Residents’ perception and attitudes towards tourism impacts

Conclusion/recommendation

Summarizing the study NTO’s marketing activities includes the integration of traditional with electronic marketing processes in order to understand customers’ expectations and facilitate the process of their satisfaction. Nowadays customers expect more, and tourism destinations have to maximize the satisfaction levels of customers’ expectations, and support the customers throughout the buying process. Following the article a key goal for NTOs is accurate introduction and implementation of an integrated marketing model for the facilitation of the process of destination marketing.

Inefficient implementation of an integrated marketing model of CTO will cause to customer frustration with high-potential losses to the destination Cyprus and result in a competitive disadvantage. Nowadays in turbulent business environment CTO have to enhance its marketing strategies globally to be competitive in tourism market.

The study recommends using the integration of electronic marketing processes into traditional marketing processes for enhancing the organization’s marketing processes. Electronic marketing activities will help the CTO to identify customers’ preferences and deliver high level of customer satisfaction in order to build long-term relationships. 

7. “International tourists’ image of Zhangjiajie, China: content analysis of travel blogs”

Introduction

Zhangjiajie is first national forest park and one of the most popular tourist destinations in China. Due to increasing flows of visitors to the destination, tourism has become the main industry of the economy.

Destination image is an important tool influencing tourist preference and decision making. According to the article word-of mouth or advice from friends and relatives is the most influential source of pre-purchase information. Tourism managers have to understand Western tourists’ images of Zhangjiajie in order to develop efficient tourism marketing strategy.

Nowadays online travel journals and internet travel blogs are becoming more important as many web sites provide free or inexpensive travel blog formats. According to the article online blogs offer useful information about tourist destinations, moreover, travelers can share their experience and communicate with other travelers. Using data from travel blogs is an effective tool in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a destination.

Methodology

The author used travel blogs to measure and understand negative and positive images of destinations formed by travelers. For the survey twenty-two travel blogs were collected through the Google search engine and only fifteen were appropriate for the investigation. The researcher used NVivo software for qualitative data analysis to perform content analysis of the blog data.

Results

The article  presents that travel blogs is efficient instrument for analyzing Western travelers’ image of destination.

The text of the travel blogs was analyzed by word frequency. From researcher’s viewpoint the majority of bloggers were likely to be traveling either alone or with one companion. The survey data shows that Western travelers are not quite interested in visiting cultural/historical attractions in Zhangjiajie.

The investigation finds out that Western travelers were likely to be interested in experiencing and learning wild nature within natural settings and not too touristic. Also, analyze reveals negative experiences on various travel occasions. The most common theme commented on was about episodes related to communication problems and accommodation quality.

Conclusion/Recommendation

The research paper is aimed to examine Western travelers’ perception of Zhangjiajie as a tourist destination, using travel blogs to identify negative and positive images from travelers’ point of view. In common, Western

tourists were amazed by the beautiful natural landscape and express satisfaction with nature-based tourism attractions. Unfortunately, there is an also negative impression from the place such as poor accommodation quality,

 lack of English speaking tour guides, lack of English menus at local restaurants,  being overcharged, and over-crowdedness in major tourist attractions. The government  should focus on visitor management in order to increase the number of visitors, the timing of visitation, geographic distribution and behavior of tourists.

Due to the article Western tourists’  activities and the number of places they normally visited were very low. Analysis of travel blogs are important for deeper understanding of the dynamics of tourist experience.

8. “Innovation in destination marketing”

The use of passive mobile positioning for the segmentation of repeat visitors in Estonia 

Introduction

Nowadays in competitive business environment   special subfields of marketing “Place marketing” and “destination marketing” have appeared.

The researchers explain the importance of the long-term relationship between the host country and visitors. It also underlines the key role of loyal customers in destination marketing. Loyal customer relations show to the positive attitude of the customer, which leads to positive perception of the overall image of the place.

The rapid development of information technology solutions help to collect and analyse information about customer behaviour. Though, using technology developments in destination marketing are not efficient. Information about tourist flows is not accurate, concentrating mainly on the information  about tourist accommodation. According to the studies the information and communication technologies (ICT) and geographical information systems (GIS) are new investigation methods in geography and tourism studies. New methods of geographical studies are related with mobile (cellular) phone positioning datasets and location-based services (LBS). Mobile positioning data is important in space-time behaviour studies.

The research paper is aimed on passive mobile positioning (PMP) method as new data sources for analyzing different segments of repeat visitors. This data will be useful for the improvements in the destination marketing strategy and for the development of new services for different segments of loyal customers.

The objective of the study is to define how the improvements in the mobile positioning technology able to create new segmentation of repeat visitors that affect on the destination marketing policy making. Additionally, authors present theoretical review on the creation of an innovation model of the destination marketing of the country and providing a new approach of segmentation of repeat visitors.

Methodology

PMP data provide the location of phones in network cells that is automatically stored in the memory of service providers. This data source offers a good potential for analyzing the geography and mobility of the population. The researchers use data from the billing memory of roaming calls of the mobile operator Eesti Mobiil Telefon (EMT) for segmenting tourists. Every telephone in the database has a list of visited days and list of unique visits. This data is used for detecting visiting behaviour and further for segmentation. Data for the survey was collected from 32 million call activities with 650,000 ID-s.

Results

Following the results the mobile positioning is able to develop the quality of data about tourism flows in Estonia. The researchers find out different segments of repeat visitors: loyal and not loyal; somewhat loyal, loyal and very loyal; transit; long-term; one-day and visitors who are loyal to certain events. The survey observes and determines the duration, timing, density, seasonality and dynamics of visitations.

