Keywords

ICT, Tourism, Marketing, Consumer Behaviour

Introduction

People have habit of tourism, they like to stay outside, travel for their enjoyment or entertainment. Tourism industry also a highly competitive and fastest growing industry in the world. Revenue from the tourism industry has significant portion in the per capita income thereby economic development of country. Tourism marketing started with intention to make the customer satisfaction through satisfying the need and wants of customer. Keefe (2004) stated that it is a function of organization for creating and delivering product and services to the consumers for their benefits through communication. Tour and travel marketing can be classifying according to various parameter such as demand & supply, public & private, economy of tourism and local & regional. Hu (1996) identified five factors in tourism marketing, i.e. economic psychology, segmentation, strategic marketing, technology and communication. Understanding of consumer behaviour is also important for the tourism marketing and has core value. Visitors are satisfied with their own motivation to visit certain place (Leiper 1990). Visitors are also influenced by push motivation while pull motivational factors are the attributes of destination. ICT significantly change the industry of tourism and marketing pattern (Buhalis 2002). Studies have identified significant impact of ICT on the business of tourism and tourism marketing. Emergence of new technologies provides better experience (Gretzel and Jamal 2009). Tourism development depends on the high class of ICT structure and various application used through mobile and software. ICT helps to integrate the various operations in tourism and supply chain management in a single line through facilitating all business activities. Development in ICT also increased the efficiency of employees in the industry. This development also changed demand and supply pattern in tourism industry. Tourism industry is based on availability of information. Tourism industry amongst all service industry which uses ICT for the marketing. Tour operators or the tour service provider uses ICT tools in extensive manner. Traditionally they used newspaper, magazine, banner and telephone for marketing. With the development in ICT companies are using World Wide Web and other internet based application for marketing. ICT has supported companies to enhance experience of tourism marketing (Neuhofer et al., 2014). Development in mobile technologies has integrated ICT with tourism industry. Motivation is an important element in marketing in tourism (Harrill and Potts, 2002). ICT support the growth in tourism industry and provide tools for the communication among the various stakeholder connected with industry (Buhalis and Law, 2008). Use of ICT tools became important in distribution of services and communicating with the prospects (Dwivedi et al., 2009). Several areas such as revenue management, reservation process, operation management, training uses ICT in extensive manner (Ip et al., 2011).

Communication also changed in last decades. Three ways of communication have been identified such web based reports, communication through social platforms and communication through tailor-made form (Niininen et al. 2007; Gossling, 2021). E-marketing is one of the main part of marketing due to use of internet and communicative technologies between consumer and companies (Coviello et al., 2001). Internet and web is the widely used tool in marketing of tourism product and services for collecting the information regarding companies to consumer and vice versa (Brodie et al.,2007).

Primary objective of the study is to investigate impact of ICT on marketing in tourism. Remainder of the study includes second part which is related with review of literature, third section is related with methodology used in study, fourth section is exhibits discussion on the impact of ICT on tourism marketing, last part concludes the study.

Statement of the Problem

The problem of the study is represented by raising the following question:

Do ICTs tools play role in tourism marketing?

Purpose of the research

• To examine the impact of ICT tools on tourism marketing in Jordan

• To study the benefits provided to consumers by ICTs on tourism marketing

• To determine the problems faced due to ICTs by tour service providers.

Review of Literature

Modernization and development in ICT raised argument for the examination of its impact on the marketing in tourism. Various author has conducted their study for investigating factors influencing marketing in tourism industry. They found significant impact and positive effect on tourism industry around the world. A brief review of literature is as follow:

