ANALYSING THE PRACTICE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

IN PROMOTING ETHIOPIAN TOURISM IN CASE OF

ETHIOPIAN TOURISM ORGANIZATION

By: Roman Dessie

May, 2018
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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 Addis Ababa University
School of Commerce Marketing Management
MBA Program

ANALYSING THE PRACTICE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

IN PROMOTING ETHIOPIAN TOURISM IN CASE OF
ETHIOPIAN TOURISM ORGANIZATION

Thesis submitted to Addis Ababa University School of Commerce in

Partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of
Masters in Marketing Management (MA)

By: Roman Dessie

Advisor: Tewodros Mesfin (PhD)

May, 2018
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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 STATEMENT OF DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the research entitled “Analysing the practice of digital marketing in
promoting Ethiopian Tourism in case of Ethiopian Tourism Organization” is my original work
done under the guidance of my advisor Dr. Tewodors Mesfin. It has never been presented in
Addis Ababa University or any other university for any purpose. All sources of the materials
used for writing the research report have been acknowledged.

__________________________ ____________________
Roman Dessie Date
(Candidate)

This is to certify that the above declaration made by the candidate is correct to the best of my
knowledge.

__________________________ ____________________
Dr. Tewodros Mesfin Date
(Thesis Advisor)

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

From the beginning to the end I would like to express my deepest gratitude to almighty God for
his blessing and for making me to accomplish this huge achievement. Many thanks to my
research advisor, Dr. Tewodros Mesfin for his continuous advice, training and professional
guidance towards the realization of this study. My special thanks and appreciation goes to my
beloved husband for his contribution greatly to my success in every bit of my work and also
throughout my career advancement. Without his loving hands none of these would have been
possible.

I am also grateful to my brother – Ermias Dessie , not only went through my paper for his
support but also his encouragement throughout the building of this work. Moreover, I would
like to truly thank my friends Mrs. Martha Abera and Mrs. Kuleni Gudeta for always being by
my side through this program. My sincere appreciation also goes to the director of Tourism
marketing, Mr. Sisay Getachew and Mr. W/Gebrial Berhe – team leader, Tourism marketing at
Ethiopian Tourism Organization who were willing to give his time by providing me the required
documents and sitting through my interviews; without their help this work would not have
become a reality.

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 Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of the study .................................................................................................. 1

1.2. Brief of Ethiopian Tourism Organization …….……………………………..……...….. 3

1.3. Statement of the problem ................................................................................................. 5

1.4. The Research questions .................................................................................................... 6

1.5. Objectives of the study .................................................................................................... 6

1.6. Significance of the study .................................................................................................. 7

1.7. scope of the study ............................................................................................................. 7

1.8. Limitation of the study ..................................................................................................... 8

1.9. Organization of the study ................................................................................................. 8

1.10 Definition of the terms.………………………………………………………….......... 8

CHAPTER TWO
2. Review of Related Literature
2.1. Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................. 10

2.1.1. Tourism in Ethiopia …………………………………………………………… ... 10

2.1.2. The Growth and Origins of Digital Marketing ....................................................... 11

2.1.3. Elements of digital marketing ................................................................................. 12

2.1.4. Impact of Digital marketing in transforming the tourism industry ......................... 16

2.1.5. Elements of digital marketing Framework ........................................................... 18

2.1.6. Characteristics of a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign ................................ 22

2.2. Empirical Framework ..................................................................................................... 25

2.2.1. Digital marketing in promoting a tourist destination .............................................. 26

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 2.2.2. Measurements of the effectiveness digital marketing ............................................. 27

2.2.3. Research gap ....................................................................................................... 28

2.3. Conceptual Framework .................................................................................................. 28

CHAPTER THREE
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1. Description of the study area………………………………….………………………. 29

3.2. Research Approach ........................................................................................................ 29

3.3. Research Design ............................................................................................................. 30

3.4. Population and Sample ................................................................................................... 30

3.5. Data sources and Types .................................................................................................. 31

3.6. Data Collection Procedure ............................................................................................. 31

3.7. Data Validity and Reliablity .......................................................................................... 32

3.8. Data Analysis ................................................................................................................ 33

3.9. Ethical Consideration ..................................................................................................... 33

