The aim of the diploma thesis "Promotion of internet travel agency" is to analyze the communication mix of travel agency Invia.cz and to formulate proposals for its improvement. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter defines internet as a medium and the possibilities of online communication. The second chapter describes the specific characteristics of tourism marketing and the expanded marketing mix. The third chapter analyzes survey results about consumer behavior in selecting and purchasing holiday. The fourth chapter introduces the company Invia.cz and focuses on its online and offline promotion. Based on the analysis and on the survey results, proposals for communication mix improvement are submitted.

<p>Visitors’ expectations of museums in the modern world consist of both utilitarian and hedonic aspects. Given visitors’ diverse expectations and demands, traditional museums have taken actions to attract more visitors. Taking advantage of new technologies is the current action and trend in the museum industry. The emergence of digital museums is the reflection of this tendency, which use digital technologies such as projectors, surrounded sound, ambient lights, and multisensory cues to present a virtual environment. In the virtual environment, emotional state and sense of presence are considered to be useful to provide a more engaging experience. Therefore, this research empirically investigated digital museum visitor experience perceptions and the influence of emotional state and sense of presence on experience perceptions. The different impact of multisensory cues on experience and the relative mediation effect were also examined.</p> <p>Data were collected with a scenario-based online survey conducted through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). A split-sample approach with a total of 382 respondents was used for analysis. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to explore visitor experience perceptions of the digital museum. Structural equation modeling was used to discover the impact of emotional state and sense of presence. One-way analysis of variance was used to compare the difference in impact of multisensory cues on overall visitor experience. This research also employed the PROCESS macro in SPSS for demonstrating the mediating effect of emotional state and sense of presence through the impact of multisensory cues on overall visitor experience. The findings of this study revealed three experience perceptions—respectively, joviality, personal escapism, and localness experiences—of digital museums. Also, this research presented the positive effect of emotional state on joviality experience and negative effect of emotional state on localness experience. In addition, a notable positive impact of sense of presence on joviality, personal escapism, and localness experience perceptions was found. No significant effect of emotional state on personal escapism was found in this research. Moreover, visual and auditory cues together were confirmed as the most powerful indicator for triggering the greatest experience level. The impact was found to be valid due to the mediating role of emotional state and sense of presence.</p> <p>This research contributed theoretically and practically to museum literature and experience research. Theoretical implications were discussed to indicate this research as the framework to measure digital museum visitor experience based on the proposed three-factor structure. Practical implications were provided for museum managers. Limitations and future research were discussed.</p>

