The Influence Of Social Media On The Promotion Of Tourism Industry: A Study Of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Pakistan

The tourism industry became one of the world-leading sectors and is among the economy's primary industry for numerous emerging countries.The development of tourism is affected either negatively or positively by several elements.As part of marketing strategies,creating the destination image is considered one aspect contributing to the tourism industry's development to attract more visitors.Understanding how travelers shape their images and impressions of a destination is among the key challenges in the travel industry as it influences the number of visitors.This study,therefore,examines the relations among the contextual tourism information quality(I.Q)in social media platforms(e.g.,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter)and the destination image formation components(e.g.,Cognitive,Affective,and Conative destination image).To attain the objectives of this research,the conceptual model has designed based on the conceptual framework of information quality(I.Q),the model of destination image formation,information processing Systematic-Heuristic model(HSM).To assess relationships between these all variables,quantitative research was carried out.This research's variables are the contextual quality of tourism information in social media classified as "Content Cues(CC)and Non-Content cues(NCC)" and destination image creation components “Cognitive,Affective and Conative destination image.” We distribute500 questionnaires at various tourist destinations in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province,and 446 complete questionnaires were returned from the respondents and selected for further analysis.Several statistical methods,including reliability and validity tests,factor loading,KMO and Bartlett's Test,exploratory factor analysis(EFA),Confirmatory factor analysis(CFA),structural equation modeling(SEM),Pearson's correlation analysis,and multiple regression analysis,were used to validate the hypothesized model.Our outcome suggests that the Content Cues and Non-Content cues of contextual tourism I.Q are significantly related to cognitive destination image and affective destination image.In addition,we also examine the cognitive destination image,and affective destination image mediates the relationship between content cues,non-content cues,and conative destination image,which were significant and positive.This research contributes to improving the understanding of the role of quality tourism information in social media(e.g.,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter),more specifically,the contextual dimension of information quality(I.Q),by providing empirical evidence.This research also helps the DMO develop its promotional strategies to encourage more visitors by utilizing social media platforms(e.g.,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter)to their destinations.