The role of social media in Generation Z travel decision-making process

As an integral part of their life, social media inspired Generation Z to travel and recommend the destination that suits them. Therefore, social media became an essential role in tourism for marketing the tourism destination and several businesses attached to it. This paper analyzes how Generation Z, particularly the university students majoring in tour and travel operations studying at Universitas Negeri Jakarta, is influenced by social media to travel through a decision-making process. A quantitative methodology used in this study was by using the e-questionnaire to obtain the data. The findings showed that social media is often used by Generation Z, which was represented by students and alumni of Tour and Travel Operations Study Program, Universitas Negeri Jakarta, in every level of the travel decision-making process: pre-phase trip (activities before traveling), during-phase trip (on-site/undergoing activities), and post-phase trip (activities after traveling) as the source of information for traveling.