Place branding and moderating role of social media

This study investigates how social networks impact place branding of a tourism destination and encourage prospect tourists to visit that place. By adapting an existing model, a survey conducted in a sample of 135 users of 2 social networks of telegram and Instagram who travelled at least once to Gilan Province in north of Iran. This analytical study empirically tests the hypotheses for SEM, using PLS 3 and R. The assessment of the outer model and the inner model was conducted. The importance-performance map analysis matrix indicates that the place image had the highest importance, but the lowest performance. When social media enters as a moderator, the significance of its effect is not sufficient to impact the results. It can be interpreted that merely sharing photos and videos from the beauty of Gilan province or its food is not sufficient to create a distinguished image in the minds of prospect visitors; but it must be used as a supplementary of activities from the administration of the province to promote the place image and attractions for tourists. Also it is suggested that social media can be used to promote pro-environmental behaviours in tourists.