摘要：In 2014, the Union Government of India has set a target to achieve 1%share in global tourism arrivals in India, as expressed by the then UnionMinister State for Tourism. In this regard, the role played by Social Media toinfluence the foreign tourist was significant. To analyze the causality betweenIndia, as a tourist destination and its presence on social media platform, aresearch study has been done which was fully funded by Ministry of Tourism,Government of India. The main objective was to study all the foreign touristsvisiting India duly influenced by the social media. Due to the nature of thestudy, the technique of the focus - group interview has applied and thenstructured questionnaire has prepared to achieve the six objectives of thestudy. With a total sample size of 2,351 inbound tourists, collected in fourphases during peak inbound tourist seasons from 2015 to 2016. The sample hadconsisted of the respondents from 93 nationalities and influenced by socialmedia to visit India. The major outcomes were that majority of the inboundtourists came to know about India as a tourist destination through social mediaand then they explored more information specifically tourists attractions, toplan their trips to India. The majority of the tourists got influenced byTripadvisor and Facebook platforms and reasonably satisfied with theinformation generated by the other social media sources. The results and conclusionshave accepted by Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and utilizedappropriately to gain the competitive advantage.
关键词：Social Media;Inbound tourists;Indian inbound tourism;Social media influence the inbound tourist;Social media and Inbound tourism;Social Media channels
