Proposal Abstract:
The Role of Information Technology on Tourism Destination Marketing: A
Case Study of Iran and the Persian Gulf States
This research aims to investigate the relationship between Information
Technology and Tourism Destination Marketing within the context of Iran
and the Persian Gulf States.
The website of a tourist organisation becomes a very important extension
of the organisation which might used to portray the image of the
organisation (Maswera, et al., 2005). The Internet has affected
our lives extensively and become an effective
tool in our businesses. It is important for National Tourism
Organisations to take advantage of this technology.
The primary quantitative data collected by two types of questionnaires
and the qualitative data by some interviews. The first survey was an on-
line questionnaire sent randomly to the experts of three disciplines
namely; computer science, information science and tourism industry. The
second survey was paper-based and distributed within Exeter, UK. The
third assessment survey was the interviews with the tourism authorities
of Iran, Qatar and Bahrain.
Keywords:
Information Technology, Tourism Destination
Marketing, Iran, Persian Gulf States
Biography:
I
obtained my first degree from Iran where I studied Persian-English
translation followed by a master in Library and Information Science.
The concept of ‘information’ and ‘tourism industry’ became more
appealing to me when I attended some tourism-related courses. Therefore,
I decided to write about ‘the role of
information on Iranian tourism industry’ as my master dissertation. I
realized that in order to host more tourists, national tourism
organisations should provide accurate and on-time information. The
websites of the national tourism organisations should be up dated
regularly and the information should be downloaded as quickly as
possible. During my PhD at the Tourism Studies Centre, University of
Exeter, UK, I learned that national tourism organisations also need to
gather accurate information to pass to the tourists. This flow of
knowledge (incoming and outgoing) has persuaded me to follow my research
at a post doctoral level to investigate the knowledge transfer within
national tourism organisations. However, one part of my PhD thesis has
been allocated to this issue.
As a technical manager I worked
in a travel agency before I started my PhD. The experience of working as
a reference librarian helped me to search and find my resources much
easier. Working in different parts of the international section of a
bank developed my communication and team working under pressure skills.
