ABSTRACT
Nowadays, it is no hidden fact that we are in an online interactive age. In this age, users are expecting a two-way communication.

There are observed discrepancies such as the fact that most tourism service providers do not redirect visitors to their official Facebook page, Twitter account or YouTube account, marginal use of social media platforms with focus on Facebook at the expense others, irregular posts and incomplete account profiles and details, less attractive posts and delay in engaging with customers that post on their pages by answering to their comments, whether negative or positive.

The main objective of this work is to assess the potential of social media marketing for the competitiveness of tourism service providers in Cameroon using the case of the Buea Municipality. With all these discrepancies, this study specifically focused on the how effective social media marketing is amongst tourism service providers in the Buea Municipality.

This study sought to find out whether or not social media engagement directly influences consumer buying decision for tourism services in Buea; whether or not social media marketing is positively influencing the growth of tourism providers in Buea and whether or not social media marketing by tourism service providers in Buea has limited market coverage social media platforms.

Primary and secondary data collection was done. Primary data sources included interviews and questionnaires, while secondary data collection sources included brochures, magazines, textbooks, journal articles, reports and dissertations.

Data was analyzed using both the qualitative and quantitative methods. Hypotheses were tested using SPSS and the results interpreted. From the results and interpretation of findings, recommendations were made to various stakeholders.

CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
This section of this study deals with laying the foundation for this study, which intentionally brings out the baseline study on elements such as the environment earmarked for this study, the main aim for the study, the problem this work aims to investigate and the hypotheses.

1.1 Background of the Study
In today’s world, one can hardly talk about the tourism business without talking about the social media. However, the social media has gone through a series of development. Social media was developed during the 1970s and refers to new forms of media that involve interactive participation (Manning, 2014).

Often the development of media is divided into two different ages, the broadcast age and the interactive age.

During the broadcast age, social media were almost exclusively centralised where one entity-such as a radio or television station, newspaper company, or a movie production studio, distributed messages to many people.

Feedback to media outlets was often indirect, delayed, and impersonal (Manning, 2014). Mediated communication between individuals was on a smaller scale, particularly via personal letters, telephone calls, or sometimes on a slightly larger scale through photocopied family newsletters (Manning, 2014).

Categories of social media in modern time include texters; blogs; message boards such as Yelp; connection sites such as Meet Up; social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter for instance; games and entertainment like Bejeweled; and apps like Grindr.

Social media networking appeared few years ago, after businesses started creating online web pages as a “double-page advertising spread”, and since then, it has considerably gained importance as it is bringing many benefits to businesses (Ritholz, 2010).

It is a shift in the way businesses do marketing as the consumers changed the way they engage with brands, driving some of the traditional marketing strategies and structures obsolete. Today, social media is mainly used in three functional areas of marketing: advertisement, research and public relations (Kaushik, 2012).

With the desire of marketers to grab the attention of the consumer, people have embraced new media and technologies giving marketers the opportunity to reach consumers in a 24/7 capacity through a variety of medium.

Today’s marketplace is undergoing an overwhelming of online communications being transmitted via social media. Business managers are conforming to the reality that consumers spread and receive information concerning companies and products via social media (Harris & Rae,
2009).

Comparatively, companies are engaged in the usage of various social media platforms to communicate with their consumers, employees, and other stakeholders. Researchers predict that the trend of increasing social media adoption will continue (Barnes & Mattson, 2010).

Social media has become a major source of information for consumers globally with Facebook claiming a total of 750 million active users in 2011 and Twitter claiming a total of 175 million users in the same year (Fotis et al; 2012).

In tourism, TripAdvisor indicates that it serves 50 million users per month who will be searching for travel information as well as writing reviews about their holiday experiences.

Social media have become a major source of information, interactive comments and reviews on the quality of services provided by different enterprises which influence the decisions of the potential tourists‟ destinations and tour operator choices.

For example in their study of Russian travellers, Fotis et al (2012) concluded that social media are used throughout the holiday experience from the planning stage to the post-holiday period. The Digital Revolution has had a profound impact on tourism in the European Union (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2018).

The majority of tourism businesses has access to the internet and has a website or a homepage. Others also offer various online and automated services. In major European cities, most of the airports offer online check-in, self-check-in kiosks and mobile boarding passes.

In the hospitality sector, automation and robots are also used to allow guests to check in, to answer customers’ questions, to offer information on local attractions, weather or flights, or to offer virtual tours of a hotel (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2018).

Some restaurants even use robots to serve food while others have replaced their paper menus with tablets. Several museums in Europe use virtual and/or augmented reality5 to attract more visitors (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2018).

The International Centre for Cave Art in south-west France for instance, recreates precisely the atmosphere of the Lascaux caves’ interior and paintings and the center also offers a 3D animated film which allows revisiting past climate cycles and their consequences for people and animals (European Parliamentary Research Service, 2018). Africa is a small but expanding region of the global tourism economy.

