The landscape of the cultural tourism industry is becoming increasingly competitive as there is a growing number of companies offering similar cultural travel experiences. O’Leary and Deegan(2003) defines cultural tourism as “a destination’s tangible and intangible heritage”, this includes “historical places” and “traditional richness”(as cited in Katsoni, 2014). Understanding and taking advantage of the trends in the cultural tourism industry and consumer behavior are more vital than ever for travel agencies to stay competitive. This report has identified two crucial trends that WTS Travel & Tours Private Limited (WTS Travel) can capitalize on to stay ahead of the intense competition – the growing importance of social media usage, and the adoption of Airbnb as a key accommodation for cultural tourists.

In our current hyper connected world, the increase in interactivity in the digital space has led to the rise of social media. Social media is widely used by travelers for cultural tourism (Buhalis and Law 2008; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010 as cited in Öz, 2015). Hence, social media networking allows tourists to acquire cultural travel information faster and more effortlessly. Furthermore, Öz (2015) has found that consumers heavily rely on social media to find out more about information relating to travel(95.2%). Katsoni (2014) also discovered that social media is a dominant channel of information during their trip planning phase. Consequently, social media is becoming widely