Lebanon’s area is ranked 170th on the planet (CIA, 2014). It is smaller than the size of Connecticut, one of many smallest states in in America. Moreover, Lebanon is probably the few democratic countries in the Middle East region. Regarding its economy, Lebanon is a free market economy and has an extremely long tradition of laissez-faire economics. Besides its coastal location on the Eastern Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is considered as the central ‘window’ of the Middle East to Europe, North Africa, and the rest of the world. For that reason, its economy went through some very prosperous times and was even once called the ‘Paris’ of the center East before the nation’s 15 year-long bloody civil war which ended in 1990.
Also, although Lebanon is tiny, it is also just about the most diverse nations in the world. Luxury Travel Guides , Muslims, Druze, along with other minority sects are spread all over the small nation and even Lebanon’s political system is dependant on sectarian power sharing.
However, this diversity had played a pivotal role in the country’s problems. This diversity was a necessary condition of the country’s sectarian civil war and currently plays an important role in its political paralysis, although other factors (mainly foreign) are at fault as well. There’s currently no acting President and the country’s rival political parties keep bickering and preventing instead of facilitating the country’s development.
Furthermore, Lebanon’s proximity to Israel has managed to get a foreign policy/proxy battleground for foreign nations, each using Lebanon for its own selfish ends.
The sad political realities of the country have significantly hurt the country’s economy. Also, since Lebanon is really a service-based economy, this specific sector has taken the largest hit.
Tourism plays a substantial role in the nation’s economy. In line with the Lebanese Ministry of Economy & Trade (MOET), “Tourism has long been among Lebanon’s leading economic sectors” (Economic Research Unit, 2010).
Furthermore, The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that the travel & tourism sector in Lebanon contributed over $4 billion dollars in 2013 (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014).
The travel & tourism sector composed about 10% of the economy in 2012 but that share dropped to 9% in 2013 (ibid, p. 14). This is because of the political situation in the united kingdom as well as various other factors. Moreover, the quantity of tourist arrivals in the country kept decreasing from 2011 to 2013.
Because the tourism industry has been somewhat floundering before few years, the room for error becomes very small for businesses in this industry. The political & economic situations are squeezing tourist-related (TR) businesses in Lebanon. Therefore these businesses are forced to accomplish more to make up for increasing losses (or decreasing profits) sufficient reason for fewer resources. There is no telling when the political & economic situation in Lebanon will improve especially because the civil war in neighboring Syria shows no signs of abating.
There are many ways that Lebanese TR businesses can adapt of these times such as implementing downsizing policies and cutting back on marketing & advertising budgets. When economic recessions and a down economy affect businesses, the first things to get eliminated are often marketing budgets. But especially since TR businesses need to do more marketing to create up for lost businesses, this may not be a good idea.
One solution to this problem is to benefit from Social Media Marketing strategies given that they cost little to no resources, perfect for the current economy in Lebanon. Social media marketing allows TR businesses to overcome obstacles of limited budgets and decreased business.
Problem Statement
During the past couple of years, the positive effect of social media marketing on business has been extremely high (Kaplan et al., 2010; Stelzner, 2010; Treem & Leonardi, 2012, p. 143; Baker & Green, 2014).
Moreover, Facebook and Twitter fans of a specific brand are much more likely to recommend and purchase from these brands than non-fans (Cruz & Mendelsohn, 2011). But, we won’t need to make certain of social media’s effect on business through clinical tests. For social media users, which include over 30% of the world, this fact is known. An increasing number of businesses are inserting Social media tools to their marketing strategies and, in some cases, have even become an integral part of their overall business strategy.
Naturally, you might expect that Lebanese businesses would quickly adopt Social Media Marketing as a key role within their overall marketing strategies but this is not the case. When it comes to the Middle East and especially Lebanon, the region is far behind the West in social media usage. Not only that, with regards to businesses involved in the tourism industry, there’s much room for growth. Little investment in technology is keeping tourist businesses from maximizing marketing opportunities distributed by social media.
The Lebanese tourism industry is not taking advantage of social media tactics even though the benefits of doing so are apparent. This presents an excellent problem especially since the economy is going by way of a very rough time.
Moreover, Lebanese TR businesses and businesses in Lebanon generally are not adopting social media tools because they should. This presents an enormous problem in the waste of resources and also significant missed opportunities as a more substantial target audience could be reached via social media marketing enabling businesses that adopt social media marketing tools gain a better chance of success and prosperity