THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL TOURISM

<ns3:p>Social media plays an increasingly important role in the activities of tourism enterprises. The aim of this article is to examine the role of social media in shaping the selection of rural tourism offers. The main research question posed was: How important is social media for the current development of rural tourism? A total of 280 respondents participated in the survey, which was conducted between July and September 2023. The data were processed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s Chi-square test, and the Mann-Whitney U test with the STATISTICA 13.3 PL software. Statistically significant differences were observed among respondents regarding the reasons for using social media, particularly in the categories: to seek information on tourism offers, to contact tourist facilities, and to post opinions on tourism products. In terms of the most common types of interaction through social media, similar results were obtained in both groups of respondents (female and male), with text messaging being the most frequent. Respondents rated all proposed sources of information on rural tourism via social media relatively poorly. “Travel blogs” received the lowest ratings, while referrals from friends were rated highest. This outcome reflects the fact that rural tourism operators still underestimate the potential of the Internet and fail to fully exploit the opportunities offered by social media, which contributes to rural tourism remaining a niche sector in the online environment.</ns3:p>