International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Systems

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Destination Based Web-marketing: an Analysis by Service Providers.


Affiliations
1 Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu., India
2 University of Jammu., India
     

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Web marketing is a new way of performing the task of marketing, made feasible by the advent of new technology namely the Internet. It is a form of direct marketing. Michael E. Porter (2001) has defined the Internet as an enabling technology, a powerful set of tools that can be used, wisely or unwisely, in almost any industry and as part of any strategy. In addition to physical goods, services are increasingly offered through the internet. Electronic services have already changed whole industries, such as banking, health, education, etc., changing the economics behind services offered by streamlining the business and service processes. Tourism industry is no exception to that. Information and communication technology in tourism sector is of special significance. This is due to its special product behavior. Accordingly, various high tech information and communication technologies are in use in the tourism sector around the world. They are used for tourism product development, marketing, distribution and training to tourism sector personnel. Mature tourist destinations are usually highly controlled by the operators. The introduction of the internet as a commercial tool has proved the supply side with an alternative channel for Communication, Marketing and Distribution, which may prove capable of side stepping these middlemen. In the present research, the role to the internet among hotel, travel agencies and airline companies in Jammu is analyzed. Primary survey was conducted among these companies in order to find out the extent of the use of internet in developing Jammu as a destination. With this backdrop, the present study aims to study the role of destination based tourism websites in promoting Jammu as a destination by various Service providers viz. Hotels, Travel Agencies and Airlines in terms of the parameters taken in the study and accordingly to suggest ways and means to improve the websites for better Tourism Destination Marketing. The findings of the study suggest that the websites are scoring above average values on the all the five factors under study namely Functionality, Convenience, Website Layout, Convenience and Content but, however, their performance can still be improved. The Service providers who use these websites, are completely satisfied with the speed of information downloads, transaction processing speed, website designs, logical organization of the website etc.

Keywords

Web Marketing, Destinations, Service Providers
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  • Destination Based Web-marketing: an Analysis by Service Providers.

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Authors

Suvidha Khanna
Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Jammu., India
Saran Preet Kaur Broca
University of Jammu., India

Abstract


Web marketing is a new way of performing the task of marketing, made feasible by the advent of new technology namely the Internet. It is a form of direct marketing. Michael E. Porter (2001) has defined the Internet as an enabling technology, a powerful set of tools that can be used, wisely or unwisely, in almost any industry and as part of any strategy. In addition to physical goods, services are increasingly offered through the internet. Electronic services have already changed whole industries, such as banking, health, education, etc., changing the economics behind services offered by streamlining the business and service processes. Tourism industry is no exception to that. Information and communication technology in tourism sector is of special significance. This is due to its special product behavior. Accordingly, various high tech information and communication technologies are in use in the tourism sector around the world. They are used for tourism product development, marketing, distribution and training to tourism sector personnel. Mature tourist destinations are usually highly controlled by the operators. The introduction of the internet as a commercial tool has proved the supply side with an alternative channel for Communication, Marketing and Distribution, which may prove capable of side stepping these middlemen. In the present research, the role to the internet among hotel, travel agencies and airline companies in Jammu is analyzed. Primary survey was conducted among these companies in order to find out the extent of the use of internet in developing Jammu as a destination. With this backdrop, the present study aims to study the role of destination based tourism websites in promoting Jammu as a destination by various Service providers viz. Hotels, Travel Agencies and Airlines in terms of the parameters taken in the study and accordingly to suggest ways and means to improve the websites for better Tourism Destination Marketing. The findings of the study suggest that the websites are scoring above average values on the all the five factors under study namely Functionality, Convenience, Website Layout, Convenience and Content but, however, their performance can still be improved. The Service providers who use these websites, are completely satisfied with the speed of information downloads, transaction processing speed, website designs, logical organization of the website etc.

Keywords


Web Marketing, Destinations, Service Providers

References