Developing A Digital Marketing Model in The Tourism Industry (Case Study: Tehran)

The present study aims to design a digital marketing model in the tourism industry, focusing on the case study of Tehran. This study is applied in terms of purpose, exploratory in terms of approach, and qualitative in terms of type. The subjects of this study included a group of experts comprising senior managers and officials in the tourism sector, as well as university professors in the fields of marketing management and tourism management. Using a purposive sampling method, 11 individuals were selected as the statistical sample and interviewed.Based on the results, it was determined that the core element in institutionalizing digital marketing in the country’s tourism industry is the serious commitment of management to utilizing digital marketing tools and increasing Iran’s share of the tourism market. Factors such as emphasis on ethics in designing promotional messages, emphasizing competitive advantages in the promotional message, aligning the promotional message with the target community’s culture, and the power of the promotional message to create a need in the customer are causal factors that are influential on the core of the model.According to the proposed model in the study, the core of the model, through two main strategies—using specialized media to publish promotional messages and systematically and virally spreading promotional messages through social media—can lead to positive outcomes. Importantly, two contextual factors, including promoting the culture of using digital marketing in the tourism industry, allocating appropriate budgets, and allowing time for the implementation of digital marketing, as well as two intervening factors, such as benchmarking successful countries in tourism marketing and regional competition in attracting tourists, also impact the model’s strategies. According to this model, if managers and stakeholders in the tourism sector can institutionalize digital marketing within their organizations, they will achieve significant outcomes such as fostering tourist loyalty to tourism centers, generating foreign exchange, improving the country’s economy, and strengthening the tourism brand.