Description
Tourism is a service sector which earns a substantial foreign exchange to developing countries. In Jordan, Aqaba is one of the important destinations for the international tourists with its unique nature beauty with underwater life, Arabic culture and heritage, mountains of Wadi Rum and beaches
47
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
ISSN 1923-841X [Print]
ISSN 1923-8428 [Online]
www.cscanada.net
www.cscanada.org
International Business and Management
Vol. 6, No. 1, 2013, pp. 47-50
DOI:10.3968/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
Tourism Marketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone
(ASEZA)
Moz? Al-Amyan
[a],*
[a]
School of Management and Planning, Al-Balqa Applied University,
J ordan.
*Corresponding author.
Received 28 October 2012; accepted 30 December 2012
Abstract
The purposes of this article is to assess how many of
the tourism marketing strategy and actions contained in
the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA)
Tourism Marketing Strategy 2005-2010 adopted. In
addition, the article will provide information about the
size and scope of activities that were completed or are
in process. A questioner was developed and interviews
were follow-up with administrators, department chairs
and commissioners in March 2010 to gather data on
specific activities related to the ASEZA tourism marketing
strategy, and additional data was drawn from the ASEZA
database. The result shows that there is no obvious
tourism marketing strategy, goals, and consistency
between the tourism marketing strategy and the real
market of the ASEZA. The main conclusions war that the
budgets are not sufficient for attaining the level of impact
required; lack of market research, advertising decisions,
the personal preferences rather than market research was
the main reasons of the marketing strategy gap.
Key words:
Tourism; Marketing strategy; Aqaba
Mozfi Al-Amyan (2013). Tourism Marketing Strategy Case Study:
Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA). International Business
and Management, 6(1), 47-50. Available from: http://www.cscanada.
net/index.php/ibm/article/view/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
INTRODUCTION
Tourism is a service sector which earns a substantial
foreign exchange to developing countries. In J ordan,
Aqaba is one of the important destinations for the
international tourists with its unique nature beauty with
underwater life, Arabic culture and heritage, mountains of
Wadi Rum and beaches. Tourism has become a popular
global leisure activity and it a highly competitive industry,
it is necessary for tourism industry to formulate marketing
strategies which should include the overall business
objectives, an assessment of the market environment. The
strategy provides an overarching framework for guiding
necessary action to promote the growth of the tourism,
strategic planning is the process of formulating and
implementing decisions about an organization’s future
direction. This process is vital to every organization’s
survi val because i t i s the process by whi ch the
organization adapts to its ever-changing environment, and
the process is applicable to all management levels and all
types of organizations (Kerzner, 2001, p. 15).
Tourism is a highly competitive industry; the
traveler has a wide range of choices and looks for good
value for money. The lack of quality infrastructure,
uncompetitive rates, indifferent or poor product quality,
difficulty in getting access to information on travel and
tourist destinations, untrained service providers have
an enormously negative effect on the competitiveness
of the tourism product. For all these it is necessary for
tourism industry to formulate marketing strategies which
should include the overall business objectives, destination
marketing is designed to identify the target market by the
way to collect information about its visitor as well as to
audit the destination attractions and select segment that
might logically have an interest in them (Kotler, Bowen &
Makens, 2010). The objective is to create a brand image
for tourism destination that highlights the attractions best
features, provides an economic impact to the destination.
As part of its intuitional support for the Aqaba Special
Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), a European Union
development programme (IS-ASEZA) providing support
to help market Aqaba as a branded tourism destination.
TourismMarketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA)
48
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
This report made the corner stone of the Tourism
Promotion Plan for Aqaba 2005-2010. A market research
has been done to examining the image of Aqaba in
overseas markets did not exist, but was felt to be positive,
related to its history and Gulf of Aqaba location. In the
domestic market some limited research is available, and
this shows that Aqaba is seen as a pleasant and relaxed
beach destination but lacking in things to do.
