| dc.description.abstract | ABSTRACT
The study set out to determines the role of social media platforms in promoting domestic tourism in Uganda focusing on tour companies and UTB as case study destination.
The objectives of the research were to evaluate the social media platforms used by tour operators to promote visitation of local attractions by local travelers, to identify the role played by social media platforms in promoting domestic tourism and to document the challenges that tour operators face while using social media in promoting domestic Tourism in Uganda.
The study followed a quantitative research method in order to attain the set objectives of the study. Probability sampling technique was employed in recruiting the participants.
Convenience and purposive sampling techniques were used to generate the sample population in this study. The target population for the study was all tour companies that are important in promoting and marketing of domestic tourism destinations in Uganda and a structured self-administered questionnaire was used in the survey that was conducted to obtain primary data. The study used both descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 23.0 was used to analyze the data.
The results found that there are different social media platforms used in marketing of Uganda’s domestic tourism which were identified as twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp , you tube and instagram were found paramount in promoting domestic tourism in Uganda as they were found to be most used by tour companies in influencing Ugandans to visit their country.
The study more so found that there different challenges in using social media and were lack of understanding of Social Media innovation, poor internet connectivity, lack integrative social media application, lack of technological infrastructure and lack of awareness of social media platforms by local tourists. Based on the findings of the study, the study recommends that more domestic campaigns need to be undertaken to mobilize Ugandans to visit places in their own country as promotion and development of tourism and lastly there is need to the integration of social media applications on companies or tourism marketing organizations websites. Thus companies’ local destination marketing management and staff should adopt and integrate this new technology so that they can better communicate with their online target audience | en_US |
