Market positioning and branding has evolved from a peripheral process in the marketing effort to a critical process in any strategic planning initiative. Effective positioning will result in a strong brand that develops an emotional and productive two-way relationship. Positioning and Branding Tourism Destinations for Global Competitiveness focuses on utilizing destination branding and content marketing for sustainable growth and competitive advantage within the tourism and hospitality industry, including tools and techniques for travel branding and best practices for better tourism management strategies. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as hospitality, brand loyalty, and knowledge transfer, this book is ideally designed for industry professionals including those within the hotel, leisure, transportation, theme park, and food service sectors, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and students.

Companies compete to gain public notoriety every day and use creativity and innovation to get ahead of their competition. In oversaturated industries, such as the tourism sector, smart strategies and global network capabilities must be adopted and improved in order to increase competitiveness. Multilevel Approach to Competitiveness in the Global Tourism Industry contains crucial reference material that discusses new intelligent practices to increase business competitiveness in the tourism sector. Featuring research on topics such as networking, artificial intelligence, and regional competitiveness, this book is ideally designed for program directors, event coordinators, tour developers, hotel managers, restaurateurs, travel agents, policymakers, academics, researchers, advanced students, entrepreneurs, government officials, and professionals in the tourism and hospitality industry.

This book examines the extent to which social media marketing influences the customer-based brand equity of higher education institutes. Higher education institutions operate in a strong competitive environment due to the homogenous nature of their services and always look for new marketing strategies to be competitive in the marketplace. Therefore, building customer-based brand equity has become crucial for higher education institutions to differentiate themselves from others to attract prospective students. Social media-based marketing facilitated prospective students to communicate and collaborate to gather information relevant to higher education institutions and their respective brand equity. However, many models on customer-based brand equity received limited support in the higher education sector, particularly in emerging Asian countries. As such, drawing from social information processing theory, this book empirically investigates how higher education institutions can develop customer-based brand equity by using social media marketing and subjective norms mediated by brand credibility, taking cross-country comparisons between Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The book goes on to examine the applications and implications of the findings for higher education institutions in developing branding strategies through social media.

This book covers multiple areas such as technology and the type of application in aviation, tourism and hospitality with looking at current and future technology application, as well as in a rural tourism perspective. The strength of this book comes from the authors themselves coming from multiple higher institutions in Malaysia and Indonesia as these two countries are the top two countries in Southeast Asia with the world's most popular tourist destinations and for a reason: a tropical climate, rich culture, gorgeous beaches, wonderful food and low prices. This book is also packed with detailed knowledge in the area of air travel, as well as deep understanding on the related theories used as theoretical underpin in performing air travel research. This book provides insightful discussion and very beneficial to the reader. This book is suitable for the following readers: general, students, travelers, academics, tourism consultants, aviation regulators, aviation practitioners and ministries of tourism. Readers are also exposed to recent issues and development pertaining technology application in aviation tourism and hospitality, theoretical discussion related to technology application as well as its application and future research application.

It is an undisputed reality that the tourism industry in Asia is getting exposed to more innovative technologies than ever before. This proposed book provides the latest research in the application of innovative technology to the tourism industry, covering the perspectives, innovativeness, theories, issues, complexities, opportunities and challenges. This book, a blend of comprehensive and extensive effort by the contributors and editors, is designed to cover the application and practice of technology in tourism, including the relevant niches. This book focuses on the importance of technology in tourism. This also highlights, in a comprehensive manner, specific technologies that are impacting the tourism industry in Asia, as well as the constraints the industry is facing. The contents of this book deal with distinct topics, such as mobile computing, new product designs, innovative technology usages in tourism promotion, technology-driven sustainable tourism development, location-based apps, mobility, accessibility and so on. A good number of research studies have conducted outlining the contributions and importance of technologies in tourism, in general. However, the tourism industry of Asia so far has attracted very few researchers. Some contributions have been made but not sufficient. Considering the ongoing trend of technology application in the tourism industry in Asia, very few research attempts have been made aiming to explore diverse aspects. Tourism is expanding enormously across the world. which actually creates more demands for effective technologies. This book will be a reading companion, especially for tourism students in higher academic institutions. This book will also be read by the relevant policy planners and industry professionals. Apart from them, this book will be appreciated by expatriate researchers and researchers having keen interest in the Asian tourism industry.

