Student mentors: aiding tourism businesses to overcome barriers to social media

Abstract

Increasingly tourism businesses are attempting to interact and communicate with consumers using a variety of social media tools. However, many are struggling to continue to effectually and effectively engage with an interactive audience so willing to openly speak their minds. Adoption barriers exist that limit the effective use of these and other new innovative technologies. This study confirms that the main barriers to the use of information communication technologies are also reflected in the active use of social media. These include a lack of skill, knowledge, time and resources. Despite confirmation in this and other studies, there is limited research into how businesses can overcome these barriers to more productively utilise social media tools and technologies. This paper investigates the synergistic relationships between university students and small, tourism-related businesses, and how a student-industry project can aid in reducing the barriers of engagement with social media. Online questionnaires collected anonymous responses from participating businesses in 2010 and 2011. It transpired that businesses gained confidence, skills and information while simultaneously providing real-world student experiences that extended beyond the classroom into the wider community. This opportunity offered tourism businesses a point of entry for understanding and utilising these new technologies.