Investigating the Role of Social Capital, Social Interaction, and Knowledge Sharing in E-Tourism Marketing

Today, the expansion of electronic tourism has decreased the intermediary role of travel agencies, and tourists themselves directly purchase travel packages. Therefore, travel agencies must develop new strategies to deal with this new situation and revive their business, including the use of social capital, social interaction, and knowledge sharing in electronic tourism marketing. This study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive survey in terms of methodology. The statistical population of the study comprised managers of travel agencies in Tehran, out of whom 110 participants were selected via non-probable quota sampling. The required data were collected through a researcher-developed questionnaire, whose content validity was confirmed by six expert professors and experts in the field of tourism and management. Moreover, the convergent and divergent validity of the questionnaire was confirmed. On the other hand, the total and composite reliability of the questionnaire was found to be over 0.7 and 0.8, respectively, which proved to be acceptable. The collected data were then analyzed under descriptive and inferential categories using the SPSS and SmartPLS software. The findings of the study indicated that social capital, social interaction, and knowledge sharing had a direct influence on e-tourism marketing. Moreover, social capital and social interaction were found to have a significant positive influence on knowledge sharing.