ABSTRACT

The study focused on the influence of strategic use of social media in hospitality marketing in Abia State. The objectives of the study are; to identify the social media platforms applicable in hospitality marketing in Abia State, to determine the level of utilization of the identified social media platforms in hospitality marketing in Abia State, to examine the effect of strategic use of social media on the development of hospitality marketing in Abia State, to identify the factors affecting the utilization of social media in hospitality marketing in Abia State and to proffer solution on better ways of using social media platform in marketing hospitality products and services. To achieve the objective of the study, survey research design was adopted. The researcher adopted primary data in getting the required information through the use of structured questionnaire. The population of the study is 38 registered hotels in Umuahia, Abia State with 520 staff strength. The sample size of the study is 228 after adopting Taro Yamane formula. In analysis the data, simple regression analysis was used. The findings revealed that Facebook, twitter, whatsapp and instagram are social media platforms applicable in development of hotel marketing in Abia State. The findings also revealed that strategic use of facebook affect the development of hotel marketing, Strategic use of twitter affect the development of hotel marketing, strategic use of whatsapp affect the development of hotel marketing and Strategic use of Instagram affect the development of hotel marketing. The study recommends that The study is recommending that for hotels to succeed, Facebook should be used as a marketing tool for products and services. Customers spend most of their time on Facebook and it is where business will meet new customers getting feedback on how the customers want to be satisfied. Satisfactions of customers always come from their expectation and not every business know if they meet that satisfaction unless they get feedback from the customers. Facebook marketing made that possible by giving customers a way of talking to their provider that is the business.