The Role of Information Technology on Tourism Destination Marketing: A Case Study of Iran and the Persian Gulf States

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1 The Role of Information Technology on Tourism Destination Marketing: A Case Study of Iran and the Persian Gulf States Mojdeh Jamnia Department of Management University of Exeter, UK M.Jamnia@ Exeter.ac.uk Abstract This research aims to investigate the relationship between Information Technology and Tourism Destination Marketing within the context of Iran and the Persian Gulf States. The website of a tourist organisation becomes a very important extension of the organisation which might used to portray the image of the organisation (Maswera, et al., 2005). The Internet has affected our lives extensively and become an effective tool in our businesses. It is important for National Tourism Organisations to take advantage of this technology. The primary quantitative data collected by two types of s and the qualitative data by some interviews. The first survey was an on- line sent randomly to the experts of three disciplines namely; computer science, information science and tourism industry. The second survey was paper-based and distributed within Exeter, UK. The third assessment survey was the interviews with the tourism authorities of Iran, Qatar and Bahrain. Keywords: Information Technology, Tourism Destination Marketing, Iran, Persian Gulf States 1 Background There is a general agreement that Information Technology and especially the WWW is extremely important pool of knowledge to find the destination information and almost every frequent tourist knows how to exploit the Internet in order to choose or even purchase a desired destination. The website of a tourist organisation becomes a very important extension of the organisation which might very well used to portray the image of the organisation (Maswera, et al., 2005).As WTOBS (1999; p: 23) indicated in the Information Age, access to data on travel and tourism will be taken for granted. Prospective tourists will research destination online. Having got the satisfactory information will make the visitors into tourists. The World Wide Web is getting so popular to the extent that it is called traditional in some points of views (Hartl, et al., 2000; Buhalis, 1998).

2 2 Problem definition This research is trying to explore the relationship between information technology and tourism destination marketing within the context of Iran and the Persian Gulf States. In this study the Persian Gulf States are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yemen. Tourism is very important to these countries simply because it is a major source of economy in terms of foreign exchange and the jobs it creates. The economies of these countries benefit from oil which is a finite resource and they have understood not to rely solely on oil revenue. Tourism is now one of the fastest developing components for their economic growth (United Arab Emirates Yearbook 2002). Tourism reduces reliance on the oil and now is being focused upon to sustain economic development in Dubai followed by Bahrain, Qatar and Oman ( ). These countries are all Muslim and except from Iran they are Arab nationals. The types of tourists being attracted to this region could differ from domestic, regional and international. According to WTO tourism 2020 vision ( ) the potentials for tourism in these countries are Extensive coastline, with associated marine attractions Vibrant Arab societies and cultures (except Iran with Persian culture and language) Holy shrines and shrines drawing religious tourists and pilgrims Many historical, archaeological and heritage sites related to different civilizations and religions Catering to cultural and religious tourism Catering to eco-tourism and nature based tourism-desert tours, mountain trekking, rural tourism and diving Offering various special interests such as festivals, sports, adventure tourism, spa and health treatments When tourists, who may be a considerable distance away from destination, seek the information on the Internet they need to know where to go, where to stay, what to eat, what and how to see and even what to wear. Consequently, their need can be clarified simply to What to know. This is the responsibility of national tourism organisation as the official tourism authority of a country to provide the essential information for the tourists. The Internet is the best opportunity for national tourism organisations to grasp the seconds to attract tourists attitude by adopting the wisest way of presenting the information with regard to the widespread usage and the short time in transferring the information and transaction. If these organisations would be able to carry out the task skilfully, the tourists may book the trip and become the next visitor. In order to attract on-line visitors or potential tourists, national tourism organisations need to