1. PROBLEM STATEMENT
This study trying to answer the following questions:
-To what extend ASEZA rely on the adopted tourism
marketing strategy to reach its strategic marketing goals?
- Did the ASEZA reach its strategical marketing goals
that?
- Did the ASEZA efforts result in conversion in the
tourism market?
2. OBJECTIVES
The main object this paper is to reveal the gaps that have
emerged from the strategic marketing planning that need
more investigation to point out the deference between
what have been planned and the reality from those
working in the tourism sector.
3. IMPORTANCE
There is lack of studies in the field of strategic marketing
planning among tourism. We argue in this paper that there
are gaps that have emerged from the strategic marketing
planning, which require further examination.
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
ASEZA embraced the pri nci pl e of resul ts-based
management in its strategic plan 2007-2010. The strategy
performance link in international business according to
four perspectives: dynamic capability, standardization,
configuration–coordination, and integration–responsive
(Luo, 2002; Zou & Cavusgil, 2002). Each perspective
yields insights into assessments of global marketing
performance and contributes to the development of
market creation and market yield processes as bases
for evaluating subsidiary performance. Performance
assessment is a critical component of the marketing
control process, so assessments should identify areas that
need improvement, expenses to curb, and investments to
make as well as provide a fair mechanism for evaluating
(Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Taggart, 1997). Strategic
marketing activities not only affect immediate sales, such
as those from a short-term promotion campaign, but also
develop market assets that are more long term in their
nature and impacts (Kamakura et al., 1991).The Aqaba’s
tourism market success measured in hotel occupancy rates
The marketing strategy’s targets were bed-night based
and aimed to deliver 1.89 million bed-nights by 2010, this
target was based on an assumed doubling of room supply,
which has not happened yet (Aqaba Tourism Marketing
Strategy 2010-2015). The five year Aqaba marketing
strategy launched to re-position Aqaba as an international
destination as more high quality, broaden awareness of
Aqaba as a holiday base, a quality diving centre, a cruise
liner port, a potential gateway to J ordan and the region,
and increase the length of stay of visitors in Aqaba.
It is well-established that maintaining a long-term
relationship with customers achieves competitive
advantage and reduces the cost of attracting new custom
(Kotler & Armstrong 2007; J obber 2006). Planning and
generating customer satisfaction should be the two major
objectives of tourism businesses and destinations in
maintaining competitive advantage, the key element of
destination management and marketing strategy (Ritchie
& Crouch, 2003).
The strategic marketing planning process include ten
steps (McDonald, 1999), Figure 1 shows these steps.
4.1 Tourism Marketing
The marketi ng of servi ces dependent much on
interdependence of Marketing, Operations, and Human
Resources. The differences between tourism marketing
and other services are, (1) principal products provided by
recreation/tourism businesses are recreational experiences
an hospitality, (2) instead of moving product to the
customer, the customer must travel to the product (area/
community), (3) travel is a significant portion of the
time and money spent in association with recreational
and tourism experiences, (4) is a major factor in people’s
decisions on whether or not to visit your business
or community (Lovelock et al, 2004). Events and
Destinations are significant motivators of tourism, and
shape importantly in the advance and marketing plans of
most destinations. Destination can extend tourism both
geographically and seasonally, allow the destination to
make merry its uniqueness, encourage itself, extend local
self-importance and enhance its financial welfare, as well
to produce large economic and tourism profit (Goeldner
& Ritchie, 2009). Services tourism is a major component
of special concentration tourism and a key component in
destination marketing strategies, thus every society and
destination can employ events successfully in a tourism
function (Getz, 1997).
4.2 Tourism Marketing Strategy for Aqaba 2005-2010
The strategic principles was targeting for growth, the
primary target of the marketing strategy is to drive
international demand so that hotel development will
continue to be triggered to maintain viable level of hotel
operation. Future demand projections were mad and a
short, medium, and long term targets were determined.
