The use of tourism establishments. Elements of marketing communication: an exploratory survey study | ||||
| Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality | ||||
| Article 6, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2008, Page 53-81 PDF (791.7 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jaauth.2008.68271 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| Habas Raja'a El Harby | ||||
| Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The Tourism is one of the important economic sources for the many countries. For some countries, tourism represents the first source of national income. The World Travel and Tourism Council's statistics 2001 indicated that tourism for leisure purpose takes the first rank with 62% of the total world demand for tourism activities. Also, the tourism industry formed 11% of the global Gross Domestic Product and 8.2% of the total world employment. Promotion is one of the attractive methods to use such an industry either by investors or audience. The promotional means is the used by one of the most essential elements of marketing mixture on which establishments depend in marketing their services and products. In Saudi Arabia, there are many tourism establishments that provide different tourism services to the public including accommodation, entertainment, recreation ...etc. This study aims at recognizing how much these establishments would use the different marketing communication elements such as advertisements, public relations, personal selling, and sales proudion and publishing. Also, the study aims at identifying elements that would affect such establishments when using some elements of marketing communication. This Study is an exploratory study since this phenomenon never has been studied. This study is important since it tries to achieve a full understanding of the marketing communication elements, which are used in supporting the internal tourism, the theoretical and applying dimensions of marketing this communication, and the impact of such elements of the promotion effectiveness. The possibility of making impact increases largely if the promotion process depended on more than one wedium and communication means and more than one message. This study presents an important scientific and applicable dimension represented in the development of a scientific standard. Such a standard identifies how much the tourism establishments play this important role, allowing the researcher to connect between the extent of applying the marketing communication and the effectiveness of supporting the domestic tourism. In this framework, the study aims at examining how much the tourism establishments are convinced promotion, the marketing with communication role, the affecting factors, and the relation between this role and domestic tourism support. Through the study results, the researcher reached the following to conclusions as follows: -Seasonality is a main obstacle for the tourism establishment work, affecting the sales size. The tourism seasonality in the KSA is one of the most important impediments facing the development of The tourism sector in the KSA. The seasonality makes the tourism establishment raise the price of their products or services. Consequently, the local consumer not will direct towards the local tourism for comparing its prices with those of the same products in other countries. -The results showed the existence of statistical differences for the benefit of entertainment places in using the media and publicity compared to other tourism establishments. Also, there are statistical differences for the benefit of accommodation facilities in using personal selling compared to other establishments. Thus, the most commonly used marketing communication elements in tourism establishments are media, publicity, and personal selling. -The statistical tests revealed that the type of promotion means is the first factor that influences using or not using the marketing communication elements by tourism establishments. Therefore, if the tourism establishments do not have promotional plans, they will focus on a certain type of elements more than other elements. -Through statistical test, the study indicated that sales and profits have an impact on the tourism establishment's use of promotional elements with an average 4.08. Also, defining the tourism product is the third factor affecting the use of marketing communication elements with an average 4.04. The budget of the department concerned with using the promotion mix elements is the last factor with an average of 3.73. -The study proved that the marketing activity in the tourism sector needs human resources trained on promoting the tourism activities efficiency. Since it is hard to find qualified employees in this field and because the tourism sector and its marketing is new, the top management in tourism establishments was not interested in providing human resources to manage promotion at such establishments. | ||||
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