CHAPTER FOUR
4. DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1. General Profiles of the Respondents ................................................................................. 34

4.2.Tourist information Source and the degree of usage of the digital marketing elements ..... 39

4.3. Summary of the Interview…………………………………………………………….. 44

4.3.1.Who is responsible for digital marketing in ETO?................................................ 44

4.3.2. digital marketing practices OF ETO….....………………………………………45

4.3.3. The challenges of ETO in using digital marketing………………………............45

4.3.4. Checking ETO’S website if it is user friendly……………………….................46

4.3.5. ETO's practice in boosting it Website……………...…………………………… 46

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 4.3.6. Presentation of ETO's website………………………………………………..… 46

4.3.7. ETO's practice in using the Digiral Framwork (Learn & Relat back)… ……....47

4.3.8. Majority Regions which use the digital promotion of ETO…………............... 47

4.3.9. What are the majority age group who usually come to Ethiopia?...................... 47

CHAPTER FIVE
5. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. Summary of Major Findings…………………………………………………..………….48
5.2. Conclusion………………………………………..………………………………………49
5.3. Recommendations…………………………………………………………………..…….51

REFERENCES ..…………………………………………………………………………53
Annexure……………………………………………………………………………………58
Annexure I: Observation of ETO’s Digital Elements…………….…………….....I

Annexure II: Questionnaire……………………………………………………….V

Annexure III: Interview Guide…………………………………………………...XV

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 LIST OF ABREVAITIONS AND ACCRONYMS

ETO: Ethiopian tourism organization

MOCT: Ministry of culture and tourism
DMO: Destination management Organization
GDP: Gross domestic product
TO: Tour Operator
ESTDP: Ethiopian Sustainable Tourism Development project
NTDP: National Tourism Development Policy
ECTT: European Council on Tourism and Trade
GOE: Government of Ethiopia
TTC: Tourism Transformation Council
TB: Tourism Board
OECD: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

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 LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1 Historical Benchmarks in Ethiopian Tourism Industry……………………… 10
Table 3.1 Reliability Analysis of Variables………………………………………………... 32
Table 4.1.1: General profile of respondents……………………………………………….. 35
Table 4.1.2 Respondents’ profile of Gender versus their age…………………………….. 35

Table 4.1.3 Respondents’ region of residence versus their age…………………………… 36

Table 4.1.4 Respondents’ age versus purpose of their visit………………………………… 37
Table 4.1.5 Respondents’ purpose of their visit versus their trip organizer……………… 38
Table 4.1.6 Respondents’ awareness about ETO versus their source of information …… 38
Table 4.2.1 Tourists information source ……………………………………………………. 39
Table 4.2.2 Digital marketing elements which attract tourists ……………………………. 40
Table 4.2.3 Digital marketing elements which engage tourists…………………………...... 41
Table 4.2.4 Digital marketing elements which retain tourists ……………………………… 42
Table 4.2.5 Digital marketing elements which helps to learn about tourists and relate back 43
Table 4.2.6 Contribution of Digital Promotion by a destination marketer to plan a trip … 44

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: RACE Digital Marketing Measuring Framework …………………………… 18
Figure 2: The Digital Marketing Framework…………………………………………..... 19
Figure 3: Conceptual Model………………………………………………………………. 28
Figure 4 : Screenshot of ETO’S Tweeter page ……………………………………………. I
Figure 5 : Screenshot of ETO’S YouTube page ….…………………………………... I
Figure 6: Screenshot of ETO’S websites page which shows privacy policy………………. II
Figure 7 : Screenshot of ETO’S website home page which presents hyperlink to related II
Figure 8 : Screenshot of ETO’S website on root base pictorial description of attractions III
Figure 9 : screenshot of search engine to check the effective usage of SEO by ETO……... III
Figure 10: ETO’s usage of Google analytic report …………………………………………. IV

