TOURISM AND CULTURE MANAGEMENT 2021

Virtual tourism: firm‐market relationships

EMERANCIA RAHARISOA

Objectives: This paper seeks to understand what can be an obstacle for tourim industries to invest in virtual tourism (VT) and why some tourism firms within country strong in digital technology are being overtaken by firms sitting in other countries towards the adoption of VT.

Methodology: This study adopts a qualitative multiple case study approach. Triangulation of data was achieved through the supplementing secondary data with surveys to fifty-four travel agencies and seventy-five private persons, as representatives of three selected countries: Finland, France, and Italy.

Findings: The results identify that the behaviour of tourists influenced the relationship between tourism industries and virtual tourism market and this reason differs the tourism industries in these countries with the adoption of VT.

Research limits: The sample comprised three countries having different level of digital performance and technologies penetration rates, but introducing VT impressively different from their rank on technology competitiveness. Only highly educated people who are willing to understand this technology could participate on the survey.

Practical implications: This study provides the relationship between tourism industries and virtual tourism market that express the necessity of information towards the choice of tourists in order to evaluate the efficience of VT.

Originality of the study: The research on VT is in progress but this paper try to fill the gap concerning the lack of ample estimation about the challenges affected by tourism industries among the possible future development of tourism sector to the virtual world within developed countries in Europe.

#Finland #France #Italy #tourism industries #virtual tourism #virtual tourism market