The marketing activity was focusing on the expanding
existing markets, opening new markets, and growing
Moz? Al-Amyan (2013).
International Business and Management, 6(1), 47-50
49
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
Figure 1
Ten Steps of the Strategic Marketing Planning Process (McDonald, 1999)
Ho: There is no consistency between the tourism
marketing strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
5.2 Community of the Study
The community of the study was the department chairs
and commissioners in the ASEZA marketing division
staffs which reach 100. We took the groups that involved
in the tourism marketing and have a close contact, they
ware 47 employees.
5.3 Tools of the Study
5.3.1 Questioner Survey
The questioner and the interview used as a primary
method for collecting the data from the selected sample, it
concentrate on the following axis:
(1) The tourism marketing strategy in the ASEZA.
(2) Tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA.
(3) The consistency between the tourism marketing
strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
For each question the purpose was to evaluate the
current situation and what should be the future goals
closest to the employee opinion. The answers were
gathered into an SPSS and Excel sheet for further
examination. Charts for Operations and were drawn based
on the Excel sheets.
5.3.2 Interview
Interviewing the senior management is the best method
to collect the primary data, the open-end question gives
more details about the subject. The Interview questions:
(1) Do you think that the tourism marketing strategy in
the domestic market. The key strategic principle is
partnership with private sector. Three strategic marketing
objective have been defined: re-positioning the Aqaba
as an international holiday destination, broaden the
awareness of Aqaba as holiday base, and increasing
the length of stay. The promotion mix examined the
branding and publications, travel trade, internet, public
relations, advertising, exhibitions and market research.
The human and financial resource needs were delivered
for the strategy (Tourism Marketing Strategy for Aqaba,
2005). The tourism marketing strategy for Aqaba was
a comprehensive one but the success depend on the
application of the strategy.
5. METHODOLOGY
Case study methodology, using nonprobability purposive
sampling was deemed to be appropriate for this research;
interviews were follow-up with administrators, department chairs
and commissioners in March 2010 to gather data on specific
activities related to the ASEZA tourism marketing strategy, and
additional data was drawn from the ASEZA database.
5.1 Study Hypotheses
From the study importance and objectives the following
hypotheses have been derived:
Ho: There is no obvious tourism marketing strategy in
the ASEZA.
Ho: There are no obvious tourism marketing goals in
the ASEZA.
TourismMarketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA)
50
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
the ASEZA is obvious?
(2) How much the tourism sector understanding the
tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA?
(3) How much the consistency between the tourism
marketing strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
The answer from a specialist manager for this question
present a huge data that needed in the analyzing, the open-
end question have been provide a details about the system
to evaluate the tourism marketing strategy in the ASEZA.
5.4 Study Hypotheses Testing
The first hypotheses, Ho: There is no obvious tourism
marketing strategy in the ASEZA. Table 1 shows (T)
value to test this hypothese.
Table 1
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The obvious tourism
marketing strategy
0.000 46 51.4 0.259 3.349
The Table 1 shows the calculated T is biggest than the
tabulated one, and the rule for testing the hypotheses is
accepting the null hypotheses and rejecting the alternative
hypotheses when the calculated T value lower than the
tabulated one, and rejecting the null hypotheses and
accepting the alternative when the calculated T is biggest
than the tabulated one (Zikmund, 2004). The result of our
test is to rejecting the null hypotheses and accepting the
alternative one, so there is no obvious tourism marketing
strategy in the ASEZA the tourism marketing staff mind
can be formulated in the reality. In the same way the
second and third hypotheses had been tested, Table 2
shows T value to test the second hypotheses.
Table 2
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The obvious tourism
marketing goals
0.000 46 53.3 0.458 3.897
The result of our test is to rejecting the null hypotheses
and accepting the alternative one, so there is no obvious
tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA the tourism
marketing staff working to achieve them. Table 3 show T
value to test the third hypotheses.
