Influence of social media on operational efficiency of national scenic spots in china based on three-stage DEA model

•Social media adoption behaviors significantly influence the operational performance of scenic spots.•Micro-blog marketing is more important in developing regions than developed regions.•Difference of operational efficiency mainly form pure technical efficiency.•5A scenic spots are better at using social media to improve operation performance.•Eastern region have the much higher operational efficiency than other regions.

An increasing number of national scenic spots around the world use social media, such as micro-blogs and Twitter, to promote their popularity and improve their operational performance. National scenic spots may adopt different social media behaviors that lead to unbalanced operational performance. This study takes the perspective of social media adoption in national scenic spots by looking into the influence of social media adoption behaviors on operational performance based on the three-stage data envelopment analysis model. We found that most of the national scenic spots in China have low pure technical efficiency and that operational performance, including social media popularity and operational performance, is significantly determined by various social media adoption behaviors.