[pt] Com a crescente utilização da Internet, a Indústria do Turismo vive novo cenário de distribuição de seus produtos. Hotéis alcançam seus clientes diretamente através dos seus websites e novos atores, como os chamados intermediários online ou Third Party Intermediary (TPI), aproveitam suas experiências com tecnologias de informação para galgarem uma posição privilegiada no mercado de distribuição de serviços de hospedagem, concorrendo com os próprios hotéis. Em contraste com os hotéis, os TPIs ofertam múltiplos produtos (passagens aéreas, aluguel de autos, ingresso para eventos etc.) para atrair consumidores que buscam conveniência na compra online de tudo que se refere à viagem. Além dessa estratégia de full-service, fornecem facilidades para pesquisar e comparar fornecedores. Assim, os TPIs não só se tornam concorrentes diretos dos hotéis que os utilizam, mas também, acirram a competição entre eles. Que estratégias de relacionamento com TPIs restam aos hotéis e quais são mais eficazes em cada caso? O presente trabalho tem como objetivo investigar como os principais hotéis do Rio de Janeiro se posicionam frente aos canais eletrônicos. Assim, a partir do ponto de vista dos gerentes dos hotéis, busca contribuir para o entendimento dos novos aspectos da competição dos hotéis entre si, entre eles e seus canais de distribuição e entre esses distribuidores. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas com gerentes de dez dos maiores hotéis do Rio de Janeiro. A pesquisa revelou que as estratégias adotadas são diretamente relacionadas à força de marketing que cada hotel possui, sendo, portanto, decisivo para o posicionamento do hotel o fato de ele ser independente ou pertencer a uma cadeia. / [en] Considering the increasing Internet utilization as reservation medium, the Tourism and Hospitality Industry faces a new distribution scenario of its products and services. Hotels reach the clients directly through their own website, and also through new actors as the one known as online partner, also called Third Party Intermediary (TPI). These companies take advantage of their knowledge and long experience in information technology with the purpose of getting the maximum market share in the hospitality service distribution, becoming even a directly competitor of their own partners. Different from the hotels, TPIs offer multiple products such as airline and event tickets, and car rental that can be bought bundled, or separately, in order to attract guests seeking convenience of booking online everything they need for their trip. One of the conveniences sought by consumers is easy and fast comparison of prices, products and services offered even by different companies. Hence, the TPIs not only became direct competitors of the hotels, with whom they have distribution contracts, but they intensified the struggle among competing hotels as well. The objective of this thesis is to investigate how the main hotels in Rio de Janeiro position themselves in face of the electronic distribution channels. Therefore, starting from viewpoint of the hotels´ managers, this research seeks to contribute for a better understanding of the new aspects of the competition among the hotels, between them and their own distribution channels, as well as among these same distribution channels. To achieve this objective, interviews were conducted with managers of ten of the largest hotels in Rio de Janeiro City. The research revealed that the strategies adopted are directly linked to the marketing strength of the hotel. Therefore, a key factor for the strategic positioning of the hotel is whether it is independent or chain owned.

A atribuição de uma marca a um elemento não influencia o consumidor somente com relação ao elemento em si. Os efeitos dessa atribuição também podem recair sobre a própria marca, incidindo indiretamente sobre outros elementos que carregam esse símbolo de identificação. O efeito do produto que recebe a marca sobre o comportamento do consumidor em relação à própria marca tem sido chamado de \"efeito recíproco\". Até o presente, o efeito recíproco da atribuição de marcas foi estudado principalmente no contexto da extensão de marcas para novos bens e serviços. A presente pesquisa estuda o efeito recíproco em um contexto ainda não explorado, o das marcas turísticas de países. O objetivo da pesquisa é analisar de que forma o poder da marca turística do país é afetado pelos valores subjetivos dos destinos contidos em seu território. Para tanto, foi elaborado um modelo teórico baseado na perspectiva de marcas como símbolos de identificação que permitem a categorização de produtos por meio de esquemas mentais. Em termos empíricos, foram estudadas a valência e a linearidade da relação entre o valor subjetivo dos destinos e poder da marca turística do país. Foi examinada também a influência sobre o poder da marca turística do país exercida pela similaridade dos destinos do país. Além disso, foi analisado ainda o efeito moderador que o conhecimento do consumidor acerca das características turísticas do país exerce sobre o efeito recíproco dos valores subjetivos dos destinos. Os objetivos desta pesquisa são úteis para embasar uma série de decisões relativas à gestão de marcas, especialmente de marcas turísticas de países e regiões. Para alcançar os objetivos definidos, a presente pesquisa utilizou o método experimental. O primeiro experimento abordou o efeito dos valores subjetivos dos destinos sobre o poder da marca turística do país em um contexto formado por destinos e países hipotéticos, utilizando dados coletados a partir de uma amostra de 230 estudantes universitários brasileiros. O segundo experimento enfocou o caso do Brasil como destino de viagens turísticas a partir de uma amostra de 363 consumidores norte-americanos. Os resultados alcançados comprovaram a existência do efeito recíproco dos valores subjetivos dos destinos sobre o poder da marca turística do país. As evidências coletadas mostraram também que esse efeito não é linear, mas sim crescente em função dos valores subjetivos dos destinos. O efeito da similaridade dos destinos do país sobre o poder da marca turística deste não foi suportado pelos dados empíricos. Da mesma forma, o efeito moderador do conhecimento acerca das características turísticas do país incidente sobre o efeito recíproco dos valores subjetivos dos destinos também não foi evidenciado. / Assigning a brand to an element influences the consumer not only with respect to the element itself. The effects of this assignment may also fall on the consumer behavior regarding the brand, indirectly affecting other elements that display this symbol of identification. The effect of the product that receives the brand on consumer behavior towards the brand itself have been named reciprocal effects. To date, reciprocal effects were mainly studied in the context of brand extensions to new goods and services. The present research studies reciprocal effects in a context that has not been examined yet: the tourism brand of the country. The objective of this research is to analyze how the power of the tourism brand of the country is affected by the subjective values of destinations situated in its territory. To do that, a conceptual model was developed based on the perspective of brands as identification symbols that enable categorization of products through mental schemes. In empirical terms, the study focused on the valence and the linearity of this relationship. It also analyzed the effect of the similarity across country\'s destinations on the power of the national brand. A final analysis focused on the moderating role of consumer knowledge about tourism characteristics of the country falling upon the reciprocal effect of the subjective values of destinations. These objectives are useful to support a number of branding decisions, especially those regarding countries and regions\' tourism brands. Two experiments were conducted in order to achieve these objectives. The first experiment addressed the effects of subjective values of destinations on the power of the tourism brand of the country in a context of hypothetical destinations and countries. It used data collected from a sample of 230 Brazilian undergraduate students. The second experiment focused on the Brazilian case by using a sample of 363 US consumers. The results evidenced the existence of the reciprocal effect of subjective values of destinations on the power of the tourism brand of the country. The experiments also showed that this effect is not linear, but increasing with respect to the subjective values of destinations. The effect of the similarity across destinations on the power of the national tourism brands was not supported by empirical data. Similarly, the moderating effect of knowledge about tourism characteristics of the country on the reciprocal effect of subjective values of destinations was not evidenced.

