The role of social media content creators in attracting tourists to Oman

Oman has attracted 3.51 million tourists in 2019 and earned $3.08 billion from tourists? spendings (worlddata.info). The numbers drastically went down in 2021 due to Covid-19 situation. As the Covid-19 situation is getting better the tourism destinations around the globe has started new campaigns to attract tourists to their destinations. Tourism and hospitality industry plays a vital role in a country?s growth and development (Hussain et al., 2018), however, most of the countries struggle to attract tourists to their travel destinations. The fast-changing ecosystem of information communication and technological penetration has outdated the traditional communication platforms. Digital and social media platforms emerge as the cornerstone of information seeking for international travelers. However, the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of content creators? contribution in attracting international travelers is still limited. Therefore, the main objective of the current research is to investigate the role of creators? content in influencing travelers? intentions to visit a tourism destination. The present work mainly focuses on tourists? information seeking behavior before choosing a particular travel destination. In this regard, the current study will examine the role of social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram in spreading several types of information like technical information (e.g.,booking of hotel, taxi, currency exchange etc), information about tourist attractions and information about regional / ethnic foods and places.