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4. Research Methods
This research paper investigates the reasons behind the deterioration of Tourism
industry in Egypt, and how to improve this level using nation branding as a marketing
technique. The Interpretivisim paradigm will be adopted being the paradigm preferred
in investigating social sciences that involves people (Greener, 2008). Exploratory
research is considered to configure the cause which is the reason why it is adopted
(Bryman and Bell, 2007)
.
There are two main approaches to adopt in any research,
either a quantitative approach or a qualitative approach (Swanson and Holton, 2005).
This paper adopts the qualitative research to show textual descriptions of the research
under study (Vanderstoep and Johnston, 2009).
A preset interview questionnaire was
constructed and administered to 1000 of individuals working in the Tourism and
Hospitality field as well as random sampling of tourists visiting Cairo, Guiza,
Alexandria, Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada, Luxor, and Aswan being the most famous
touristic Egyptian governorates.
Random sampling for its flexibility is preferred and
to ensure that each element in the population has an equal chance of selection
(Kothari, 2004).
5. Results
Around quarter of the sample said that the political instability is a main reason around
the deterioration of tourism in Egypt. And that Egypt needs a lot of nation branding
campaigns to let the world know that it is safe and tourists can come to visit Egypt.
On the other hand, 6 percent of the sample indicated that the Egyptian people are
cheerful and helpful with them, and this behavior is very favorable to them on their
visits.
All tourists were familiar with Egypt as a country in the Middle East, but they didn't
get the whole idea about Egypt, they just saw few advertisements about Egypt and
they were all printed, not film making, like those made for Dubai and Qatar in the
Gulf area. Most of the tourists from the sample would like to know more about the
Pharonic civilization, but the hilarious thing is that two percentage of the sample used
to think that the Egyptians are still riding camels and all Egypt is just a desert, before
they come and visit Egypt, this was because all the pictures they see about Egypt in
the brochures and online are showing the camel, the desert, and the bedwin life,
which by its turn shows how poor destination marketing about Egypt is.
More than quarter of the sample attested that Egypt needs more innovative marketing
campaigns targeting several segments. Around half of the sample suggested that
Egyptian TV shows and series should be distributed globally to encourage people to
come and visit the sites shown in theses entertaining shows. This, of course, will
discourage the idea about the Egyptians who are still living in tents and riding camels.
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Finally, workers of the tourism industry said that the expense power of the tourists
within Cairo and Giza are facing a severe drop because of safety issues, tourists
barely leave hotels fearing terrorism. While Cairo and Guiza as well as Alexandria are
affected by this trend, Sharm ElSheikh, Luxor, Hurghada, and Aswan are not for the
presence of other recreation activities like diving, snorkeling, and swimming in both
Sharm ElSheikh and Hurghada, while Nile Cruises are favor of Aswan and Luxor as
the safest activity away from any terrorism actions.
6. Conclusions
Due to both demographic trends and global changes in wealth distribution, the growth
in the tourism industry is expected to be strong in emerging economies. Egypt can
benefit from this growth and so secure a high national income. Countries are still
warning their people not to approach Egypt as a holiday destination for safety
reasons, such warnings showed in the results to have a big influence on tourists
coming from both Europe and the United States of America. People are concerned
about coming to Egypt because they are still picturing the scenes of violence and
political instability which no longer exist in Egypt, accordingly, marketing campaigns
should consider this part as a very crucial one to soothe this feeling of fear towards
Egypt. From the results it is obviously shown that there is a problem of knowledge
about Egypt, which is resulted from very rare and poor resources of global destination
marketing and ignorance of the positive effect nation branding can have on the image
of Egypt worldwide. Egypt has a huge potential to demonstrate its own film
production to be used in marketing activities, but licensing is still difficult to get. As
already mentioned before that the tourism sector employs about 12% of Egypt's
workforce, such decrease in the level of tourism industry doesn't only affect the
workers of the sectors but also increase the rate of the total unemployment in Egypt as
a whole.
7. Recommendations
A series of recommendations are presented by this paper to improve the level of the
tourism industry and apply a practical nation branding marketing technique to
overcome the drop took place recently in the tourism sector in Egypt, that can be
summarized as follows:
- Charter flights are to be implemented in Egypt, to overcome the cancellation
problems due to the changes taking place in the region.
- Investment opportunities are to be seized in site attractions, bazaars, restaurants,
and hotels based on market segmentation and a better understanding of the different
life styles of tourists as well as taking into consideration the huge effect of the
family travel that can open a big potential sector of tourism in Egypt.
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- Research and development activities about preservation of cultural identity to
accompany marketing activities for better results affected on effective and
innovative marketing campaigns.
- Major events and festivals in Egypt are to be promoted in a long term marketing
campaign to improve the destination image.
8. Contribution to Knowledge
The fast change of technology has made an impact on individuals worldwide
accordingly; marketers should use the internet especially the social media to brand
Egypt through it using the interaction tailored campaigns to target users of the social
media and grab their attention to Egypt as a favorable destination.
Tourism Agencies and Hotels should strengthen an effective search engine
optimization strategy. For it is proved from the research results that the majority of
people who want to book a destination look online first, using specifically the Google
as a searching engine. Tourism agencies should focus specifically on preserving
moreover, restoring the image of Egypt globally.
Moreover, from the results it is shown that information is transferred to tourists
through tourism agencies and their marketing activities, accordingly, they have to
keep the information on their sites relevant and up to date.
9. Research Limitations
Although this research has achieved its overall aim of identifying the main reasons
behind the deterioration of the tourism industry in Egypt, and it provided destination
marketers with some supportive recommendations to use while branding Egypt
globally, we have to acknowledge limitations in this research work. In the first
instance; geographically as it was applied only in Egypt, mainly Cairo, Guiza,
Alexandria, Hurghada, Sharm ElSheikh, Luxor, and Aswan. In the second instance,
demographically as was approaching only a limited number of individuals as a
sample. In the third instance, the time limit didn't make it easy to split the population
into clusters or made it possible to resample for data results validation.
10. Further Researches
It is expected as more researchers study the results discussed in this work, implement
more in-depth researches, adopt different methods of data collection, select bigger
sample size of wider range of demographic base in Egypt or in different countries,
moreover split population into clusters, and resample for validation of results; that a
better understanding of the points addressed will enrich the destination marketing
research
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11. References
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Appendix A
The Questionnaire
Questions addressed to tourists:
1. What did you know about Egypt before your first visit?
2. How many times have you visited Egypt?
3. How do you see Egypt nowadays?
4. Do you come alone, with friends, with family?
5. What do you want to see in Egypt that is missing?
6. How do you book your visits, online or through an agent?
7. What do you think about the level of service in the tourism sector in Egypt?
8. Would you like to come again?
Questions addressed to individuals working in the Tourism and Hospitality field:
1. What do you do in the Tourism and Hospitality field?
2. How many of tourists you deal with on daily basis?
3. Has this number changed (decreased/increased) recently?
4. What do you think they like most about Egypt?
5. Do you think Egypt can be a suitable destination for families?
6. What about the recent political instability, how did it affect your job?
7. If it affected our image, how do you think we can make this image better?
8. Do you think nation branding has an effect on the image of Egypt globally?
9. What can be your firm's rule in improving service level?
10. How do you think marketers can develop the global campaigns about Egypt?
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