Developments of ICT in form of internet and web have promoted tourism communication (Serafeim, 2020). It also has reduced cost, increased market share. Vila, Costa and Ellinger (2020) provided insight regarding importance of online information about food and destination selection. Fennell (2020) documented that use of ICT tools enabled individual to have experience from their place with the help of various cameras and drones. Now ICT has become important tool in tourism and tourism marketing which cannot be replace (Bethapudi, 2013; Tussyadiah, 2020). It is also useful to maintain a good relation with consumer communication is also becoming healthy to promote tourism. Tichaawa, et al(2017) conducted study to assess the effect of ICTs on tourism business. The questionnaire was designed to collect data. Findings appeared positive impact in hotels, bed & breakfast, travel agents and tour guides. The results also showed effect of ICTs on tourism business from an African country perspective. The biggest challenge in front of service providers in tourism is to provide accurate and latest information to the consumers, consumers also dependent on ICT for collection of information regarding the destination and specific tour (Reddy et. al., 2017; Mahajan et.al., 2011).Consumer like to collect information using internet through emails, social media, websites, mobile applications and other kind of information platform available to him with ICT (Mupfiga, 2015). Chhachhar, et. al.(2014) conducted study to examine the influence of ICTs on agriculture development. The tools of ICTs namely Internet, Mobile phones, Radio and TV which provide Knowledge and information to farmers of agriculture. The results showed a positive effect in agriculture development. Radio had high positive impact in publicize the agriculture programs.TV played role in spreading information regarding agriculture development. Mobile phones have minimized gap among farmers and buyers. Study conducted by Kim and Tussyadiah (2013) documented the use of social media platform in tourism marketing. Lee and Gretzel (2012) conducted study to examine the influence of web design. They suggested that picture included on web plays significant role in selection of destination and attitude. Study conducted by O’Connor (2009) examined 90 websites of hotels and found that they are able to perform better through optimization of search engine. Gretzel et al. (2006) identified smart phone as important tool in tourism experience and marketing due to his use in planning, recollection and every stage of tourism. Jennifer et al (2003) conducted study to investigate changes occurred in Chinese tourism industry due to growth in technology. Study of Carter & Bedard (2001) focused on identification of importance of internet for consumers and other players in industry. ICT also motivated the suppliers to redesign their product and services according to the need of consumer and a revolution for communication in tourism. Various consumer models are now based upon motivation factor in tourism marketing (Hudson, 2000). Werthner (1999) conducted study to provide detailed understanding of structure of tourism industry by highlighting definition, behaviour of consumer, economic aspect, development in information technology and integration among them. Marcussen (1999) conducted study to investigate development in Europe regarding the tourism services and his distribution. The study was more related to the developed countries. Development of internet and web provide flexibility in the process of service delivery and consumer choices. Due to improvement in living standards it has become to provide good service with flexibility and cheap rate. ICT enable service provider to act with less cost and better services are provided. Study conducted by Poon (1993) examined the challenges and problem faced by industry and concluded that traditional tourism industry is shifting towards modern industry which highlighted integration of ICT and tourism marketing.

Above review of literature provided revolution in information technologies is important to marketer to deal with consumer and helps in sharing meaningful information which is relevant to consumer to decide their tourism. Smith (2012) documented that large amount of information regarding tourism is available to consumer but marketer must help the consumer to find important and relevant information with the help of ICT tools. Based on review of literature following hypotheses can be formed.

H01. There is no effect of ICTs tools on tourism marketing.

H02. There are no significant benefits provided to consumers by ICTs.

H03. There are no problems faced due to ICTs by tour service providers.

Research Methodology

To examine the impact of ICT on tourism marketing primary data with the help of questionnaire has been collected. Questionnaire followed five point Likert scale. Secondary data from the various reports published by the authorities has been collected. Descriptive design of research also followed for the research. Convenience sampling technique applied to collect primary data from 142 respondents. Responses are collected from various tourism organizations, airline tour operators and from hospitality organization. Various tools with the help of SPSS have been applied to check the effect of ICTs tool on tourism marketing. Email, World wide web, Smart Phone applications, Social media, Operator Website are considered as ICTs tools for the study. The research model was designed relies on literature review mentioned above

Analysis and Interpretation

Table 1. exhibits demographic profile of the respondents. We have asked question through well-structured questionnaire. Out of 142 respondents 48 lies in the age group of 36-45, 44 related with age group of 25-35, 24 lies in 46-55 age group and 18 belongs to above 55 age group. Least no. of respondents are belonging to below 25 age group. Highest no. of tour operators has experience of 2-5 years and 48 tour operators have experience of more than 6 years but less than 10 years.