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 ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to analysing the practice of digital marketing in promoting
Ethiopian Tourism in case of Ethiopian Tourism Organization. The study employed both
qualitative and quantitative approaches. Interview, questionnaire and observation were the main
data gathering tools. The interview was undertaken with marketing director and one marketing
team leader of ETO and also 399 questionnaires were distributed to international tourists who
were found in one of the major tourist destination: Addis Ababa. Out of which only 342
respondents’ returned properly which meant more than 85 percent coverage of total
respondents. The collected data were analysed using both the descriptive and inferential
statistics. The findings demonstrated that most of tourists who came to Ethiopia used search
engines as their major source of tourist information , it was found out that ETO partially
utilized the two digital marketing frameworks called attract and retain whereas ETO failed in
the utilization of the three digital marketing frame works which are called engage , learn and
relate back . Social media accounts (YouTube, Face book and twitter), Website, Search engine
optimization, Mobile App and digital content were identified as the digital marketing elements
which ETO is employed currently. The challenges of ETO to implement the digital marketing
were identified. Six major challenges were recognized as prominent obstacle for ETO not
implement the digital marketing tasks effectively. As a final point, the research was concluded
raising major findings of the research and recommendation was given to the way forward for the
organization under this study (ETO). In the meantime, the researcher also believed that these
recommendations and the results of this study might be used as a reference for future
researchers who will be interested to conduct their research on the tourism promotion using
digital marketing frameworks.

Key words: Digital Marketing, Digital marketing framework, marketing, tourism industry

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 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the study

Technology advancement influenced the overall business sector and become the path to any
business success. The adoption of this innovation paradigm enable many business organization
to be characterized in having effective marketing and higher global sales. Driving innovation
with information technology is coming to be a simple formula in flourishing within todays
digitalized business world. Innovation through information technology has created the radical
changes in business, for instant, online shopping is more efficient than shopping in a store and
digital marketing is more efficient than high cost newspaper, television, and radio advertising.
(Business Vibes, 2015)

Spreads of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have generated deep changes
in the tourism sector affecting customers as well as suppliers. Travelers are more demanding and
look for differentiated and personalized services. ICT and Web 2.0 offer new opportunities and
resources to improve tourism organizations and destinations, competitiveness, and profitability.

An analysis of previous trends and opportunities shows that ICT developments, and especially
Web 2.0, have generated a deep change in consumer habits and Expectations. Travelers are more
demanding and look for differentiated and personalized Services. Therefore, tourism
organizations should collect customer information at each stage of tourism service experience
(before, during, and after, the trip) and simultaneously provide timely and accurate information,
relevant to their customers. Specifically, the destination marketing organization is affected by
these advancement, in terms of promoting a destination and reaching out potential tourists.
(Roberta, 2015).

Emarketor (2013) reported as our digitalized world is changing rapidly. Marketers are
accordingly shifting their budgets toward the digital channels. These channels are creating
exciting opportunities as many of the channels interact synergistically with each other and allow
better connectivity with the customers. Indeed, customers are becoming more empowered and
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are saying “Know Me, then Amaze Me.” This is truly the Age of the Customer. Marketers are
responding by putting the customer at the center of their business strategies.

Some of the evidence depicts the incremental growth of digitalization. In the past 3 years (2010-
2013), consumers’ time spent on social media and digital content increased from 52 minutes a
day to nearly 90 minutes while the time spent per day on TV, radio and print media reduced from
6.1 hours per day to 5.1 hours per day in 2008. There are 182 billion e-mail messages sent each
day and seventy billion pieces of content shared on Facebook every month. The shift here is not
only towards digital media, but to the addressability opportunity within digital as well ((Roberta,
2015).

As a result of the emerging of digitalization of the economy, the tourism sector, in general, and
destination marketing Organizations (DMO), in particular, are facing various challenges and
opportunities. The rapid growth in the use of the internet and mobile devices by tourists to select
touristic destinations and purchasing a tour packages are initiating tourism organizations to
implement latest digital strategies. Adopting digital marketing is becoming mandatories for
DMOs in order to overcome the challenge of how to get through the right people, at the right
time and place. Moreover, many national tourism Organizations (NTOs) are making digital
marketing as the center of their marketing strategies and they are investing significantly to
enhance and update their marketing approaches and strategies in line with this cost effective
technology (OECD, 2017).

Different scholars define the concept of digital marketing in different ways, according to their
experience, background and knowledge. However, the most commonly quoted definitions were
given by Kotler and American. Accordingly, Kotler and Armstrong defined digital marketing as
is a form of direct marketing which links consumers with sellers electronically using interactive
technologies like emails, websites, online forums and newsgroups, interactive television, mobile
communications and others (Kotler and Armstrong, 2009).

