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Effectiveness of promotion using web-based agritourism portals in the light of their users’ feedback. Web portal model for the region
Date added: 2012-07-02
Author/Authors
Adam Jasiński
Abstract
In recent years, agritourism has become one of the most popular forms of tourism. It is not easy to promote it, so most rural tourism farms are not able to promote their services on their own. This requires special qualifications and financial resources. The solution to this situation seems to be the use of the Internet, thanks to which the owners of agricultural tourism farms have the opportunity to use specialized agritourism portals, where they can publish information about their own services for a small fee. The author of the study decided to look more closely at this form of promotion of agritourism services. The subject of his research was the effectiveness of promotion using Internet agritourism portals in the light of the opinion of their users. The survey covered Internet portals promoting agritourism in the Łódź Voivodeship. Particular emphasis was placed on researching the portals belonging to public organisations dealing with agritourism, including the Agricultural Advisory Centres, agritourism associations, the Regional Tourist Organisation of the Łódź Voivodeship, Local Tourist Organisations, municipalities, poviats, Local Action Groups and other institutions. In order to obtain a fuller picture of the study, these portals were analysed from 3 perspectives: the analysis of the content conducted by the author of the study, opinions of owners of agritourism farms as well as opinions of private persons interested in using the offer of agritourism farms and obtaining information on them using Internet agritourism portals. The study showed that on the Internet there are many non-integrated portals containing offers of agritourism farms from the Łódź voivodeship. The portals vary in functionality and offers presented. There is no single comprehensive portal dedicated to the region of Łódź. This causes confusion among Internet users and makes it difficult to access important information. In addition, the author noted a number of shortcomings regarding the promotion of services on existing agritourism portals. At the same time, it should be emphasized that in the author’s opinion, Internet agritourism portals have much greater potential for promoting agritourism in the Lódź region than is currently used. In connection with the above, the report presents a number of recommendations which, in the author's opinion, could significantly improve the quality of these portals and help in developing a new comprehensive agritourism portal for the region, which in turn will result in attracting new tourists and at the same time promoting the entire Łódź Voivodeship. 7 Prepared recommendations are divided into strategic and operational ones. The first of them are addressed to the institutions responsible for setting the strategy for the Łódź Voivodeship in the scope of tourism development and innovation. This type of institution includes: The Marshal Office of the Łódź Voivodeship and self-government units in the region. The second group of recommendations was addressed directly to economic entities, including institutions responsible for the promotion of agritourism in the region (Agricultural Advisory Centre, agritourism associations, Regional Tourist Organisation of the Łódź Voivodeship, Local Tourist Organisations, Local Action Groups), owners of commercial agritourism portals and owners of agrotourist farms of the Łódź region. Strategic recommendations concern mainly such aspects as increasing the use of new information technologies and innovative solutions for the promotion of agritourism farms and development of a comprehensive agritourism portal for the region. The author draws attention to the need to include these issues in the strategic regional documents (i.e. Development of Tourism in the Łódź Voivodeship Programme, Regional Innovation Strategy and the Regional Operational Programme for the Łódź Voivodeship) and in the promotional strategies of poviats and municipalities, which define the scope of activities of these entities in the field of tourism promotion (agritourism). In addition, the Marshal Office of the Łódź Voivodeship, as a public institution responsible for the promotion of tourism in the region, should strive to build a new comprehensive agriturism portal for the region, integrated with existing tourism/agritourism portals. A comprehensive portal should be understood as a portal which includes 3 main functions: information, booking and communication. In the case of operational recommendations, the author considers that owners of Internet agritourism portals (commercial and those of the institutions responsible for the promotion of agritourism in the region) should aim to develop and improve existing portals because at present they do not present a sufficient level of technological advancement and they do not meet the needs of Internet users looking for agritourism offers. Expansion and improvement refers here to the removal of problems detected during research and adding new functionalities, including the use of innovative IT solutions. Moreover, these portals should enable the owners of agritourism farms to publish the most interesting and extensive offers and their later editing. In addition, the author pays special attention to the needs of organizing trainings, conferences, forums, publishing of articles and conducting research in the field of promotion of agritourism in the Internet. They will allow the owners of agritourism farms to be made aware of the benefits of this form of promotion and thus provide them with knowledge of how to effectively use the promotional tools offered by the Internet. Additionally, based on the results of the study and recommendations presented by the author, a model for the construction of an online agritourism portal was created. The model is based on the principle of benchmarking and draws the best standards, e. g. from the portals which have been tested. Therefore, in the future the model can be used to build a professional and comprehensive agritourism portal for the region of Łódź.
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