Table 1 Demographic Profile of Tour Operators
Age classification of respondents
Age group	F	%
Below 25	8	5.6
25-35	44	31.0
36-45	48	33.8
46-55	24	16.9
above 55	18	12.7
Gender
Male	92	64.8
Female	50	35.2
Experience in tourism industry
less than 2 Year	12	8.5
2-5 year	56	39.4
6-10 year	48	33.8
More than 10 years	26	18.3

(Source: Author’s compilation)

Table 2 show the test results of first hypothesis, there is no effect of ICTs tool on tourism marketing. First null hypothesis has been rejected at the significance level of 5% (p-value <.05). results indicated that all the five ICTs tools are significantly effecting tourism marketing. Email, World wide web, Smart Phone applications, Social media, Operator Website plays vital role in marketing of tourism services.

Table 2 Testing of Hypothesis 1
ICT tools	Mean	SD	F stat.	Prob.
Email	4.22	0.5	3.981	0.008
World wide web	4	0.4	6.213	0.005
Smart Phone applications	3.65	0.5	3.991	0.009
Social media	3.67	0.5	7.912	0.000
Operator Website	4.5	0.6	1.152	0.002

(Source: Author’s compilation)

Below table 3 tested the null hypothesis 2, There are no significant benefits provided to consumers by ICTs which has been rejected at the level of 5% (p-value <.05). CRM (Customer relationship management), Online transaction, Promotion of various product and services, Helpful in communication with consumer, Quick Responses to Customers are identified most significant benefits to the tour operator in marketing of product and services related with tourism. CRM is rated first, facilities related with online transaction is rated second, product and services’ promotion rated third, effective communication with consumer rated fourth and speed of response to consumer is rated last among all five benefits with the significance value of 0.001 (p-value <.05)

Table 3 Testing of Hypothesis 2
Benefits of ICT	Rank	P Value
CRM (Customer relationship management)	1	0.001
Online transaction	2
Promotion of various product and services	3
Helpful in communication with consumer	4
Quick Responses to Customers	5

(Source: Author’s compilation)

Table 4 show the problems faced due to use of ICTs tools by tour operator in tourism. Third null hypothesis, there are no problems faced due to ICTs by tour service providers has been rejected at the level of 5% (p-value <.05). problems regarding the speed of internet has been ranked first, employee’s skills requirement ranked second, privacy in digital world ranked third, cost involved in use of technology and use of updated equipment ranked fourth, while security issues in transacting through internet ranked last with the probability value 0.00 (p-value <.05).

Table 4 Testing of Hypothesis 3
problems due to ICT	Rank	P Value
Internet speed	1	0.00
Skills required for employees	2
Privacy	3
High Cost	4
Security issues in transactions	5

(Source: Author’s compilation)

Conclusion

This study is very important to understand the applications of ICTs tools in tourism marketing. Tourism marketing is the process to provide awareness to consumer about the product and services regarding the tourism. ICT helps tour operator to communicate with consumer anywhere and anytime. Consumer are also wants information about the destination at their place, want to do registration and want to fulfil all their needs from their place. ICT enabled consumers as well as operator to act as per the requirement. Our study identified five major tools used in marketing of tourism services namely, Email, World wide web, Smart Phone applications, Social media, Operator Website. Study also indicated some major benefits gained through use of ICT tools which are CRM (Customer relationship management), Online transaction, Promotion of various product and services, Helpful in communication with consumer, Quick Responses to Customers. ICT tools not only provide benefits but also there are some problems which may occur or create hurdle in use due to the use of ICTs tools in form of Internet speed, Skills required for employees, Privacy, High Cost, Security issues in transactions. Our all three hypothesis were rejected. Our study is useful to the marketer of tourism services in designing their strategies.

Further the research can be conducted to examine influence of some other ICTs tools on tourism marketing. Questions can also be asked from large number of respondents regarding the ICTs tools.

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