *<0.010

For Female respondents’ Group (Table 8), only one hypothesis is accepted at a 0.001 level, namely hypothesis H4a. This accepted hypothesis shows that social media promotion has a positive and significant effect on a female respondent’s attention, with a coefficient of 0.587.

Testing of gender as a control variable in that structural equation model did not generate many significant results. In male respondents, promotion has no effect on interest, attention, or search; on the contrary, women become interested because their attention is peaked based on social media promotion of a tourist destination.

The results of this study have implications for brand recognition strategies in the minds of tourists visiting the Kei Island and its sand beach. Especially related to tourist attractions and comfort, so that tourists who visit there give a positive value to Kei Island tourist management. The regional government needs to understand technological developments, as well as strategies such as the contractions provided to display regional specialties, in order to attract tourists to stay loyal and feel comfortable relaxing on this island. All the facilities and diversity of the area that is highlighted will have a positive effect for tourists who visit and provide added value for management and local government. Indirectly, the social media promotion carried out began to have a good impact on promotion development. In addition, general results show that social media promotion affects attention and tourists’ propensity to search, whereas search influences real action in terms of visiting and sharing experiences with those around to visit Kei Island.

Another interesting result is that female is more accepted than the male gender in many hypotheses. Male tourist who visit Kei island is just for refreshing and spending leisure time on vacation. This contrast with female tourist who have higher interest and desire than male; usually female tourist do more photo / selfie activities and after that they upload photos to social media or tell stories and share experiences of visiting to friends or relatives. Kei Island sand beach management is currently still trying to maintain maximum cleanliness, maintain security and maintain hospitality to create comfort for tourists. Another thing to note is preserving the beach from the possibility of pollution, so that every tourist who visits can still enjoy Kei Island and its sand beach. Local government promotion and also community (millennial) both in the promotion of manuals and through social media (websites, blogs, social media, YouTube, etc.) needs to be continued to introduce the beauty of Kei beach to everyone.

5. Conclusion

This research tested a structural equation model, whether there is a relationship between tourist social media promotion with tourist attention, tourist interest, tourist searching, tourist action and tourist intention to share their experiences. With survey research design and 200 tourists in Kei Island as respondents, research results found that tourist destination social media promotion influences tourist’s attention and tourist’s searching in a positive and significant manner; and then tourist’s searching result can influence their future action, but a tourist’s searching activity does not influence their attention and interest. Testing of gender as a control variable in that structural equation model did not lead to many significant results for male and female respondents.

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