The thesis focuses on the congress tourism, situation of Prague and other 4 competing cities. It describes the specifics of marketing in tourism, congress tourism and destination management. Then follows the comparison of destinations and activities of each city convention bureau and the resulting recommendations for the Czech capital.

Individual businesses from a variety of sectors network and work together to create a successful tourist experience. The interdependencies of organisations producing this experience make cooperation a necessity in destination marketing. Despite the centrality of cooperation and networking in tourism marketing relatively little empirical research has been conducted in this area. This thesis uses the case of the development of the official NZ website www.purenz.com (purenz) to examine the role, form and process of inter-organisational cooperation in destination marketing. Drawing on in-depth interviews with thirty- five industry members involved in establishing and managing www.purenz.com between 1999 and 2006 this thesis makes a number of contributions to both the marketing and tourism literature. The thesis confirms that there are considerable difficulties in broadening the marketing role of the national tourism organisation (NTO) beyond destination promotion. The study also finds that destination marketing and destination management are still perceived as separate processes in the NZ tourism industry. In addition, the results of this study provide support for the view that the social networks in which firms are embedded have a considerable influence on inter-organisational alliance formation. This thesis contributes to the development of theoretical approaches to the study of cooperation in destination marketing by identifying five levels of cooperation in destination marketing: passive acceptance, support, alignment, contribution and pooling. The levels are based on the different types of input that may be required from stakeholders by the NTO. The level of cooperation desired in a particular context is a strategic choice to be made by the destination marketing management. This choice is affected by the existing characteristics of the tourism network; the NTO leaders’ perception of the need for and value of cooperation in destination marketing and also by the extent of shared understanding of the scope of destination marketing management among tourism stakeholders. The research points to the need to develop further the network characteristics affecting cooperation in destination marketing. Further work is also needed to develop a more complete profile of the five levels of cooperation identified by this study and the investment required to achieve each level of cooperation.

