Development of Tourism Industry with SoLoMo Marketing Approach

In today’s highly competitive markets, tourism destinations marketers and managers increasingly seek to influence tourists’ behaviors. In recent years, the extensive development of social media, location based services and mobile technology, has given rise to the concept of SoLoMo that has provided new opportunities for destination managers. the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of SoLoMo marketing on tourist’s behavioral intentions and destination brand equity. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive - correlation in terms of data collection. The statistical population of the study consists of tourists who have visited one of the cities of Isfahan, Shiraz and Shush, in the last 5 years. Data collection carried out using online questionnaire by available sampling method. The research hypotheses were analyzed by structural equation modeling using the Smart- PLS3 software. The research findings show that SoLoMo marketing has a positive and significant effect on brand equity of tourism destination and tourists’ behavioral intentions. It was also revealed that, destination brand equity has a positive and significant effect on tourists’ behavioral intentions. Also, the mediating role of destination brand equity was confirmed on the relationship between SoLoMo marketing and tourists’ behavioral intentions.