SOCIAL MEDIA BOOKING AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS OF AIRLINE BOOKING AGENCIES IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the relationship betweenwork place social media booking and organizational competitiveness of Airline Booking Agencies in the South-South Region of Nigeria. The population of the study consisted of eighty-four (84) registered Airline Travel Agencies with operational presence across the six (6) states in the South-South Region of Nigeria. The entire population of eighty-four (84) Airline Booking Agents were used for the study without sampling. Thus, the study was a census research which entailed using the entire population. In terms of respondents, three (3) managers (General Manager, Customer Relations Manager, and Information Technology (IT) Manager) were selected from each of the firms. Thus, a total of two hundred and fifty-two (252) managers served as our respondents. Structured questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. After validation by the supervisors and two other experts in Management, Cronbach alpha was used to test the reliability of the instrument. Out of 252 copies of the questionnaire administered, a total of 182 copies were retrieved. Mean and standard deviation were used for the univariate analysis; Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was used for the bivariate analysis. The findings revealed that a significant positive relationship exists between social media and organizational competitiveness such as productivity, customer satisfaction, and corporate image amongst Airline Booking Agencies in the South-South Region of Nigeria. The study concluded that the utilizing of digital office tools such as social media booking is viable ways to achieve productivity, customer satisfaction and corporate image, among others. The researcher therefore recommended amongst others that managements of airline booking agencies in South-South, Nigeria should increase their social media presence through platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc, as this will enhance competitiveness.