Conclusion/Recommendations

The article highlights how technological innovation provides a foundation for the new segmentation of repeat visitors that affects to improvements in the destination marketing policy making of the country. The researchers were the first who develop the innovation model for the destination marketing of the country and offer the new approach to the segmentation of repeat visitors. For the survey they used the PMP method as the innovation enabling factor that presents a database of characteristics of repeat visitors like their nationality, visiting frequency, and timing.

The PMP method has a great potential for creating the new focus in destination marketing of the country. According to the article example the Estonian tourism managers could diversify and develop tourism strategy by addressing multiple segments of repeat visitors. The Estonian government is focused extension the duration of the repeat visits, it was impossible to analyze the outcome of the policy.

The PMP method should be used as an instrument to get accurate information about tourists and, create and execute efficient strategies to extend the duration of repeat visits of multiple segments of visitors. 

9. “Place branding’s role in sustainable development”

Introduction

Place marketing is defined as increasing the tourist number, it also plays an important role in regional and urban development, place and/or country positioning in international relations and maintaining continued infrastructural and economic growth.

According to the literature a place brand is a perception that people have about a place, city, region or a country and a place’s reputation among those people that the place embraces. Successful place branding includes the responsible and intelligent application of disciplines from commercial and corporate branding, along with new collaborative leadership and partnership development practices within stakeholders.

The objective of the article is to define the place branding and its influence on the continuous development and sustainable growth of a place, by reflecting on the aspects of traditional branding, product branding, corporate branding, place marketing and destination branding.

Methodology

The research paper was based on the city of Liverpool and its Liverpool ’08 place brand campaign. This campaign also helps to explore the effects of a mega-event on a place and provides a unique opportunity to define  how a place branding campaign may have impact on sustainable  development of a place. Methodology was made through the interview  with the key stakeholders including senior representatives (such as chief executives, chairpersons, board directors and/or senior managers) from 14 key authorities and organisations both from the public and

private sectors who  responsible for creating and delivering the Liverpool place brand image.

Results

Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) – NVivo was used for the investigation. The researchers applied “first-cycle” and “second-cycle” coding methods to exercise effective data analysis. A “convergent” interview technique was used to achieve data saturation.

The survey showed that place branding plays an important role in the sustainable development of a place, provided that the momentum of progress is maintained. Consecutively, this sustainable development is able to promote the place and create stronger place brands.

Conclusion/Recommendation

Place branding can also be defined as “maintaining momentum” in order to deliver sustainable development. The survey shows that the careful preservation of place-embedded assets plays the main role, because it includes complimentary and integrated logistics, improved infrastructure for business and employment purposes, strong associations with the existing cultural and sporting legacies. According to the research place branding plays an important role in  growth prospects of a place and indicates an urgent need to understand better the place branding concept and its inter-relationship within sustainable development, in order to implement place branding practices more successfully.

Following the study the promotion of the growth prospects of the place brand includes:

The development of the traditional artistic, cultural and architectural heritage that could build a stronger brand identity;

Positive media involvement which confirms the economic well-being and growth in a place;

Attraction of investments from both public and private sectors in order to create a financial stimulus for further economical development;

Improvement of lifestyle standards and housing facilities which makes a place more attractive to visit, live and settle in the longer term;

Increasing place brand loyalty, through marketing tools as “word of mouth” and viral marketing which drives brand image and brand extension.

10. “The influence of consumer’s event quality perception on destination image”

Introduction

Many countries realize the importance of holding international sport events that can boost national economy, enhance infrastructure, and commercial and social and cultural aspects Also, they receive a lot of international attention through media and contribute to increase domestic tourism. Successful event can improve the destination image and community pride of residents, though there is high level of competition among countries to host international sport events. 

Following the study destination image can be influenced by several sources including promotional activities such as a media guides, local cultural and entertainment options, word-of-mouth, infrastructure as well as the quality of the service. It can be explained  as an individual’s overall perception or the total set of impressions of a place.

Hence, it is crucial to develop and implement effective promotional and marketing strategies to improve destination image among tourists.

The objective of the research is to identify the influence of the tourists’ event quality perceptions of an international sport event on destination image. The study observes the specific issues: Is there any positive influence of event quality factors of an international sport event on the destination’s image? Which specific event quality

factors (i.e. intangible and tangible) are important in predicting three different dimensions (i.e. cognitive, affective, and conative image) of destination image? 

Methodology

Data  for the research are collected during the Tour de Korea, an annual bicycling stage race, which is held in seven-to-ten regions in South Korea for ten days. Event quality factors are analysed by Parasuraman et al.’s (1985, 1988) scale of intangible factors (six items) and Wakefield and Blodgett’s (1999) scale of tangible factors (three items). According to investigation,  destination image is measured with a total of 17 items (five items for cognitive image, six items for affective image, and six items for conative image). The research methodology is based on 451 questionnaires.

Results

The findings of this study identify that intangible event quality factors, rather than tangible factors, were significantly related to cognitive image, affective and conative image. Summarizing the investigation, the event quality perceptions, particularly intangible factors, positively influence the destination image.

Conclusion

To host international sport events is very important and efficient strategy to enhance and promote destination image. The research is based on the South Korean context that recently hold several eco-friendly  public sport events  in order to improve their destination image. The authors explain the theoretical relationship between event quality perceptions of an international sport event and the host city’s destination image. The findings explain tourist’s positive perceptions of the quality of an international sport event help to improve the destination’s image. According to the investigation tourists  develop positive cognitive, affective, and conative image through an evaluation of intangible service factors, related to the venue’s environment.

Recommendations

The event and tourism managers hosting international sport should first of all improve quality of the event that will develop destination image. It is necessary to develop effective strategies to enhance both intangible and tangible aspects of event quality. The community is also important key for the event as they provide the best possible physical environment which directly effects their event quality perception. Finally, partnership of the local government, event organizer, sport organization, and locals will help to enhance the event quality and destination image. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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