E-tourism Business Model

This study sought to develop a social media-based business model for tourism industry. At the first stage, the main elements of the model were extracted from the related literature review and the Osterwalder and Pigneur’s business model framework. At the second stage, to evaluate and prioritize the identified elements, a questionnaire was developed and administered on 119 experts who were selected through snowball sampling. The collected data were then analyzed, using Smart PLS software and the elements were imbedded in the model in order of their importance. Applying multiple case study method, the business model of seven tourism companies who managed to successfully employ the potentials of social media to their benefit were analyzed in the final stage to validate the business model proposed by this study. The findings indicated that active presence in social media would affect the customer-related elements more than those of the supplier-related ones. In other words, the elements related to the relationship with customers, cost structure, value proposition, and distribution channels would be affected more than the elements related to revenue streams, key resources, key activities, and key partnerships.