“The term “digital marketing” appeared only recently in the world of professional marketing and
communication. It refers to the promotion of products and brands among consumers, through the
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use of all digital media and contact points. Although digital marketing has many similarities with
Internet marketing, it goes beyond it, since it frees itself from the Internet’s single point of
contact and accesses all so-called “digital media,” including, for example, mobile telephony
(SMS or applications) and interactive television, as the communication channel. The term
“digital marketing” therefore seeks to bring together all the interactive digital tools at the service
of marketers for promoting products and services, while seeking to develop more direct and
personalized relationships with consumers.” (Flores, 2014)

With reference to the information mentioned in the above, digital marketing is one of the modern
trends in promoting tourist destinations that have proved to be effective and efficient in sending
out valuable messages to targeted audience. Besides, in our country, some researchers tried to
address the traditional way of promoting the tour & travel industry by giving very little attention
to the digital marketing. That is why this research was aiming at analyzing the practices of the
adoption of digital marketing being utilized by ETO in promoting Ethiopian tourism. This newly
established government entity is selected for this research based on its mandate in promoting
Ethiopian tourism.

1.2. Brief of Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO)

Information available from their website (Ethiopia.travel, 2015) explained ETO was established
in 2013 under government of Ethiopia proclamation No. 294/2013. It is based in Addis Ababa
and works in close collaboration with public and private stakeholders.

VISION AND MISSION OF THE ETO

Mission
Develop the country’s tourist destinations in collaboration with various stakeholders, market and
promote the destination at national and international level through employing competitive
marketing and promotional strategies. (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)

Vision
Making Ethiopia among the top five tourist destinations in Africa by 2025.

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MAIN AREAS OF WORK OF THE ETO
The ETO started operations in 2014 and it is working hard to implement its mandate that can be
summarized as follows:
Fostering Destination and Product Development
Improving the competitiveness and sustainability of tourism destinations, products and services
in Ethiopia through smart and efficient destination planning and management, human resources
development, quality services, investment promotion and business development; properly
aligned with market opportunities and requirements. The ETO will also identify policies
essential to the development of tourism. (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)

Marketing Ethiopia as a Tourism Destination

Improving the image of Ethiopia in the world, contributing to a strong and attractive destination
brand, and leading a consistent and coordinated effort to communicate and promote the different
destinations and tourism products Ethiopia has to offer, in collaboration with the private sector
and the regional governments. The domestic market will also be targeted. (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)

Ensure Collaboration and Alignment

Bringing together and ensure proper communication and coordination among the different
stakeholders involved, directly or indirectly, in tourism development and marketing. In
particular: federal government bodies, regional and local governments, private sector
associations, NGOs and donors. (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)

As a result, the main mandates of the Ethiopian Tourism Organization are tourism destination
development and marketing Ethiopia with the collaboration of the various stakeholders involved
in the Ethiopian tourism business industry. (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)

Moreover, in an interview on CNN (Yogerst, 2017) Mr. Solomon Tadesse - CEO of the
Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO) says “The government finally decided in 2013 that
tourism could generate jobs, income and wealth just like any other economic sector. A tourism
transformation council was established to provide direction to the industry and the ETO was
created to handle marketing, promotion and product development.” (Ethiopia.travel, 2015)
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 1.3. Statement of the problem

Ethiopia handles numerous heritages, yet its commitment to use its tourism endowment is very
limited. A research conducted by Theodros (2012) showed that, tourism-heritages (natural or
cultural) have made a huge contribution to the development of the country, however, lack of
promotion of these heritages become a major obstacle that hinder the country from not harvest
fruits of tourism sector. Despite the current growth of tourism arrivals to Ethiopia, the country’s
tourism market share in Africa remains limited. (ETO, 2015). “Due to these facts, Ethiopia is in a
weak position in terms of international tourism promotion.

Accordingly, the government of Ethiopia (GOE) has now started to take important strategic steps
towards structuring the Ethiopian tourism industry marketing. (STMP, 2015-2025). Hence, in
today’s global trend, it is no longer enough to rely only on traditional marketing for destination
marketers, it is mandatory to explore how digital marketing can be used for promoting the tourist
destination and include them in their marketing mix. This is very crucial to gain a competitive
advantage if any tourist destination don't want to fall behind their competitors. (Business Vibes,
2015).