3 provide sufficient information through a well designed website. The design and content of the websites should be satisfactory in such a way that engage the attention of unique visitors and persuade them to visit again and recommend it to others. (Unique Visitors are individuals who have visited a web site at least once in a fixed time frame: Webopedia ). It is always emphasized that the right information should be given to the right person at the right time but it is never explicitly stated that who is in charge of providing this information. If the Internet practicing has been established within the policy of the national tourism organisations as a destination-marketing device, these organisations should provide the on-line information for all types of tourists they may receive. 3 Aim and objectives The aim of this research is to understand how the case study countries could benefit from the Internet in promoting their tourism activities? In other words, how different tourism stakeholders can join together and build a market that can take the best advantages by adopting a well designed and informative website? Table 1 shows the objectives of this research. 4 Research questions Regarding the aim and objectives of this research, the research questions are: 1-What is a desirable website (content and/or design) from the point of view of an expert with computer, information or tourism background? In other words, what the experts criteria are to distinguish a website as desirable? 2- What is a useful website from the point of view of a tourist? In other words, how useful a website would be to make a visitor to a tourist? 3-How the tourism-related knowledge/information is gathered to put on the national tourism website?

4 Table 1. The objectives Objectives role of information technology on national tourism destination websites Quantitative Surveys The experts Qualitative Survey Sample - Computer science - Information science - Tourism industry Sample size 720 experts randomly selected Means of Survey On-line users concept and preferences on going for holidays The users - Exeter general public 529 Internet users Paper-based role of knowledge management on the websites of national tourism organisations In-depth interview - Iran - Bahrain - Qatar 10 tourism authorities Structured questions 5 Proposed methodology Based on the literature and for the sake of reliability and validity, the researcher decided to employ both qualitative and quantitative approaches to pave the way for more credibility and dependable information. Basically the research has been founded around three key surveys of: experts, users and national tourism authorities as destination marketers. The experts and users s were administered to gather the quantitative data for the first and second objectives and the interviews with national tourism authorities of three countries namely; Iran, Qatar and Bahrain was applied to obtain the qualitative data for the third objective (Table 1). The on-line sought the experts comments on 6 national tourism websites of the case study countries (Iran, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) while the paper-based users survey examined the preferences and concepts of the general public on a particular web site when they go on holidays. The interviews with national tourism authorities in Iran, Bahrain and Qatar revealed how

5 knowledge transferred within their organisations with regard to the websites. In this research several pilot studies conducted. 6 Anticipated results For the first survey the experts of three categories namely; computer science, information science and tourism industry invited (via ) to complete the on- line by clicking on the address of targets in academia and business were considered suitable for this survey. This e-survey was delivered in two series: the first 269 e-invitations sent from 12 th -14 th April 2005 and asked the respondents to complete the by 15 th May Twenty two s failed for delivery. After two weeks a follow up despatched to 247 experts (the same targets). Since the first series of the e-invitation did not yield reasonable results, thus an was sent to another 451 experts. The deadline of this e-invitation was 31 July The total number of respondents from the two series of e-invitation was 40. For the second survey, 529 s were circulated in public to collect the data for the users. The distribution started from 22 June - 20 July The first deadline, 15 July 2005 expanded to 31 July 2005 to give more time for sending the s back. A pre- addressed, pre-stamped envelope was attached to each. The users data yielded 136 responses (26% response rate). To achieve the qualitative data, 10 appointments were made in London (UK) for Qatar, Tehran (Iran) and Manama (Bahrain) with the tourism authorities. Semi structured, recorded interview with tourism authorities seemed efficient to explore how the knowledge was being transferred within national tourism organisations. All of the interviewees were asked the same questions. The language used was simple and except from Iran which the language was in Persian, the other interviews conducted in English. References Buhalis, D (1998) Strategic use of information technologies in the tourism industry Tourism Management, Vol. 19, No.5, pp Hartl,A.;Austaller,G.;Kapple,G. Lechleitner,C.;Muhlhauser,M.;Reich,S.;Rudish,R. (2000).Gulliver- A Development Environment for WAP Based Applications On Maswera, T., Dawson, R., Edwards, J. (2005) Analysis of Usability and Accessibility Errors of E-Commerce Websites of Tourist Organisations in Four African countries. In Frew, A. J. (ed) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2005 pp World Tourism Organisations Business Council (WTOBC) (1999) Marketing Tourism Destinations online strategies for the Information Age WTO, Madrid, 1999.