Examining social media marketing performance: A focus on travel agencies and tour operators in South Africa.

The purpose of this study was to investigate South African travel agencies and tour operators’ social media marketing performance using the Digital Marketing Framework (DMF). Data used in the analysis was collected from 150 small travel agencies and tour operators using a structured questionnaire. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and factor scores. The results revealed that travel agencies and tour operators are performing well in the first stage of the framework, which is to attract customers to their social media site. The performance of the travel agencies and tour operators in the second stage (engage customers), third stage (retain customers) and fifth stage (relate back to customers) was relatively poor. The performance of the companies in the fourth stage (learn about customers) was very poor as very few companies performed the marketing activities associated with these stages. Lack of time to sustain social media marketing activities and a lack of skills in using social media for marketing were identified as the major challenges faced by travel agencies and tour operators. This study contributes to a better understanding of the performance of small tourism businesses and their challenges in using social media marketing. Managers can use the findings in this study to develop their social media marketing strategies and/or assess their company performance.