Empowering the Homestay Operators to Use Social Media Marketing to Solve Overtourism Issues

The aim of this chapter is to outline the Malaysian tourism industry and to introduce the Malaysian homestay programs. This is to shed light on the current issue of overtourism, particularly in Sabah, Malaysia. This chapter also describes social media usage among homestay operators in Sabah and the impacts of social media competency on homestay performance. The main highlight of this chapter is the discussion on shifting tourists to unexplored destinations and how homestay operators can be empowered to use social media marketing as a tool to redirect tourists’ attention from mainstream destinations to less explored destinations, thus diverting tourists to these destinations in order to curb issues of overtourism currently experienced by most tourist destinations. Although homestay operators in Sabah are largely from the rural areas, it is believed that if they have some basic knowledge in using social media and are competent in using social media to market their homestays, they are able to disseminate information about their homestays and create awareness among potential tourists that apart from the mass tourism destination sites, there is much more to be explored when traveling to Sabah, Malaysia. The effort among some homestay operators to promote themselves via social media will help potential tourists to plan their holidays better by having more options to choose from apart from the typical destinations that are often the choice of mass tourists. Simultaneously, this also could be a stepping stone in the effort to divert tourists to the less explored destinations and hence, attempt to tackle overtourism issues currently faced by many mainstream holiday destinations.