This global trend is given emphasis on “Ethiopian Tourism marketing strategy, 2016-2020”,
therefore, ETO stated digital marketing as most important elements in its established marketing
strategy and written in the policy as follows:

 Campaign Creative design and production including developing online marketing tools
(especially website and social media ), and developing downloadable screensavers -
wallpapers, still image & video library
 Major online marketing drive (setting up appropriate tools for online destination
marketing, e-mail marketing, partnerships with online travel rating platforms etc.)

In addition, ETO proposed capacity building of ETO and regional Bureaus in building the staffs’
online marketing skills and providing Wi-Fi in key tourist areas which will be a bench mark in
promoting the country using digital marketing. (ETO, 2015)

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While destination marketers agree that marketing in digital channels is appropriate for promoting
a country’s tourism, the question now is “more about the how,” “what are the digital marketing
frameworks which determine the effectiveness of a digital marketing practices in getting more
audiences/ Users?” (DTC Perspectives, 2010)

Thus, the researcher went through assessing the role of digital marketing, which is the must to do
innovative promotional tool, in building Ethiopia as a tourist destination. To achieve these
objective, any destination marketer should know how to properly utilize the five elements of
digital marketing framework in reaching the target group. The risk associated with unsuccessful
usage of digital marketing that is particularly highlighted in tourism promotion is the lack of
relevant researches. Besides, the researcher was also gone some way to identify the challenges of
ETO to capitalize digital marketing in an effective manner.

1.4. The research questions

1. What are the main information sources for tourists to know about Ethiopia?
2. What are the digital marketing practices implemented by ETO to promote Ethiopian Tourism?
3. How well ETO utilizes the elements of the digital marketing frame work into its digital
marketing practices to achieve its tourism promotion objectives?
4. What are the challenges of ETO in promoting the Ethiopian Tourism using digital marketing?

1.5. Objective of the study

General Objective

The overall objective of the study was to analyze the practice of digital marketing of ETO in
promoting Ethiopian tourism.

Specific Objectives

This research tried to address the following specific objectives:

 Identify the digital marketing elements ETO is employing currently

 Analyze ETO’s contemporary digital marketing practices in terms of its utilization of
the elements of the digital marketing frame work

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  Assess the major information sources for tourist to learn about Ethiopia.
 The challenges of ETO in promoting the Ethiopian Tourism using digital marketing

1.6 . Significance of the study

The results of the study are expected to help to deliver the following benefits to the concerned
parties such as any marketers who works in tourism sector, tour operators, and especially for the
ETO’s marketing department managers and staffs, decision makers, researchers, investors in the
tourism industry and etc. These benefits are:
 To help ETO’s marketing division to assess the performance of their existing digital
marketing practices in terms of deployment of the elements of the digital marketing
frame work
 To add up the store of knowledge on the effect of digital marketing in promoting
Ethiopian tourist.
 To serve as an input for the decision makers in both the Tourism Transformation Council
(TTC) and Tourism Board (TB) in their role of leading & supervising ETO in its major
obligation of promoting Ethiopian Tourism
 To help tour operators and tourism digital marketers as a reference while they prepare
their digital marketing strategy
 To contribute as a resource for future researchers by providing insight on related topics.

1.7. Scope of the study

The researcher focused on the assessment of the role of digital marketing in promoting a
country’s tourism which was restricted to ETO’s digital marketing practices. However, the
organization under this study –ETO has different marketing strategies, this research focuses on
only the digital marketing strategies. Furthermore, the scope of this research was limited to
identify major tourist information sources, challenges and practices of ETO and the five elements
of digital marketing framework. The target populations of the study were delimited to
international tourists who will be found in one of the major tourist destination: Addis Ababa and
the interview were conducted only two experts of ETO: marketing director and experts of ETO.

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1.8 Limitation of the Study

It was difficult to keep track of all touristic destination of Ethiopia as they are located in different
part of the country; as a result, the researcher was limited to focus on international tourists who
were visiting Addis Ababa during the survey period. Due to the high turnover of the marketing
experts of ETO, the interview data was collected only from two experts of ETO: marketing
director and one marketing team leader. Moreover, the major limitation of this study was there is
no previous study in the field.

