Prioritizing the impact of internet advertising tools on attracting European tourists to the country from the point of view of tourists

Final‎Bachelor‎Master's Degree in Tourism Management, Marketing Orientation

Summer

1390

Abstract

Iran, as the largest growing industry in the world, has a huge share in the world market of tourism industry. It is insignificant. The Internet is considered the best communication channel for attracting foreign tourists to the country due to its special advantages and capabilities. Therefore, in the present study, we evaluated the effect of Internet advertising tools on attracting European tourists to the country, using Lavage and Steiner's model. Using the available sampling method in the distribution of questionnaires, 150 questionnaires We analyzed a return and finally, it was concluded that Iran's tourism internet advertising does not have much effect on attracting European tourists to the country. In the end, it was suggested that the country's tourism advertising programs be reviewed and modified by experienced and expert people and evaluated continuously. Keywords: advertising, internet, tourism, measurement, Iran. Keywords: advertising, internet, tourism, measurement, Iran. Research

Introduction

Advertising is one of the marketing tools for the growth and development of any industry, including the tourism industry. In tourism and leisure industries, advertising is a key tool because potential consumers must make their purchase decisions based on their mental images of the products because they are not physically able to experience them before consumption. As a result, advertising is a vital variable in the mix of tourism and leisure marketing and includes a wide range of activities and factors. (Morgan and Pritchard, 2000)

The upcoming study titled "Priority‎ setting the impact of Internet advertising tools‎ on attracting European tourists to the country (from the tourists' point of view)" has been done‎, and in a review of past literature, only two related studies were found in Iran. These researches are related to advertising, in general, in tourism, and no research was found related to Internet advertising in the field of tourism. has done In this research  The survey method was used to investigate the advertising budgets of countries, to investigate the state of advertising in sample tourism service companies, to investigate the first five-year development plan, and finally to compare the objectives of the program and the performance of increasing the number of tourists (Melki, 2014). In the results, the importance of tourism in the present era is emphasized more and about its development, general suggestions are given, such as the development and strengthening of advertising programs for the introduction of Iran. Another research in 1381 entitled "The effect of advertising on the attraction of international tourists to the city of Isfahan from the point of view of tourists" was conducted by Reza Akbari, which investigated the effect of advertising tools used in the city of Isfahan. has paid In this research, a survey method was also used, and finally, it was concluded that none of the used advertising tools had any effect on attracting foreign tourists, and the guide book is the most effective advertising tool, followed by internet advertising, television, brochures, and newspapers. (Akbari, 1381)

The general method of this research is a descriptive-survey type (using a questionnaire). Based on the purpose of the research, Lavage and Steiner's model was chosen, which is a newer and more developed form of the famous AIDA model. This model has three stages and 6 variables, which you can see in Figure 1-1. The questions were designed in the form of a 5-choice Likert scale and translated into English. Since the sample size of the research was determined to be 150, we distributed the questionnaires until we got 150 completed and correct questionnaires (without errors). It should be noted that the selected sampling method is available sampling, which is one of the non-random sampling methods.SPSS software was used to analyze the data, and one-sample Student's t-test and Friedman's test were used to analyze inferential statistics. Finally, the main hypothesis of the research, which was related to the effect of Iran's tourism internet advertising on attracting European tourists to the country, was rejected; In other words, it was concluded that Iran's tourism internet advertising has no effect on attracting European tourists to the country. This is most likely due to the weakness of Iran's tourism advertising, especially through the global communication network (modern Internet media), which has been discussed and finally suggestions have been made. 1-1- Statement of the problem Iran's share of the world tourism industry market, as the largest growing industry in the world, is very small. Of the 919 million incoming tourists and 939 billion dollars (US) of world income from international tourism in 2008, Iran's share is only 2.034 million incoming tourists and 1.908 million dollars of income announced by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) (World Tourism Organization, 2010). This is in no way consistent with Iran's historical, cultural and natural resources (Shakibaei, 2014). It should be noted that according to the report of the World Tourism Organization, Iran has the 10th rank for ancient and historical attractions and the 5th rank for natural attractions in the world, and it is one of the safest countries in the region and the world in terms of security for foreign tourists (Wikipedia, 1390). 2020, Iran will reach the annual figure of twenty million foreign tourists per year. Of course, in order to attract 20 million foreign tourists per year, Iran as a tourist destination should have good marketing management. Among all the tasks of marketing management, one of the most important tasks of a tourism operator is to develop or maintain a mental image of the destination in accordance with the wishes of the target groups of visitors (Lamsden, 1992, translated by Taj Zadeh and Nemin, 1387). The success of a destination is largely dependent on its image. The approach adopted in creating the awareness and image of the destination is crucial in the final competition and attractiveness of the destination. On the other hand, promotional activities and advertisements are the basic parameters for introducing a tourist destination and play a significant role in creating the awareness and image of the destination; Advertising is one of the most widely used marketing communication tools in tourism, mainly because tourism product or service is intangible (Middleton and Clark, 2001). This product and service is often based on real or perceived images of tourism and destination. What is remarkable in tourism is the large amount of advertising that is spent. Therefore, one of the most important issues in the field of advertising is the evaluation of advertisements, and it is one of the main steps in the advertising cycle (Morgan and Pritchard, 2000). Therefore, in the current research, we evaluated Iran's Internet tourism advertising tools on attracting European tourists entering the country from their perspective. We examined 5 commonly used Internet advertising tools or methods (which include advertising banners, pop-out windows, text ads, video ads, and email ads) using the famous Lavage and Steiner model, which is actually a newer and more developed form of the AIDA model. Also, different companies and organizations in the field of tourism spend a lot of time and money on their advertisements every year in order to reach more customers. One of the most important issues in the field of advertising is its evaluation. In other words, it determines our success rate in creating advertising programs for which we have spent a lot of money. Without advertising evaluation, there is almost no guarantee of the effectiveness of the ads and it can be said that at least a significant part of the advertising budgets are wasted.

Evaluation in advertising is very important, not only because it determines what an advertising activity has achieved, but also because advertising evaluation also provides guidelines on how to improve and It provides the development of future promotional activities.