Social Capital and Tourism

Social capital is one of the most debated terms in the recent years, which has been accepted by different disciplines and describes diverse phenomena related to social
interactions. This concept has been part of the academic debate for years and continues to stimulate great interest. The basic idea of “social capital” is that family, friends and coworkers constitute an important asset that you can use in case of crisis or for material gain. A parallelism between the concept of social capital and the traditional understanding of capital is that benefits from social relations (social
resources) are possible only if they are preceded by investments, which are nothing more than resources spent on others with the aim that in a certain moment they will turn it back. Defining social capital is a complex multidimensional concept that includes the relationship of cultural and social value systems. Recently, it has become a very popular and attractive concept among social scientists. A growing number of sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and economists have used the concept to explain various economic and social outcomes. The basic notion of social
capital is to include socio-cultural factors to explain development outcomes. This concept is inevitably related to recent developments in the field of Tourism. In this
presentation, a research study will be carried out to see and draw some findings and conclusions, from the review of the literature and various articles, regarding the great value that social capital has in the successful realization of customer satisfaction and the creation of competitive advantage in this important sector of the national economy.