Table 3
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The tourismmarketing
consistency
0.000 46 52.5 0.345 3.271
The result of our test is to rejecting the null hypotheses
and accepting the alternative one, so there is no
consistency between the tourism marketing strategy and
the real market of the ASEZA, the staff confirming on the
strategic gab between the desired and the reality which
means there is effective marketing strategic planning has
been don.
5.4.1 Interview Results
The interview results show that the marketing decisions
are taken by an ASEZA commissioner due to the top down
management structure of the organization, And Personal
preferences can determine marketing rather than market
research. Another result shows that the opportunities for
cost-sharing and joint activity are not existed because the
strategy objectives was made based on the strong relations
with parterres.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Budgets are not sufficient for attaining the level of impact
required; lack of market research, advertising decisions,
and the personal preferences rather than market research
was the main reasons of the marketing strategy gap.
The researcher recommends adding new value in the
existing marketing staff and investing in the marketing
human resource.
REFERENCES
n.d. (2007). Aqaba Tourism Marketing Strategy, 2007-2010.
European Union Development Programme (IS-ASEZA) (2005).
Tourism Marketing Strategy for Aqaba 2005-2010.
Goldman D, Leibowitz A, Buchanan J , Keesey J . (1997).
Redistributional Consequences of Community Rating.
Health Services Research, 32(1), 71-86.
Getz, D. (1997). Event Management & Event Tourism. Elmsford,
New York: Cognizant Communication Corporation.
Kamakura, W. A., Ramaswami, S., & Srivastava, R. K. (1991).
Applying Latent Trait Analysis in the Evaluation of Prospects
for Cross-Selling of Financial Services. International Journal
of Research in Marketing, 8(4), 329-349.
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. A. (1993). Effectively Conceiving
and Executing Multinationals’ Worldwide Strategies.
Journal of International Business Studies, 24(3), 419-448.
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2007). Principles of Marketing (12th
ed.). Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Kotler, P., J Bowen, & Makens, J . (2010). Marketing for
Hospitality and Tourism. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Lovelock, Christopher, Wirtz, J ochen, Chatterjee, J ayanta (2004).
Services Marketing People, Technology Strategy: A South
Asian Perspective. Delhi: Peason Education Inc.
Luo, Y. (2002). Capability Exploitation and Building in a
Foreign Market: Implications for Multinational Enterprises.
Organization Science, 13, 48-63 (J anuary-February).
McDonald, Malcolm (1999). Strategic Marketing Planning:
Theory and Practice (4th ed.). Butterworth Heinemann.
Ritchie, J . R. B., & Crouch, G. I. (2003). The Competitive
Dest i nat i on: A Sust ai nabl e Touri sm Perspect i ve.
Wallingford: CABI.
Zikmund, W. (2004). Business Research Methods (7th ed.).
Harcourt College Publishers.
doc_578428919.pdf
Tourism is a service sector which earns a substantial foreign exchange to developing countries. In Jordan, Aqaba is one of the important destinations for the international tourists with its unique nature beauty with underwater life, Arabic culture and heritage, mountains of Wadi Rum and beaches
47
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
ISSN 1923-841X [Print]
ISSN 1923-8428 [Online]
www.cscanada.net
www.cscanada.org
International Business and Management
Vol. 6, No. 1, 2013, pp. 47-50
DOI:10.3968/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
Tourism Marketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone
(ASEZA)
Moz? Al-Amyan
[a],*
[a]
School of Management and Planning, Al-Balqa Applied University,
J ordan.
*Corresponding author.
Received 28 October 2012; accepted 30 December 2012
Abstract
The purposes of this article is to assess how many of
the tourism marketing strategy and actions contained in
the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA)
Tourism Marketing Strategy 2005-2010 adopted. In
addition, the article will provide information about the
size and scope of activities that were completed or are
in process. A questioner was developed and interviews
were follow-up with administrators, department chairs
and commissioners in March 2010 to gather data on
specific activities related to the ASEZA tourism marketing
strategy, and additional data was drawn from the ASEZA
database. The result shows that there is no obvious
tourism marketing strategy, goals, and consistency
between the tourism marketing strategy and the real
market of the ASEZA. The main conclusions war that the
budgets are not sufficient for attaining the level of impact
required; lack of market research, advertising decisions,
the personal preferences rather than market research was
the main reasons of the marketing strategy gap.
