Social Media as a marketing tool. How can Hamburg Tourism GmbH use social media effectively in order to establish Hamburg as an attractive travel destination?

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Communications - Media Economics, Media Management, grade: 1,0, Stenden University, language: English, abstract: Social media is increasingly gaining importance when it comes to destination marketing. The study analyzes how Hamburg Tourismus can use social media effectively in order to establish Hamburg as an attractive travel destination and as one of the Top 10 European city destinations by 2015. A detailed review of relevant literature provides an insight into the topic of social media and forms the basis for the subsequent primary research. In addition, the company Hamburg Tourismus GmbH is presented and gives the reader an understanding of the tasks and roles of the destination management company. The key part of the study is the conduction of a survey, the results of which were analyzed by applying the statistical program IBM PASW Statistics 21 (SPSS).

Furthermore, the population surveyed is narrowed down to German social media users. The conduction of the survey leads to an evaluation of the social media performance of Hamburg Tourismus. The results reflect a valid picture of the current state of the perception of users concerning Hamburg Tourismus' social media performance and show that there is still room for improvement regarding the social media channels. The results are discussed and suggestions for further research are made.