The aim of the current study is to examine the effects of competitive advantage and digital marketing on tourism business performance (BP). The indirect effect of supply chain management (SCM) is also considered by the current study. Quantitative research approach is used and data collection is made through a survey instrument. 225 responses were received and used in data analysis to examine the relationship between variables. Five direct effect hypotheses and two indirect effect hypotheses are tested in this study. Smart PLS is used to test the direct and indirect relationship. It is found that; competitive advantage has a positive effect on BP. It also has a positive effect on SCM. Furthermore, digital marketing has a positive effect on BP. Similarly, digital marketing has a positive effect on SCM. Additionally, SCM is a mediating variable between competitive advantage and BP of the tourism industry.

The idea of supply chain management (SCM) is covering its perspective in the form of flow of material and information from the business to customers. Its application in the field of tourism is also very much significant. The objective of present study is to analyze the empirical association between the supply chain management and tourism industry from the context of hotel industry in Indonesia. For this purpose, a questionnaire-based approach is followed while taking the demographic factors regarding age, gender and qualification. A sample of 272 respondents is finally accepted for the empirical examination between supply chain and its implication in tourism industry. Both descriptive and regression analysis are conducted. To analyze the factor of supply chain, sixteen items are considered from the existing literature while considering the strategic supplier partnership, information sharing, and information quality as the key indicators. The factor of tourism is meas-ured through four different proxies. The practical implications of the study are taken both the tourists and key policymakers while dealing with the SCM and its integration with those hotels dealing with the tourism and related services. This study contributes towards the future trends in the form of integration for SCM and tourism industry.

Vietnam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Asia-Pacific region and its tourism industry has been growing unprecedentedly over the past few years. However, the Vietnamese tourism industry (VTI) is concerned with the weakness competitive factor. This paper aims to analyze Green Supply Chain Management Practice (GSCM) and its effect on the destination image of Vietnam as the way to improve the completeness. The paper seeks to examine internal environment management (IEM) practices; external environment (EE) and environmental regulation (ER), as possible drivers to GSCM practices and its destination image. The empirical analysis used data from 269 questionnaires which were valid for analysis, through applying the PLS- SEM method. The result of path analysis indicates that the path between internal environmental management and GSCM practice in the VTI was highly significant; internal environmental management (IEM) had a significant impact on the external environment and also had a significant impact on destination image in VTI. The external environment has also maintained a significant impact on the GSCM practices of the VTI and on destination image in VTI. There is also a positive relationship between GSCM and destination image in VTI. As a result, it can be concluded that all hypotheses are supported. This paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings from the study for tourism managers.

This study intends to evaluate the impacts of implementing online marketing strategies on Iranian ecotourism industry. The study had eight hypotheses which were designed based on economic, sociological, and cultural aspects of Iranian ecotourism industry. The results indicate that the expansion of online marketing increased the number of foreign tourists who visited Iran’s natural tourist attractions, while it had no significant impact on the number of domestic tourists who visited these tourist attractions. The results also indicated that online marketing did not increase the amount of investment in Iranian ecotourism industry. Additionally, online ecotourism marketing did not have a significant influence on the total number of travels to Iran’s historical tourist attractions. Respondents believe implementing online marketing strategies in Iranian ecotourism industry helps Iran expand its cultural tourism in rural areas and it expands its hospitality industry; they also believe that online marketing helps to create more jobs in Iranian ecotourism industry and to improve working conditions in this industry.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of various factors influencing on customer loyalty, profitability and word of mouth advertisement for gaining competitive advantage in tourism industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among a random sample of 500 people who purchased some tours from travel agencies. Using structural equation modeling, the study has determined a positive and meaningful impact of pricing strategy, amenity, tourism services, content of trip, marketing mix elements, brand equity, competitive advantage and being exclusive on gaining competitive advantage. In addition, being exclusive and value creation influence positively on word of mouth advertisement. Finally, value creation influences on profitability, positively.

Tourism industry plays an essential role on development of economy and it is considered as one of green industries. Many countries try to promote investment on tourism to create various job opportunities. This paper presents an empirical investigation to rank different factors influencing on tourism industry in city of Yazd, Iran. The proposed study uses three multiple criteria decision making techniques namely, Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) and Taxonomy to rank 40 factors. The results indicate that factors such as Being located in the center axis of communication, Strengths in transportation, The ease of access to tourism destinations and Sufficient knowledge of some historical attractions are among important factors influencing tourism industry.

During the past few years, there have been growing interests in developing tourism industry in developing tourism economy. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of different factors including brand awareness, quality perception, brand associate and brand loyalty on developing tourism economy. The proposed study was accomplished in city of Karaj located in province of Alborz, Iran. The study designed a questionnaire consist of 27 questions designed in Likert scale and distributed it among 400 randomly selected people who visited this city during the year of 2012. Using Spearman correlation, they study confirmed that there were some positive relationship between brand awareness and tourism economy (r=0.434, Sig.=0.02), a positive relationship between quality perception and tourism economy (r=0.198, Sig.=0.008), a positive relationship between brand associate and tourism economy (r=0.261, Sig.=0.000) and finally there was a positive and relationship between brand loyalty and tourism economy (r = 0.302, Sig. = 0.05). In addition, the implementation of stepwise regression model has indicated that brand awareness played essential role on tourism economy followed by brand loyalty and quality perception.

During the past two decades, tourism industry has become popular among many researchers in developing countries. Tourism is able to attract substantial amount of investment to some areas where many investors are normally unwilling to invest in. This paper, presents important factors influencing market orientation in tourism industry based on the implementation of factor analysis. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 267 experts who are involved in tourism industry. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.873, which validates the overall questionnaire. The results of factor analysis have indicated that six factors of market oriented, limiting rules and regulations, strategic competition, marketing planning culture, financial figures and top management.

Building national brand plays an important role on today & apos; s economy to attract interested tourists in visiting various countries. There are different factors impacting national brand such as advertisement, natural attraction, etc. In this paper, we perform an empirical investigation to find the impact of ten most important factors on building brand. The study designs and distributes a questionnaire among 384 international tourists who visited Iran during the year of 2010 and it uses factor analysis to group important factors. The results extract four groups; the first factor includes three most important components including satellite advertisement programs, public awareness on economical power and public awareness on specialized symposium and conferences. The second factor includes three other important factors, which are public awareness on human right, advertisement programs through distribution brushers and internet advertisement. The third factor includes two variables, which are public awareness on education and access to educational services and introducing cultural heritage. Finally, the last factor includes introducing natural attraction and advertisement programs through distribution brushers.

Sport tourism plays an important role on developing economy and it can create tremendous opportunities for developing non-industrial regions. It is also the fastest growing sector in the global travel industry and generates hundreds of billions of dollars per year. The proposed study of this paper surveys different factors influencing sport tourist activities. The study distributes a questionnaire among 100 randomly chosen tourists in the province of Ardebil, Iran and the results are analyzed. The results indicate that Cronbach Alpha is 87.7 percents, which validates the reliability of our results. Based on the results, the region has tremendous opportunities for sport tourism such as water treatment. There are other opportunities in the province such as beautiful nature, historical monuments, mountains, etc. Unfortunately, the survey reveals that people are not aware of these places and governmental media must spend more efforts on introducing these opportunities.