Key words:
Tourism; Marketing strategy; Aqaba
Mozfi Al-Amyan (2013). Tourism Marketing Strategy Case Study:
Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA). International Business
and Management, 6(1), 47-50. Available from: http://www.cscanada.
net/index.php/ibm/article/view/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.ibm.1923842820130601.1050
INTRODUCTION
Tourism is a service sector which earns a substantial
foreign exchange to developing countries. In J ordan,
Aqaba is one of the important destinations for the
international tourists with its unique nature beauty with
underwater life, Arabic culture and heritage, mountains of
Wadi Rum and beaches. Tourism has become a popular
global leisure activity and it a highly competitive industry,
it is necessary for tourism industry to formulate marketing
strategies which should include the overall business
objectives, an assessment of the market environment. The
strategy provides an overarching framework for guiding
necessary action to promote the growth of the tourism,
strategic planning is the process of formulating and
implementing decisions about an organization’s future
direction. This process is vital to every organization’s
survi val because i t i s the process by whi ch the
organization adapts to its ever-changing environment, and
the process is applicable to all management levels and all
types of organizations (Kerzner, 2001, p. 15).
Tourism is a highly competitive industry; the
traveler has a wide range of choices and looks for good
value for money. The lack of quality infrastructure,
uncompetitive rates, indifferent or poor product quality,
difficulty in getting access to information on travel and
tourist destinations, untrained service providers have
an enormously negative effect on the competitiveness
of the tourism product. For all these it is necessary for
tourism industry to formulate marketing strategies which
should include the overall business objectives, destination
marketing is designed to identify the target market by the
way to collect information about its visitor as well as to
audit the destination attractions and select segment that
might logically have an interest in them (Kotler, Bowen &
Makens, 2010). The objective is to create a brand image
for tourism destination that highlights the attractions best
features, provides an economic impact to the destination.
As part of its intuitional support for the Aqaba Special
Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), a European Union
development programme (IS-ASEZA) providing support
to help market Aqaba as a branded tourism destination.
TourismMarketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA)
48
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
This report made the corner stone of the Tourism
Promotion Plan for Aqaba 2005-2010. A market research
has been done to examining the image of Aqaba in
overseas markets did not exist, but was felt to be positive,
related to its history and Gulf of Aqaba location. In the
domestic market some limited research is available, and
this shows that Aqaba is seen as a pleasant and relaxed
beach destination but lacking in things to do.
1. PROBLEM STATEMENT
This study trying to answer the following questions:
-To what extend ASEZA rely on the adopted tourism
marketing strategy to reach its strategic marketing goals?
- Did the ASEZA reach its strategical marketing goals
that?
- Did the ASEZA efforts result in conversion in the
tourism market?
2. OBJECTIVES
The main object this paper is to reveal the gaps that have
emerged from the strategic marketing planning that need
more investigation to point out the deference between
what have been planned and the reality from those
working in the tourism sector.
3. IMPORTANCE
There is lack of studies in the field of strategic marketing
planning among tourism. We argue in this paper that there
are gaps that have emerged from the strategic marketing
planning, which require further examination.
4. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
ASEZA embraced the pri nci pl e of resul ts-based
management in its strategic plan 2007-2010. The strategy
performance link in international business according to
four perspectives: dynamic capability, standardization,
configuration–coordination, and integration–responsive
(Luo, 2002; Zou & Cavusgil, 2002). Each perspective
yields insights into assessments of global marketing
performance and contributes to the development of
market creation and market yield processes as bases
for evaluating subsidiary performance. Performance
assessment is a critical component of the marketing
control process, so assessments should identify areas that
need improvement, expenses to curb, and investments to
make as well as provide a fair mechanism for evaluating
(Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Taggart, 1997). Strategic
marketing activities not only affect immediate sales, such
as those from a short-term promotion campaign, but also
develop market assets that are more long term in their
nature and impacts (Kamakura et al., 1991).The Aqaba’s
tourism market success measured in hotel occupancy rates
The marketing strategy’s targets were bed-night based
and aimed to deliver 1.89 million bed-nights by 2010, this
target was based on an assumed doubling of room supply,
which has not happened yet (Aqaba Tourism Marketing
Strategy 2010-2015). The five year Aqaba marketing
strategy launched to re-position Aqaba as an international
destination as more high quality, broaden awareness of
Aqaba as a holiday base, a quality diving centre, a cruise
liner port, a potential gateway to J ordan and the region,
and increase the length of stay of visitors in Aqaba.
It is well-established that maintaining a long-term
relationship with customers achieves competitive
advantage and reduces the cost of attracting new custom
(Kotler & Armstrong 2007; J obber 2006). Planning and
generating customer satisfaction should be the two major
objectives of tourism businesses and destinations in
maintaining competitive advantage, the key element of
destination management and marketing strategy (Ritchie
& Crouch, 2003).
The strategic marketing planning process include ten
steps (McDonald, 1999), Figure 1 shows these steps.
4.1 Tourism Marketing
The marketi ng of servi ces dependent much on
interdependence of Marketing, Operations, and Human
Resources. The differences between tourism marketing
and other services are, (1) principal products provided by
recreation/tourism businesses are recreational experiences
an hospitality, (2) instead of moving product to the
customer, the customer must travel to the product (area/
community), (3) travel is a significant portion of the
time and money spent in association with recreational
and tourism experiences, (4) is a major factor in people’s
decisions on whether or not to visit your business
or community (Lovelock et al, 2004). Events and
Destinations are significant motivators of tourism, and
shape importantly in the advance and marketing plans of
most destinations. Destination can extend tourism both
geographically and seasonally, allow the destination to
make merry its uniqueness, encourage itself, extend local
self-importance and enhance its financial welfare, as well
to produce large economic and tourism profit (Goeldner
& Ritchie, 2009). Services tourism is a major component
of special concentration tourism and a key component in
destination marketing strategies, thus every society and
destination can employ events successfully in a tourism
function (Getz, 1997).
4.2 Tourism Marketing Strategy for Aqaba 2005-2010
The strategic principles was targeting for growth, the
primary target of the marketing strategy is to drive
international demand so that hotel development will
continue to be triggered to maintain viable level of hotel
operation. Future demand projections were mad and a
short, medium, and long term targets were determined.
The marketing activity was focusing on the expanding
existing markets, opening new markets, and growing
Moz? Al-Amyan (2013).
International Business and Management, 6(1), 47-50
49
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
Figure 1
Ten Steps of the Strategic Marketing Planning Process (McDonald, 1999)
Ho: There is no consistency between the tourism
marketing strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
5.2 Community of the Study
The community of the study was the department chairs
and commissioners in the ASEZA marketing division
staffs which reach 100. We took the groups that involved
in the tourism marketing and have a close contact, they
ware 47 employees.
5.3 Tools of the Study
5.3.1 Questioner Survey
The questioner and the interview used as a primary
method for collecting the data from the selected sample, it
concentrate on the following axis:
(1) The tourism marketing strategy in the ASEZA.
(2) Tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA.
(3) The consistency between the tourism marketing
strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
For each question the purpose was to evaluate the
current situation and what should be the future goals
closest to the employee opinion. The answers were
gathered into an SPSS and Excel sheet for further
examination. Charts for Operations and were drawn based
on the Excel sheets.
