How Social Media Affects Your Travel Plans [Infographic]

Obviously over the past few years we’ve all watched social media influence almost every aspect of our lives, but I never stopped to think about how it influences our travel plans until I read about this today. Think about it for a minute. How many times have you either changed your travel plans or specifically visited a destination because of something you read in your Twitter stream or on Facebook? If you are like the majority of people, you’ve done it at least once. As a matter of fact, the next time someone asks me where I heard about a place worth visiting, I’m going to say from a new travel agency called social media.

Now that I think about it, I flew all the way to Shanghai because of social media (it’s a 20-hour flight). I’ve also visited Cincinnati, stayed at a resort in Destin, and attended an event in Miami all as a result of social media. I’m sure there are more places I’ll travel to because of social media in the coming years. Making travel plans based on Twitter, Facebook and other sites is a blast; it just never occurred to me that it affects the entire travel industry as much as it apparently does. Suddenly it makes sense why airlines try to capitalize on social media as much as they can. If I worked in PR at an airline or resort, I’d be working the heck out of Twitter and Facebook so my clients knew I was right there to answer questions and provide necessary information.

This infographic called Social Travel Takes To The Skies (by Touristlink) breaks down these numbers so you can get them at a glance. You can click over to tnooz to get links for the source sites they used to collect this data. Are you a social traveler? Do you make travel plans based on information you find on your own social media networks?