Impact of Digital Marketing Strategy on Tourism Industry

INTRODUCTION

Global tourism is now guessed to increase in the 8-10% range subsequently year, according to IPK‘s World Travel Monitor and UNWTO forecasts.

The UNWTO Tourism Confidence Index is based on the results of an email survey conducted every four months since 2003 by the UNWTO Secretariat among a Panel of Tourism Experts. The purpose of this survey is to collect opinions from tourism stakeholders worldwide regarding the performance of their destination/business in the last four months, and their expectations for the next four months. The main drivers will be the improving world economy and low fares from budget airlines while safety and environmental concerns are not expected to impact significantly.

Based on data reported by destinations around the world, it is estimated that international tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) worldwide increased 7% in 2017. This is well above the sustained and consistent trend of 4% or higher growth since 2010 and represents the strongest results in seven years. Led by Mediterranean destinations, Europe recorded extraordinary results for such a large and rather mature region, with 8% more international arrivals than in 2016. Africa consolidated its 2016 rebound with an 8% increase. Asia and the Pacific recorded 6% growth, the Middle East 5% and the Americas 3%. 2017 was characterised by sustained growth in many destinations and a firm recovery in those that suffered decreases in previous years. Results were partly shaped by the global economic upswing and the robust outbound demand from many traditional ―International travel continues to grow strongly, consolidating the tourism sector as a key driver in economic development. As the third export sector in the world, tourism is essential for job creation and the prosperity of communities around the world.‖ said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. ―Yet as we continue to grow we must work closer together to ensure this growth benefits every member of every host community, and is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals‖. Growth expected to continue in 2018 The current strong momentum is expected to continue in 2018, though at a more sustainable pace after eight years of steady expansion following the 2009 economic and financial crisis. Based on current trends, economic prospects and the outlook by the UNWTO Panel of Experts, UNWTO projects international tourist arrivals worldwide to grow at a rate of 4%-5% in 2018. This is somewhat above the 3.8% average increase projected for the period 2010-2020 by UNWTO in its Tourism Towards 2030 long-term forecast. Europe and the Americas are both expected to grow by 3.5%-4.5%, Asia and the Pacific by 5%-6%, Africa by 5%-7% and the Middle East by 4%-6%. 2017 results by UNWTO region International tourist arrivals in Europe reached 671 million in 2017, a remarkable 8% increase following a comparatively weaker 2016. Growth was driven by the extraordinary results in Southern and Mediterranean Europe (+13%). Western Europe (+7%), Northern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe (both +5%) also recorded robust growth.

Asia and the Pacific (+6%) recorded 324 million international tourist arrivals in 2017. Arrivals in South Asia grew 10%, in South-East Asia 8% and in Oceania 7%. Arrivals to North-East Asia increased by 3% [1]

The tourism services are quite more dependent from Internet, in particular from the social networks that unequivocal the opinions written by customers, that experienced those services and that simply post cases. The competitive intelligence is for that reason the basis of the strategy of the modern tourism business, pedestal under Big Data analysis. The online observations on the Social Media has changed the way that tourists and business managers manage the tourism industry. Now a day‘s Tourist are no longer going to the travel agency, buttery search and plan their trips throughout ´particular sites or the destination places, where the intimacy. Trivago.com provide facility to book hotels, airline ticket, transport facility to customer from their home 24x7. This study also denotes that this social media analysis is still under, a startup phase, meaning that will be also important to promote and analyze the stimulus across the several variables, for instance, with a geo-referential, that can determine the influence around the direct economic impact. Zeng & Gerritsen had studied, through Tripadvisor.com and Booking.com data, what were the principal destinations, why were they chosen and what was positive and negative, using a survey to the travelers that have made comments, in order to understand with success, the variables that regional and local planning couldcontribute for a better strategically development. This is also reinforced by Litvin, S. W., Goldsmith, R. E.,& Pan, B., (2008), in their research where this electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in the tourism industry, is also fundamental to promote the perceived experiences by the travelers or consumers. These are some of the reasons for the existence of the specialized digital marketing role in the organization of companies. This will be also the role that creates contents and controls, what the owner of the touristic infrastructure tries to sell or to push customers/travelers to do or to go. This is the role responsible to understand the eWOM, which is quite more important and has more weight in the organizations from onside and in the customers from the other like the online advertisement has growth in the influence of the customer decisions than the traditional advertisement, having also lower costs. The main conclusions of the several studies analyzed are that in the industries of tourism and hospitality, electronic Worth-of-Mouth (eWOM) has special relevance for users during the pre-purchase stage, meaning today that the main communications of eWOM are the social networks, like Facebook, and specializedsites, like Tripadvisor.com, Booking.com or Trivago.com. The recent Web3.0 transition has brought a new trend of Semantic Web, meaning that there are not only reactive result sets of information provided for users when they search something in the websites, but they also start to use natural language to interact with Bot Agents that understand and learn what they need. Above all, the next level of this new Web3.0 ―wave‖ is the capability for the agents proactively interact with the potential customers, and knowing the context of them localization, recent experiences,