1.9 Organization of the study

The research has five chapters. The first chapter is introductory part which has background,
objective, significance, limitation & scope of the study, statement of the problem and definitions
of different terms. The second chapter was outlined the review of different literatures related to
areas under study. It consists definition of terms and concepts about digital marketing and
destination marketing organization. The third chapter is concentrate on the methodology of the
study and consists of research approach & design, sample size, data source & types, data
collection procedures and method of data analysis, and ethical consideration of the research. The
fourth chapter focuses on data analysis and interpretation of the study. The last chapter (chapter
five) included summary, conclusion and recommendation of the research parts.

1.10. Definition of the terms

Promotion: “coordination of all sellers initiated efforts to set up channels of information and
persuasion in order to sell goods and service or promote an idea” (Kotler, 2005).

Destination marketing organization (DMO): “is an organization that promotes a town, city,
region, or country in order to increase the number of visitors. It promotes the development
and marketing of a destination, focusing on convention sales, tourism marketing, and services.
Such organizations promote economic development of a destination by increasing visits from
tourists and business travelers, which generates overnight lodging for a destination, visits to
restaurants, and shopping revenues and are typically funded by taxes.” (Wikipedia, 2017)

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Search engine Optimization (SEO): “Quite simply, SEO is the umbrella term for all the
methods you can use to ensure the visibility of your website and its content on search engine
results pages (SERPs)” (Search engine watch, 2016).

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 CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter covers the review of related literatures. It includes there main part; theoretical
framework, Empirical literature review and conceptual framework of the study.

2.1. Theoretical Framework

2.1.1 Tourism in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s tourism industry began in the 1960’s in acknowledging its tremendous tourism
potential like its numerous tourist attraction, a visitor welcoming and proud people of their
country’s historic heritage. (Ali Y, 2016). The formation of the organization of African Union
(OAU) in 1963 and the foundation of the African Hall in Addis Ababa helped the business of
tourism to get special attention the then government even if there were many challenges in
developing the tourism industry in Ethiopia. (ESTDP, 2013). In general, (Yogerst, 2017)
reported that Ethiopia grasps the beautiful landscape , the scenery, the culture including the
thousands of churches and monasteries which are the fruits of Ethiopian's ancient orthodox
Christianity and some of them registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Table 1.1 Historical Benchmarks in Ethiopian Tourism Industry

S.No. Historical Periods (GC) Major undertakings

1 1965 Development of the first tourism plan

2 1974 Decline of tourism due to Derg regime closed door policy

3 1991 Revival of tourism due to the stability of the country’s political situation

4 2009 The formulation & implementation of National Tourism Development policy (NTDP)

Establishment of National Tourism Transformation Council (TTC) and Ethiopian Tourism

5 2012 Organization (ETO) in support of the ministry of culture & tourism
Change of Ethiopian tourism brand name from " Ethiopia, 13th month of sunshine " to "Ethiopia,
6 2015 the Land of Origins"

Adopted: MOCT (2009 pp. 17) & ETO (2015 pp. 66)

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Nowadays, Tourism is not only one of the world’s largest, but also one of its fastest growing
industries, and its support in speeding up national development, serving as a source of Foreign
exchange, promoting micro & small- scale enterprises is a great contribution. The industry also
makes tremendous impact in creating jobs directly & indirectly and safeguards sustainable
development. (TDP, 2009).
Among many tourism destinations, Ethiopia has also enjoyed these a healthy rate of growth over
the years. As a result, continuous growth has become an assumed norm in many destinations.
(Edward & Jason Burgess, 2008). The latest statistics depicts, Ethiopia has been enjoying
exceptional tourism growth in the recent years. Observing the International tourist arrivals, the
growth is very tangible which is rising from 64,000 in 1990 to 681,249 in 2013 which is 4.2% of
the country’s GDP in 2013. Accordingly, the travel & tourism sector is expected to grow by
4.8% p.a. reaching ETB 59, 495.2m (3.6% of GDP) by 2024. (STMP, 2015-2025).