Tracking studies conducted by the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) over the last decade have revealed that Australia has a high ranking as a desired destination among US residents. However prior to the peaked effect of the Olympics, this desire had not translated into increasing numbers of visitor arrivals from the US. As travel to Australia from the US is time consuming and involves extremes of physical distance, it would be to Australia's advantage to understand better the dimensions and ramifications of long haul travel with regard to destination choice. This thesis has two objectives: to assess the extent to which a destination being a long haul from its target market affects the choice of this destination; and to consider the marketing implications of the above with a focus on the selection of Australia, as compared to competitive destinations, by the US holiday market. Data were collected from two samples: the West Coast of the US and the East Coast of Australia. The instrument for the US sample collected information on the respondents' choice set structure, attribute importance in selecting a long haul destination, perceptions of the long haul destinations of Australia and Italy, and sociodemographics. The instrument for the Australian sample collected information on the respondents' choice set structure, attribute importance for both long haul and short haul destination selection, perceptions of the long haul destination of the US and the short haul destination of New Zealand, and sociodemographics. This data were then used to test nine hypotheses designed to give insight into the research objectives. The results indicate that tourists place differing degrees of importance on attributes of a long haul destination as compared to a short haul destination for a vacation. It also demonstrates that tourists' perceptions of the distance to destinations are often highly inaccurate and that this inaccuracy is related neither to actual distance nor choice set placement. The cognitive distance is however directly related to perceptions of cost of travelling to the destination. A conundrum was also established in that the distance to Australia was overestimated and related positively with the choice of the destination. Yet at the same time the overestimation led to increasing perceptions of cost, travel time and risk, which indirectly had a negative impact on the choice of the destination. This far-off allure was not evident for the equidistant competitor, Italy, where the cognitive distance was underestimated. It was also found US respondent's place differing importance on the attributes they seek in a long haul destination as compared to the Australian respondents. Notably, the US market places a significantly higher importance on distance, even though their estimation of the distance between Australia and the US did not differ from the Australian estimate. Marketing implications for Australia as a long haul destination were then considered with an emphasis on redefining vacation distances in tourists' minds without relinquishing the far-off allure. The relationship between cognitive distance and perceptions of cost and time in comparison to competitors were driving the need for redefining distance. Emphasis was placed on delivering information to tourists during their decision process when their involvement and information processing was highest. Direction was also given for future research that would be useful for travel marketers in gaining additional insight into their long haul target markets.

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The Chinese outbound tourism is expected to boost within a near future. Recently the market has been very closed due to legislation but as China develops and people are getting richer the demand for travelling abroad increases and the government has to let go of the regulations. In order for the Swedish tourism industry to benefit from the growing market, Sweden has to increase the awareness of the nation as a destination among the Chinese. Through qualitative research we aim investigate how Sweden through nation branding and marketing can increase its share of the Chinese outbound tourism. Except for nation branding a variety of marketing and branding tools are available. Two significant concepts are tourism marketing and destination branding. By utilizing all these different tools or concepts Sweden can raise the awareness of the nation as a possible tourism destination for Chinese outbound tourism. In order to create a comprehensive picture of the market we have also researched the general background of China and the nature of Chinese tourism. VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute are two organizations already working with these concepts and other similar strategies and are herefore a natural part of this study. Scandinavian Perspectives and Miki Travel are two major travel agencies bringing Chinese tourists to Sweden and therefore possess great knowledge of the areas of interest. Therefore representatives from these organisations are involved in the empirical findings. In order to get the whole picture Chinese citizens and Chinese students are interviewed about their perception of Sweden and tourism preferences. The main conclusion of the thesis is that the different actors need to cooperate more and promote certain aspects of Sweden, for example Culture. Even a few obstacles that should be alleviated are identified.

This dissertation examines the role and impact of the promotion tools in the repositioning strategy of a tourism destination. Building on a theory which brings together the repositioning strategy process and the communication mix, this study is conducted through the examination of a case study based on one of the most important and innovative European ski resort: Avoriaz. The research has been made through an in-depth interview with a manager of the ski resort in charge of the communication, which has been completed by a content analysis of the communication supports edited by the resort. As a result, this study concludes that the communication tools have a main role in the implementation a repositioning strategy by having a major impact on the image of the tourism destination.