The Application of influencer marketing Strategies to raise awareness for Russian tourists

Abstract

The objective of this research is to apply influencer marketing strategies to raise awareness for Russian tourists by interviewing 32 target groups are representatives from the executives of government agencies involved in tourism policy, Russian travel agencies, influencers, and Russian tourists. The research shows that Russian tourists prefer to travel to Thailand especially in the coastal provinces. Russians living in the Siberian Federation and Far Eastern Federation often travel to Thailand on chartered airlines, travel agencies offer travel packages combined with tickets. Most of them are aware of information about Thai tourism through online media. The top 3 most popular channels are IG, VK, and FB. Influencers in the Russian travel market are divided into 2 groups, based on the number of followers: Celebrities and those interested in traveling especially to create experiences for themselves and share them via social media. Influencer marketing strategies influenced the perception of Russian tourists. In which thought leaders can guide, convince followers to trust, share, and imitate from having a good image, reputation, expertise, and many followers including the ability to create content that is stimulating the target audience to like and share as well as various activities in order to build rapport with the target group to have a loyalty and follow up continuously for a long time.