Designing a conceptual model of sustainable tourism based on sustainable marketing

Dissertation for receiving the degree of Master of Business Administration (M.A)

Direction: Marketing

Abstract

The purpose of presenting this research is to design a conceptual model of sustainable tourism based on sustainable marketing. This model includes independent variables of social stability, political stability, service quality, environmental sustainability, cultural sustainability, sustainable marketing, tourist satisfaction, tourist trust, tourist loyalty on the dependent variable of sustainable tourism.  In order to test the hypotheses, a questionnaire with a rating of 0-100 and 30 questions was designed and distributed among the statistical population (tourism organization in Kermanshah province, sightseeing and historical places) to the number of 384 tourists, managers and experts of the tourism organization and marketing experts. The method used in this research is descriptive-survey method. Path analysis method was used to test hypotheses and AMOS software was used for statistical analysis of data. The results of the research show a positive relationship and a significant level, among which the variable of tourist loyalty has the most influence and the variable of environmental sustainability has the least influence on the variable of sustainable tourism. Keywords: sustainable tourism, sustainable marketing, tourism conceptual model, tourism organization of Kermanshah province.

Introduction

In the late 1980s, tourism development moved from economy-oriented development to more sustainable development. Sustainable development is the ideal point of the tourism industry's effort in the 21st century (Zargham Borojni and Nik Bin, 2010, 139). A few decades ago, researchers looked at tourism as a larger system rather than a simple process of economic exchanges between businesses and consumers. Planners and economists established tourism supply (business and community resources) and demand (tourism market) of both sides, including communication including transportation and marketing communication (Jamrozi [1], 2007, 118). Travel and tourism has become a global industry and is widely considered one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing industry in the world (M. Rich and Perry [2], 1998, 1290). Tourism can be an important source of jobs for non-metro communities, especially those that are economically underdeveloped. Because jobs in the tourism industry often do not require advanced training, local residents with few skills can easily work as food servers, retail clerks, and hospitality workers. Tourism also not only provides local residents with business opportunities, but can serve as a means of marketing a place to potential residents and companies, such as tourism today may be returning after retirement or starting a local business (M. Broun[3], 2003, 1). As a human pursuit, leisure has given rise to great concerns for the post-modern era of leisure. People who participate in social work around the world will spend 50% more time each year on leisure activities in the next 15 years. According to the survey, one-third of Americans' time is used for leisure, one-third of their income is for leisure, and one-third of their land is for it. Meanwhile, tourism, as a form of relaxation, is widely accepted, and with the continuous development of the global economy, the leisure economy plays a key part in the tourism industry (Kan and Hongbing[4], 2010, 1974). Relationships between five latent factors (for example, personal benefits from tourism development, perception of the positive effects of tourism, perception of the negative effects of tourism, community satisfaction and attitudes towards the development of increased tourism) have been used and proposed. Economic effects include positive elements such as tax revenue, increased employment and additional income, as well as negative elements such as tax burden, inflation and local government debts. Social and cultural effects include positive elements such as the revival of handicrafts and traditional ceremonies, increasing understanding and intercultural communication, and negative elements such as increasing the crime rate and changes in traditional culture.Environmental effects include positive elements such as protection of parks and wildlife and negative elements such as crowding, air, water and noise pollution, destruction of wildlife, vandalism and littering (Fochen and Chun Chen[5], 2010, 529). Today, despite the progress that has occurred in the countries of the world, the old marketing methods for attracting tourists cannot be effectively answered, because tourists (customers) do not easily trust the advertisements provided by organizations and local governments in relation to the tourist areas of their respective countries. In today's world, there are advances such as mass communication media, the Internet, communication through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. It has caused people all over the world to get closer to each other and in this way get most of the information they need. However, it is expected that a sustainable marketing system should be established in order to have a sustainable tourism industry. Tourism includes all the activities that tourists do while traveling and is related to them, and this can include travel planning, moving between origin and destination, accommodation, and so on. Tourism marketing is identifying and predicting the needs of tourists and providing facilities to meet their needs and informing them and motivating them to visit (Amin Bidakhti and Nazari, 2018, 51). The main idea of ??sustainable tourism is the sustainability of the development of the tourism environment, welfare from tourism benefits and justice from tourism opportunities (Kan and Hongbing [6], 2011, 1977). Wall [7] (1998) argues that macro marketing structure, including capabilities (marketing objectives), tourism marketing institutions (those involved) and goods (what we market) are examined in tourism marketing (Jamrozi [8], 2007, 119). Tang et al. (2010) investigated and studied the sustainable development of the tourism industry in China under the low carbon economy. According to the researches mentioned above and other researches that exist in the field of tourism, sustainable tourism and tourism marketing, it can be seen that each of these researches have studied the factors affecting the tourism industry from one or two or at most three dimensions. It should be noted that none of the conducted researches have investigated and studied the impact of sustainable marketing, which is the most important factor in today's world to achieve a sustainable industry, on tourism. The statistical population intended in this research is made up of tourism industry experts and professors and students of management and marketing fields who are also experts in management and marketing techniques. The use of experts makes this research have a strong implementation capability. The reason for the existence of such a problem is that even though the country of Iran has many attractions in terms of tourism, it has not been able to allocate a high percentage of the share of this industry in the world. There are many reasons involved in this, among which we can mention political factors, cultural and social factors, environmental factors and economic factors, each of the aforementioned factors, in turn, has subcategories that will be examined in the next chapters. The model that we use in this research considers the effect of all the factors mentioned above and shows how much each of them affects having a sustainable tourism. It also measures the impact of sustainable marketing that results from the above factors, especially on sustainable tourism. In recent decades, the growth and development of the tourism industry and its adoption as one of the major economic activities by developed and developing countries, and the competition of major tourist destinations to attract tourists, have prompted planners to pay attention to two important categories in order to increase the income from tourism activities: firstly, increasing the satisfaction of tourists and improving the pleasure and quality of the tourism experience; secondly, efforts to protect the interests of the host communities (Shabani Fard et al., 2018, 48).  Yun [9] et al. (2001) development of the tourism industry as an effective way to revive the economy of a specific part, both urban and rural. However, tourism is highly dependent on the goodwill of local residents as their support is necessary for successful development operations, especially for the sustainability of an area. Perdos [10] et al. (1990) and Yoon et al. (2001) in that the attitude of local residents towards the development of the tourism industry and the factors affecting them are essential in obtaining the support of the host community for the development of the tourism industry.