Understanding the trends in the cultural tourism industry and consumer behavior is more vital than ever for travel agencies to stay competitive. This report has identified two crucial trends that WTS Travel & Tours Private Limited(WTS Travel) can capitalize on to stay ahead of the intense competition. Firstly, the growing importance of social media usage. Secondly, the adoption of Airbnb as a key accommodation for cultural tourists. In our current hyper connected world, the increase in interactivity in the digital space has led to rise of social media.
Changes brought by the development of tourism can be seen in such aspects as natural resources, environment, consumption patterns, socio-economic systems, as well as pollution degree. Correspondingly, sustainable tourism has become an issue top on the agenda for the survival of the whole industry. However, before rushing into any actions, it is important first to understand the definition of sustainable tourism. Basing on UNEP and UNWTO (2005), sustainable tourism can be defined as “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities”. Suggested by the definition, a balance among local environment, economy, and socio-culture must be achieved to guarantee the long-term sustainability of destinations (ibid.).
Since tourists request destination information and its recommendation information simultaneously for traveling to a certain destination, in order to learn about it and reduce uncertainty (Bickart and Schindler, 2001), online travel reviews playing these two roles can completely meet tourists’ information needs. The impact of e-WOM in the tourism industry is especially strong. Intangibles such as tourism services cannot be evaluated before the consumption experience; therefore, purchasing intangible products and services brings a higher risk, so customers are more dependent on the interpersonal influence of eWOM (Lewis and Chambers,
With today’s great advances Social media websites are so easily accessed from tablets, Mobile phones and laptops. Social media has definitely helped to improve the way people research and decide where to go on holidays. Such great websites like Facebook, twitter and travel websites like travigo and Kayak, aid to the impact by pop ups and advertising on other websites. Social media is defiantly the way forward to marketing companies and anyone trying to promote their business and companies. We can see that People have become more aware of different cultures and countries and their knowledge has made a huge impact on the tourist’s decision making because they are interested by the destination, they usually decided by looking at reviews and images that other visitors have uploaded.
Moreover, as online purchasing trend is increasing, adoption of effective online marketing strategy is important for businesses as it is the means of reaching millions of customers all over the world. It is noticed that online marketing strategy influences the customer buying behaviour either positively or negatively (Dennis, et al., 2009). This is because customers grab the image of the brand as it is shown to them on the online media. There are some of the characteristics of online customers, which include direct information seekers, bargain hunters, undirected information seekers, directed buyers, and entertainment seekers. It is important for the organisations to consider these characteristics within their marketing strategy so that larger amounts of customers are attracted.
“Large investments are being made by companies in e-Tourism but find it difficult to evaluate the success of these e-Tourism systems” (Delone & McLean, 2004). “Evaluating an e-Tourism system in order to ascertain its usefulness will help organisations to better adapt to future challenges.” (Brown & Jayakody, 2008). “The Internet has become a very powerful communication channel” (Leidner & Jarvenpaa, 1995) and that lends itself to be used as a dimension of success in the Delone and Mclean’s IS Success Model. The primary users of every e-Tourism system are the external users and partners. They use it regularly to locate tourist sites, nearby places like restaurants, showcase new discoveries to clients, sell and do extensive business transactions.
They are a product of the mind trying to process and pick out essential information from huge amounts of data about a place” Hence, destination image is a concept that requires the local government and tourism manager to thoughtfully recognize in order to lead a lucrative destination marketing (Banyai, 2009). Historical
Optimization techniques for the Tourist Trip Design Problem: A Meta-Analysis A. Vashishth and M.S. Gajanand Operations Management and Quantitative Techniques, Indian Institute of Management Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India EXTENDED ABSTRACT Over the decades, tourism has experienced continued growth and deepening diversification to become one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world. Modern tourism is closely linked to development and encompasses growing number of new destinations. These dynamics have turned tourism into a key driver for socio-economic progress (UNWTO, 2015). With the emergence of the internet, a new type of tourists is emerging: they become their own travel agent and build their travel packages themself (Hannes, 2003).
There are tops of action in this circle and stagnation. On the travel season you can be over-burden with the work and in a while you can be exhausted without the work. The travel and tourism industry is a field of competitiveness. There is an extraordinary interest for visitor management which offers rises to the enormous amount of recommendations. New travel organizations are open each day and now existing ones broadens the field of activity.
2. IMAGE OF TOURIST DESTINATIONS The image of a place is an important component that managers have to deal with due to its influence in creating expectations (Matos, Mendes & Valle, 2012), and the role it plays in the tourist’s decision when choosing a destination to visit. The image is one of the main assets of a tourist destination and one that most influences the tourists’ decision when choosing a destination (Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Gallarza, Saura & García, 2002). Since the image is a key factor for selecting a destination, it is very important that managers know which features strengthen the image of a destination and the nature of managerial strategies that should be adopted to increase the competitiveness without neglecting the appropriate