The Influence of Word of Mouth on Destination's Choice of Vacation Tourists (Case of Koktebel)

The purpose of this research id to find out how effective does the word- of- mouth influence on tourist’s destination choice (case of Koktebel). In accordance with the purpose of the study, tasks were formulated: to define the essence of the Word of Mouth; find out the difference between traditional word-of-mouth and electronic Word-of-Mouth; to assess the negative and positive impact of the word-of-mouth; to develop the methodology for studying the attitude of consumers to "word-of-mouth", to conduct analysis among previous tourists , who had vacation in Koktebel and to identify the impact of socio-demographic characteristics on the destination’s choice. The first chapter examines the, analyze the scientific literature, identifies the main components of the word-of-mouth. In the second chapter, the sample is justified, the method of information collection (online survey) is described, the characteristics of the respondents are considered. The third chapter contains the results of the study, which indicate that word-of-mouth influences the choice of a tourist destination. A number of recommendations were proposed to promote the process of word-of-mouth in the region under consideration based on the results.