2.1.2 The Growth and Origins of Digital Marketing

Several technologies together have facilitated the rise of digital marketing. Among these
emerged technologies, the Internet, browsers, widespread computing, and database technologies
are the back bone of digital marketing growth. (Debra, 2015)

In a world where over a 170 million people use social media on a regular basis, every working
professional is expected to be familiar with at least the core concepts of digital marketing. On a
regular basis, over 170 million the world population use social media, every professional in
marketing is expected to be familiar with at least the core concepts of digital marketing. In
simple terms, Digital Marketing is the promoting of products over the internet or any form of
electronic media or digital channels to promote products and services to target market. (Digital
marketing Institute, 2017).

“The term Digital Marketing was first used in the 1990s. The digital age took off with the
coming of the internet and the development of the Web 1.0 platform. The Web 1.0 platform
allowed users to find the information they wanted, but did not allow them to share this
information over the web. Up until then, marketers worldwide were still unsure of the digital

11
platform. They were not sure if their strategies would work since the internet had not yet seen
widespread deployment.” (Avantika, 2017)

The beginning of the transition to the digital era of marketing was begun after the clickable
banner went live in 1993. Because of this gradual shift, the year 1994 saw new technologies
enter the digital marketplace. The very same year, Yahoo was launched. Within a year, yahoo
received hits 1 million hits which promoted the changes in digital marketing space.
(Wikipedia, 2016)

The higher demand of companies optimizing their website to attract more consumer towards
their web leads the emerging of the popular search engine- Google in 1998. Followed the digital
marketing world saw its first steep surge in 2006, when search engine traffic was reported to
have grown to about 6.4 billion in a single month. (Google, 2017)

“Products marketed digitally are now available to customers at all times. Statistics collected by
the Marketing technology for 2014 show that posting on social media is the top online activity in
the US. The average American spends 37 minutes a day on social media. 99% of digital
marketers use Facebook to market, 97% use Twitter, 70% use Google+, 69% use Pinterest and
59% use Instagram. 70% of B2C marketers have acquired customers through Facebook. 67% of
Twitter users are far more likely to buy from brands that they follow on Twitter. 83.8% of luxury
brands have a presence on Pinterest. The top three social networking sites used by marketers are
LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.”(Avantika, 2017 pp. 2)

2.1.3 Elements of digital marketing

Laterally speaking, digital marketing is any type of marketing for products or services that use
electronic devices. The reason of emerging of digital marketing is followed by the consumption
of electronic devices by majority of the people in the world. It is assumed that digital marketing
is all about content marketing and social media. While these exist as types of digital marketing,
they are not both encompass what digital marketing is all about. Digital marketing can be done
online and offline. (Rob, 2017)

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Even though both forms of digital marketing are very important for an effective marketing
strategy, this paper focus is only on online digital marketing. Types of online digital marketing
include: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing and Pay-Per-Click
Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer
marketing, email Marketing, viral Marketing and Mobile Phone Advertising. (Rob,2017)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the most general type of Digital marketing which is used to increase the process of
growing the online visibility in non-paid across the search engines. There are various techniques
involved in this process ranging from on-site technical analysis and improvement, to blogging,
link-building and content creation. Search engine results pages (SERPs) appear to users after
they search for a given set of keywords using a search engine like Google or Bing. The higher
rank on a SERP for a digital marketing, the more traffic is directed to your site and the more
chances of making a passive visitor an active customer. A company’s website appear at the top
of user’s non-paid search results if the website is optimized using SEO. (KVR, 2015)

Social Media Marketing

Unlike to what a lot of people think, Social Media Marketing is much more than just publishing
on social networks: it also involves having a good strategy, defining some previous objectives,
identifying networks where the audience is in order to have presence and be able to target, work
out a specific calendar of content for social networks, interact with consumers and measure each
action and interaction in real time. Social media is a crucial part of a digital marketing strategy. It
allows a marketer to connect with their consumers in a more intimate way. From this interaction,
they can gain valuable customer feedback that allows you to improve your customer service,
product, or service. Example of the known social Medias are Facebook, Twitter, Snap chat, and
LinkedIn. (Germán, 2015)

Social media are especially important for tourism, which is information-intensive activity.
Tourism consumers need information that can help them in the process of travel planning and
decision making related to the selection of tourist destinations as well as of different types of
tourism products. Personal recommendations are particularly important in this context, because
of the intangibility of tourism products. Social media provide this with the content created by the
13
consumers (consumer-generated content - CGC), and with the comments that can be trusted.
Social media has a special significance for the activities of destination marketing organizations
(DMO). Destinations marketers can use social media before the travel (to inspire, inform,
engage), during the travel (to facilitate at destination) and after the end of the travel (to
remember, share and engage).

