The Role Of Social Media In Shaping Tourists' Perceptions Of Nature-Based Tourism In East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya

Abstract

The primary area of tourism that is considered for the study revolves around nature based tourism which is highly prevalent in the present times. India is naturally endowed with flora and fauna which allows it to promote nature base to raising across tourists around the world. .The study here however considers the region of East Khasi Hills in Meghalaya to be investigated specifically as a part of this quantitative study. The region has shown tremendous tourist footfalls in the past few years and holds the potential of being one of the prominent nature based tourism spots. There are 395 primary responses collected from tourists who have been to make earlier in the past years. The collected data has been analysed using appropriate statistical tools which has led to the identification of the factors established in the study. The overall perception held by the respondent towards the region has been estimated by understanding their social media engagement, the information quality on social media and the social media influence on them. The role of trust has been established as important when considering the social media information by researchers and this study has also found the impactful role of it. The trust on the social media information generated and used for the purpose of tourism can effectively mediate the relationship between the overall perception derived and the established independent variables. The partial mediation reflects that the rule of trust can be significant when trying to establish the perception about nature-based tourism spots using social media.