Healthcare and medical services have seen rapid development in various areas of the world, including Asia and Eastern Europe. These territories are now becoming a medical hub for many surrounding countries. Medical tourism is the practice of traveling to international regions for treatment that isn’t available locally. This subject has gained significant attention throughout the tourism industry, as researchers and professionals are searching for specific advancements of medical care and hospital development in numerous countries. Growth of the Medical Tourism Industry and Its Impact on Society: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research on the methods and advancement of medical travel for treatment in various global regions and provides insights for the growth prospects of the medical tourism business. While highlighting topics including destination branding, community impact, and hospital management, this book is ideally designed for medical executives, hospital directors, researchers, policymakers, academicians, practitioners, scholars, and students seeking current research on tourism practices within the medical field.

Tourism consumers are increasingly demanding and seek to base their travel decision-making process on relevant and credible tourism information. In recent years, user-generated content on social media, the opinion of travel bloggers, and entertainment programs in the media have influenced the public's travel purchasing behavior and acted as a driving force for the development of tourism products, such as film tourism. It also has played a role in the evolution and development of marketing, giving rise to new applications, as in the case of digital and influence marketing. On the other hand, tourism organizations and destination management organizations face major challenges in communicating the attributes of a tourism product, since this cannot be experienced before consumption. Thus, they need to know how and in which means or platforms of communication they can inform potential consumers. Impact of New Media in Tourism provides theoretical and practical contributions in tourism and communication including current research on the influence of new media and the active role of consumers in tourism. With a focus on decision making and increasing the visibility of products and destinations, the book provides support for tourism agencies and organizations around the world. Covering themes that include digital marketing, social media, and online branding, this book is essential for professionals, academicians, researchers, and students working or studying in the field of tourism and hospitality management, marketing, advertising, and media and communications.

Changes within the travel industry, such as globalization, consumerism, and advancements in technology, have transformed travel agencies into highly competitive businesses. To remain successful, new business approaches and models must be created in the global tourism and hospitality industry. Travel companies continue to expand their businesses in different countries and seek to collaborate with international entrepreneurs, developing the need for cross-cultural strategies and policies. As travel agencies flourish, identifying these business practices is necessary for these organizations to obtain a competitive management model at the global level. The Handbook of Research on International Travel Agency and Tour Operation Management gathers the latest methodologies, tools, models, and theories regarding tourism development and sustainability into one comprehensive reference source in order to promote, manage, and maximize the profitability potential of travel agencies and tour operation services. Featuring research on topics such as e-marketing, medical tourism, and online travel, this book provides travel agents, managers, industry professionals, researchers, academics, and students with the necessary resources to effectively develop and implement organizational strategies and models.

Smart systems when connected to artificial intelligence (AI) are still closely associated with some popular misconceptions that cause the general public to either have unrealistic fears about AI or to expect too much about how it will change our workplace and life in general. It is important to show that such fears are unfounded, and that new trends, technologies, and smart systems will be able to improve the way we live, benefiting society without replacing humans in their core activities. Smart Systems Design, Applications, and Challenges provides emerging research that presents state-of-the-art technologies and available systems in the domains of smart systems and AI and explains solutions from an augmented intelligence perspective, showing that these technologies can be used to benefit, instead of replace, humans by augmenting the information and actions of their daily lives. The book addresses all smart systems that incorporate functions of sensing, actuation, and control in order to describe and analyze a situation and make decisions based on the available data in a predictive or adaptive manner. Highlighting a broad range of topics such as business intelligence, cloud computing, and autonomous vehicles, this book is ideally designed for engineers, investigators, IT professionals, researchers, developers, data analysts, professors, and students.

The international tourism industry has seen increased growth in the past few years as millions of individuals continue to travel worldwide. As one of the world’s largest economic sectors, creating jobs, driving exports, and generating prosperity worldwide, hospitality and tourism management needs to continually be explored in order to update best business models and practice. Strategic Business Models to Support Demand, Supply, and Destination Management in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry is an essential reference source that emphasizes emergent and innovative aspects and new challenges and issues within the industry with a particular focus on demand, supply, and destination management. Featuring research on topics such as circular economy, consumer behavior, and social networking, this book is ideally designed for business professionals, executives, hotel managers, event coordinators, restaurateurs, travel agents, tour directors, policymakers, government officials, industry professionals, researchers, students, and academicians.