ABSTRACT
The role of social media (SM) in the tourism sector has been growing strongly, affecting various factors, such as information search and decision-making behaviors, tourism promotion and best practices for interacting with consumers. The SM usage is also an emerging phenomenon for the tourism and cultural heritage sector. SM is becoming essential tools for managers to improve the decision-making process and integrate the available knowledge on customer satisfaction gathered through traditional channels with new data originating from the internet. This is confirmed by the fact that companies are integrating their customer relationship management systems with social customer feedback tools. The chapter proposes a young and successful Italian cultural site that embeds innovative technological implementations and compares the results of a qualitative study conducted on a specific social network (TripAdvisor) with the results of a traditional survey conducted onsite. The reliability of online reviews represents a crucial factor for fostering both powerful electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) and effective service improvement.