5.3.2 Interview
Interviewing the senior management is the best method
to collect the primary data, the open-end question gives
more details about the subject. The Interview questions:
(1) Do you think that the tourism marketing strategy in
the domestic market. The key strategic principle is
partnership with private sector. Three strategic marketing
objective have been defined: re-positioning the Aqaba
as an international holiday destination, broaden the
awareness of Aqaba as holiday base, and increasing
the length of stay. The promotion mix examined the
branding and publications, travel trade, internet, public
relations, advertising, exhibitions and market research.
The human and financial resource needs were delivered
for the strategy (Tourism Marketing Strategy for Aqaba,
2005). The tourism marketing strategy for Aqaba was
a comprehensive one but the success depend on the
application of the strategy.
5. METHODOLOGY
Case study methodology, using nonprobability purposive
sampling was deemed to be appropriate for this research;
interviews were follow-up with administrators, department chairs
and commissioners in March 2010 to gather data on specific
activities related to the ASEZA tourism marketing strategy, and
additional data was drawn from the ASEZA database.
5.1 Study Hypotheses
From the study importance and objectives the following
hypotheses have been derived:
Ho: There is no obvious tourism marketing strategy in
the ASEZA.
Ho: There are no obvious tourism marketing goals in
the ASEZA.
TourismMarketing Strategy Case Study: Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZA)
50
Copyright ©Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
the ASEZA is obvious?
(2) How much the tourism sector understanding the
tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA?
(3) How much the consistency between the tourism
marketing strategy and the real market of the ASEZA.
The answer from a specialist manager for this question
present a huge data that needed in the analyzing, the open-
end question have been provide a details about the system
to evaluate the tourism marketing strategy in the ASEZA.
5.4 Study Hypotheses Testing
The first hypotheses, Ho: There is no obvious tourism
marketing strategy in the ASEZA. Table 1 shows (T)
value to test this hypothese.
Table 1
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The obvious tourism
marketing strategy
0.000 46 51.4 0.259 3.349
The Table 1 shows the calculated T is biggest than the
tabulated one, and the rule for testing the hypotheses is
accepting the null hypotheses and rejecting the alternative
hypotheses when the calculated T value lower than the
tabulated one, and rejecting the null hypotheses and
accepting the alternative when the calculated T is biggest
than the tabulated one (Zikmund, 2004). The result of our
test is to rejecting the null hypotheses and accepting the
alternative one, so there is no obvious tourism marketing
strategy in the ASEZA the tourism marketing staff mind
can be formulated in the reality. In the same way the
second and third hypotheses had been tested, Table 2
shows T value to test the second hypotheses.
Table 2
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The obvious tourism
marketing goals
0.000 46 53.3 0.458 3.897
The result of our test is to rejecting the null hypotheses
and accepting the alternative one, so there is no obvious
tourism marketing goals in the ASEZA the tourism
marketing staff working to achieve them. Table 3 show T
value to test the third hypotheses.
Table 3
T Test Results
Signi?cant df T S.deviation Mean
The tourismmarketing
consistency
0.000 46 52.5 0.345 3.271
The result of our test is to rejecting the null hypotheses
and accepting the alternative one, so there is no
consistency between the tourism marketing strategy and
the real market of the ASEZA, the staff confirming on the
strategic gab between the desired and the reality which
means there is effective marketing strategic planning has
been don.
5.4.1 Interview Results
The interview results show that the marketing decisions
are taken by an ASEZA commissioner due to the top down
management structure of the organization, And Personal
preferences can determine marketing rather than market
research. Another result shows that the opportunities for
cost-sharing and joint activity are not existed because the
strategy objectives was made based on the strong relations
with parterres.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Budgets are not sufficient for attaining the level of impact
required; lack of market research, advertising decisions,
and the personal preferences rather than market research
was the main reasons of the marketing strategy gap.
The researcher recommends adding new value in the
existing marketing staff and investing in the marketing
human resource.
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