1) Website – Tourism Industry must design web sites that embody or express their purpose, history, products and vision. The key challenge is to design a site that is attractive at first sight and interesting enough to encourage repeat visits. Dedicated websites for mobile devices are on the increase. 2) Social Media - Companies are embracing social media because of its potential for engagement and collaboration with consumers. Social media advertising will yield relatively stronger results because of its ability to tightly target audience based on social media activity. 3) Mobile marketing - Mobile phone marketing will become increasingly important. Smart phone use in particular is growing amongst travelers 4) Internet Specific Ads and videos With user-generated content sites such as you tube. My space video and google video, consumers and advertisers can upload ads and videos to be shared virally by millions of people 5) Internet Specific Ads and videos - With user-generated content sites such as you tube. My space video and google video, consumers and advertisers can upload ads and videos to be shared virally by millions of people 6) Display Ads - Display ads are small, rectangular boxes containing text and perhaps a picture that companies pay to place on relevant web sites. The larger the audience, the more the placement costs. 7) Microsites - A microsite is a limited area on the Web man- aged and paid for by an external advertiser/ Tourism Industry. Microsites are individual Web pages or cluster of pages that function as supplements to a primary site 8) Search ads- Paid-search or pay-per-click ads represent 40% of all on-line ads. Thirty-five percent of all searches are reportedly for products or services. These arch terms serve as a proxy for the consumer‘s consumption interests and trigger relevant links to product or service offerings alongside search results from google, msn 9) Online Communities -Many companies sponsor on-line communities whose members communicate through postings, instant messaging and chat discussions about special interests related to the Tourism Industry‘s products and brands. 10) Interstitials- Interstitials are advertisements, often with video or animation, that pop-up be- tween changes on a website, e.g., ads for Johnson & Johnson‘s Tylenol headache reliever would pop up on brokers‘ websites whenever the stock market fell by 100 points or more. 11) Blogs- Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Most good quality blogs are interactive; allowing visitors to leave comments and even messages each other. 12) E-mail - Email uses only a fraction of the cost of a direct mail campaign.

Intelligent automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) supports high quality services Data gathering technologies for personalization Insight generating technologies for data analysis Digitally connected touch points of a customer journey for seamless travel Digitization influences digital enterprise architectures and systems Alignment of business model and digital technologies Outsourcing Flexibility, agility and integration of mobile devices.

The several strategic marketing implications from digital marketing, which includes influencing tourists‘ perception and opportunity, before, during and after the experience at the target, as well as fulfillment it is undeniably as a two-sided dagger. The following indication to ensure that government, researchers, stakeholders and marketers are aware of the issues are a) Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and online marketers are uncontrollable b) Digital marketers does not need industry permit, do not pay taxes and do not require buildings with numerous employees. Equipped became very efficient, resulting on very cheap price. The question of interest is where does community welfare, foreign exchange earnings. C) Digital marketing are selling hotel rooms and packages much cheaper than any conventional travel agent. D) from, digitization Hotel get more booking. was felt few years ago and has transformed the way businesses reach out to users. For any business to be successful digitally in the tourism industry, the above mentioned six points- quality website, SEO, Email marketing, Presence on social media, content, mobile-friendly play a very crucial role.

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MMS, PhD, Research Guide and HOD Research centre P.E. Society‘s Institute of Management and Career Development Nigdi, Pune-44 drkarmadkar@gmail.com