EFFECTS OF ICT ON MARKETING MIX IN ELECTRONIC TOURISM
SHAPING MARKETING STRATEGIES IN E-TOURISM ENTERPRISES
Dr Ali Sanayei
Professor of Marketing Management
University of Isfahan
Isfahan, Iran
Majid Mohammad shafiee
PhD Student of Marketing Management
University of Isfahan
Isfahan, Iran
Hossein Shams & Hamid Golchin
MA Students of Tourism Marketing
A.B.A University
Karaj, Iran
Abstract— Information Communications Technology restaurants and etc., can have significant effects and can
(ICT) has a very determinant and significant role in shaping and help shaping their marketing strategies, and also to
functioning of different industries and developing e-commerce, improve loyalty to their brand (Lin & Lee, 2010:95).
including the tourist industry. Therefore, necessity for From marketing point of view characteristics of web site
identifying those effects is obvious in the electronic tourist regarding main marketing strategy's subjects, including
marketing mix. in order to increase competitiveness in products and services, destination, improvement,
potentials existed between Tourism Enterprises. According to packaging, individuals and communication are definable
this assumption, this article is trying to survey and introduce the and analytical (Wong & Law, 2005:30). Therefore, in this
most important of these effects in 4Ps including Products, Price, paper authors try to analyze effects of ICT on marketing
Promotion and place as the basis of marketing mix. So it seems mix and briefly review electronic tourism marketing
that this article would be able to improve Enterprises active in strategy's items with their effects from them.
tourism in using electronic marketing.
RESEARCH LITERATURE
Keywords- E-Tourism, Information Communication Using information communication technology in
Technology, Marketing Mix, Tourism Enterprise tourism industry can be traced far back into years 1970s in
which some have reported using Computerized
INTRODUCTION
Reservation Systems (CRS) in the industry for the first
Entrance of ICT into the business world has caused time in the world through information technology, and it
fascinating and fast changes in how life and social was this activity that was regarded as the first performing
interactions are being pursued and so has affected act through technological information, which increased
different parts of commerce and industry in such a way possibilities of answering to the increased travel demand
that meaning and understanding of electronic commerce in those years (Kromidh & Muca, 2011: 65). In general,
are becoming wider in daily basis. Tourism industry by one can say there are three main recognizable movements
any mean has not been left out by those effects, and one in shaping electronic tourism, which happened during past
can say that, it was the first industry in which decades and those areas follow:
experiencing functional meaning of ICT from 1970
decade; with widely spreading the internet throughout the 1. Computerized system reservation development in
world, especially in late 1990s and increasing years1970s.
development of different web sites, for tourist service 2. Implementation of delivering worldwide systems
providers, electronic tourism found new dimension in (GDR) during years of 1980s.
meaning and functionality.
3. Beginning the era of the internet in years 1990s
In a closer look information communication (Kromidh & Muca, 2011:67, Buhalis & Law,
technologies effects including the internet not only in 2008:609).
tourism industry is significant and noticeable, but those
effects in different parts of this industry as marketing The internet particularly has had a very significant
organizations active in tourism like air traveling effect in shaping electronic tourism and hotel reservation
companies, traveling agencies, hostelling, tour agencies, system (Lin &Lee, 2010:83). Even though reviewing
1 www.ecdcconference.org
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, existing research literature clearly shows that research in Results coming out of this research clearly show a
different fields of electronic tourism still is in primary wide range of findings that each one for itself is
stage (Buhalis & Law, 2008: 618), but progress in this noticeable, in such a way that, based on part of research in
subject is noticeable and very fast, also we are witnessing year 2003 more than 67 percent of passengers in United
purchases of goods and services through the internet ever States used the internet in order to find information related
more in daily basis (Kim et al, 2004: 304). With a quick to destination, checking on prices, and planning for their
review over the past literature, one can find more than 655 trips (Wong & Law, 2005:312). Ye and his colleagues,
title papers related to electronic tourism, which were also in their research have found out about existence of
published during the years from 1980 to 1999 (IP et al, significant communications between consumer on-line
2011:235), and years between 2000 to 2004 were very servers (On-Line Consumer Reviews) and functioning
important part of era for change in online commerce, and hotels (Ye et al, 2009:180). The researches by Pan and
as a whole, titles for one hundred of most affecting article Fesenmaier also tried to explain the shaping of the
published during years 2000 to 2007 are shown in table 1 evolution between research, planning vacations and
that more than 25 percent of them are related to marketing internet usage (Pan& Fesenmaier, 2006:829). These
(Law et al, 2009:742). results can direct us towards gathering of better
information and usage of past researchers and also helping
TITLE FOR ONE HUNDRED MOST POPULAR ARTICLE TOPICS PUBLISHED us in our investigations.
BETWEEN YEARS 2000 TO 2007
RESEARCH IMPORTANCE
It resulted progresses in technology information and
communication will cause changes in businesses, so that
progress should be identified and used in the best way to
create ground for survival and reaching to a proper
position in industry. This means that created speedy
services by electronic commerce (Kim et al, 2011:257)
best to be or should be used by companies in both levels
of strategy and functionality within an organization.
Therefore, they will be proportionately regulated to
industrial structural changes (Buhalis & Law,
2008:609).Importance of ICT can be observed with regard
to worldwide increase of coefficient penetration of
internet usage globally; in such a way that in year 2007
there were more than 1.2 billion internet user in the world
Furthermore, classified subject for published articles (Hui et al, 2009:829). So this number by year 2009
between 2005 to 2007 are shown in table 2. increased to more than 1.46 billion which as a whole, we
were witnessing an increase of 35/5 percent from year
COUNT OF IT-RELATED ARTICLE BY CATEGORY 2000 to year 2009 (Kim et al, 2011:256).
In analyzing organizational construction of tourism
industry these days more than 30 percent of activities in
this industry are organized by the internet (Kromidh
&Muca, 2011: 68) in such a way that has turned this
industry into one of the most important users of the
internet (Kromidh &Muca, 2011: 65). According to the
report published by Travel Industry Association of
America (TIA) only in year 2005, more than 64 million
American had used the internet for planning their travel
(Beldona et al, 2009:407) and again in this matter up to
year 2005 beds and hotels on-line reservation with a
record of 7 percent in year 2003 was included in three
main purchasers of goods and services using the internet
(Wong & Lew, 2005: 312).
When enough attention is paid to articles in fields of
tourism industry, it is noticeable that, in more than 35
percent of those researches, on-line tools were used to
gather information and data (Hung & Law, 2011: 718),
and regarding these tools, research has shown that from
different subjects, marketing destination, image and
2 www.ecdcconference.org
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3790975