Traditionally, marketing campaigns used to require a significant amount of investments, but over the past few years, the media landscape has changed dramatically. While traditional methods still exist, the Internet and social media have opened new avenues for anyone to market any products and services practically for free.

According to Hirschhorn (2015), by the end of the decade, many traditional networks will be shocked to find they have been supplanted in the minds of many Millennials and Generation Zs.

Cameroon is a country with exceptional tourism potential, endowed with cultural and natural attractions (Tichaawa 2017) and sometimes described as “an Africa in miniature,” owing to the country‟s topography, flora and fauna, and multicultural diversity.

However, a good number of these potentials are yet to be brought to the social media limelight. The most commonly used social media platform is Facebook, with a few others using twitter and Youtube.

The media form of communication for most of the tourism service providers on social media is limited to text only, followed by text and pictures and only a handful use text, pictures and videos.

Apparently, tourist companies are yet to go fully into engaging with the market concerning their services on a wide scale using several social media platforms and media forms, in order to ease tourist decision making processes and tourists destinations.

This implies that, with all its potentials, the social media platforms and media forms are an opportunity for Cameroon’s tourist resources to be promoted and attract more visitors, but this is not the case.
1.2 Problem Statement
Ever since the advent of digital Web 2.0, different researchers such as Boz (2011) and Ritholz (2010) have conducted quantitative and qualitative studies to understand the ever-changing role of social media and its adoption and usage for tourism marketing.
The tourism business at all levels is becoming increasingly competitive due to emergence of new destinations, rapid and affordable modes of transport, new marketing strategies and tools and changing trends (Boz, 2011).

Discussions point to the fact that social media marketing efforts in the tourism industry will most likely be an important element in the marketing mix for many years to come.

Therefore, tourism service providers are expected to be apt and explore all social media platforms in order to stay in business in this era. The use of social media as a marketing tool by tourism service providers in the Buea Municipality is yet to be effective due to some observed shortcomings.

The fact that most tourism service providers do not redirect the visitor to their official Facebook page, Twitter account or YouTube account is a call for concern as the visitor may not know if the tourism service provider is on any of the social media platforms or not.

The marginal use of social media platforms with focus on Facebook at the expense
others is another problem as some visitors may not belong to Facebook but have other accounts on other social media platforms through which they can be reached.
Irregular and less attractive posts and incomplete account profile detail is another issue as this can barely engage users in discussions.

Also, the delay in engaging with visitors who post on their social media pages by responding to their comments, whether negative or positive is an issue.

Moreover, there are some issues associated with the use of social media as a marketing tool amongst tourism service providers in the Buea Municipality such as propaganda, misrepresentation, subjectivity and usurpation. This impedes the growth and competitiveness of tourism service providers in Buea as they focus more on face-to-face meetings.

This implies less posting via social media and this also means less information shared for potential customers for the fear of tarnishing the image of the tourism service providers.

For instance, the case of an allegation of a snake having swallowed a girl on the 12th of November 2013 in a hotel in Buea which went viral on social media and was a topic of discussion. This caused losses for the hotel and everyone could access different social media platforms to be informed about the story.

Mukherjee and Nagabhushanam (2016) posit that as the usage of social media tools continue to grow and evolve, there is the need to form a better understanding of the ardent role of social media in a traveller‟s travel choices and develop a working relationship model that could help tourism officials better understand the optimum approaches to social media marketing to promote their tourism products and destinations, implying that, the role of the social media as a marketing tool for tourism service providers in indispensable.

This study therefore seeks to address how different social media platforms are being used for effective marketing amongst tourism service providers in Buea.
1.3 Research Questions
1.3.1 General Question
What is the potential of social media marketing in enhancing the competitiveness of
tourism service providers in the Buea Municipality?
1.3.2 Specific Questions
The following are specific questions are to be answered by the study:
1. What is the state of social media marketing amongst tourism service providers in
the Buea Municipality?
2. How has social media marketing contributed to the growth of tourism service
providers in the Buea Municipality?
3. What are the associated problems of social media marketing amongst tourism
service providers in Buea?
4. What strategies can be implemented to improve on the effectiveness of Social
media marketing amongst tourism service providers in the Buea Municipality?
1.4 Objectives of the Study
1.4.1 General Objective
To assess the potential of social media marketing for the competitiveness of tourism
service providers in Cameroon using the case of the Buea Municipality.

1.4.2 Specific Objectives
1. To analyze the state of social media marketing amongst tourism service providers in
the Buea Municipality.
2. To assess the contributions of social media marketing to the growth of tourism
service providers in Buea.
3. To investigate the associated problems of social media marketing amongst tourism
service providers in Buea.
4. To suggest strategies that can improve on the effectiveness of social media marketing
amongst tourism service providers in Buea.

The Effectiveness of Social Media Marketing Amongst Tourism Service Providers in the Buea Municipality, South West Region of Cameroon