How is social media communication competence and importance perceived and to what extent social media communication competence is implemented by business hotel managers within tourism industry in Norway and Turkey?

Abstract

There is no doubt that management of communication in business is a key. In hospitality industry that is service – based, the key role of communication becomes even more important especially for service providers as hotels. On the other hand, social media is probably the most applied communication platform of today’s world with its’ exclusive role in daily lives of people and this demand continues to increase. The research question is to analyze “How is social media communication competence and importance perceived and to what extent social media communication competence is implemented by business hotel managers within tourism industry in Norway and Turkey?” People communicate through traditional and social media at the present time. However, do those communicators have adequate competencies in order to communicate appropriately and effectively through social media? As it is well known that communication is the way of people express themselves to others which could be both business and private life related. Is the role of social media communication and its competencies understood adequately by business segment hotel managers at the present time in tourism industry? My own background for undertaking this study is that I am from Izmir, Turkey and I am currently studying in masters degree of ‘International Hotel and Tourism Leadership’ at The University of Stavanger and work part – time in one of the hotel chains in Stavanger, Norway. This fact that I have chance to observe Norway while studying along with hometown motivates me as researcher to make a research by conducting one – to – one interviews with managers of the hotel chains in Izmir, home city, and Stavanger, current city in order to understand hotel managers’ approaches to the specified research area and what sort of differences and similarities exist in Norway and Turkey.