Search Engine Marketing and Pay-Per-Click Advertising

“Search Engine Marketing, also known as marketing in search engines, is a form of promoting a
website in different search engines- like Google, Yahoo or Bing- so that is appears in the first
few search results. It’s done by paying for advertising positioning in search engines (pay per
click -PPC), but this is not only paying to place an ad but includes many other aspects such as the
choice of ad slogan, the text that accompanies it, the countries where it is going to appear, the
possibility of targeting different audiences, choosing what search terms will appear, selecting key
words to maximize results and the investment return obtained for each monetary unit investment
to put just a few examples.” . (Germán, 2015)

Among the search platform Google Ad Words and Bing Ads are the most common paid search
platforms. A predetermined amount of search engine charges are paid by a digital marketers to
display an advertisement in a number of places on a search engine results page (SERP) generated
from specific keywords or phrases. Recently PPC advertising is begun by social media
platforms.

Which is a great system to be an example of how the different types of digital marketing channel
into each other to form a complete digital marketing strategy. (Rob, 2017)

Content Marketing
The practice of delivering a quality piece of content to users is all about content marketing and
enable a marketer to generate sales and leads. This content can live anywhere online. Tweets, a
YouTube video, and blogs on a website all comprise content marketing that is why content is
called the king of internet. Content marketing is the life of Digital marketing since it is very
difficult or impossible to understand it without content marketing. Content Marketing is effective
because it can be merge with other types of digital marketing like SEO and Social Media
Marketing. (Yevgenia, 2016)
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Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing refers to the process of paying for conversions, in another words, it is a type
of performance based marketing. It is just like hiring a sales person for sales of a company’s
product or service since the affiliate earns a commission like the hired sales person. There is no
upfront cost to affiliate marketing, the company can determine the rate for affiliate marketing
and it is only paid for conversions. Affiliate marketing is used by many bloggers or e-commerce
websites. The terms and conditions should be discussed a head of a marketers choose to use
affiliate marketing. The affiliate represents the company’s brand, so marketers want them to
carry their brand’s message close to the affiliate. There are secondary tier of players in affiliate
marketing which includes affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third
party vendors. A marketer can approach affiliate marketing in two ways: Company can offer an
affiliate program to others or it can sign up to be another business’s affiliate. If company wants
to drive an affiliate program, then, the company owner has to pay affiliates a commission fee for
every lead or sale they drive to company’s website. (Afrina, Sadia and Kaniz , 2015)

Influencer Marketing
It is recently practiced digital marketing type. Influencer marketing uses people with an
enormous online reach considered experts by a target market to drive traffic and sales. Influencer
marketing is popular on social media channels like Instagram and Snapchat. Companies hire
Instagrammers with large followers to promote their brand by posting one or more photos with
the product. Companies now engage in Instagram or Snapchat “takeovers” where the hired
influence controls the company’s social media platform for a given amount of time, most often a
day. These social media takeovers drive the influencer’s following to a company’s social media
channels increasing the company’s new followers and unique views.

Email Marketing
As blogged by Susan in the balance (2017), Email marketing allows a company to update its
email subscribers on a regular basis about a company. This fosters a relationship unlike any of
the other types of digital marketing. A company email updates provide value to its consumer. As
a result, a company build brand trust and brand loyalty. The best email marketing campaigns
involve a list of subscribers earned by a company’s content and company, not paid for by its
company. People who opt-in to a company’s email subscription prove more likely to become

15
active buyers. Email marketing is like a Direct digital marketing is used to send ads, to build
brand and customer loyalty, to build customer trust and to make brand awareness. Company can
promote its products and services by using this element of digital marketing easily. It is relatively
low cost comparing to advertising or other forms of media exposure. Company can bring
complete attention of the customer by creating attractive mix of graphics, text and links on the
products and services.

Viral Marketing
Viral marketing refers to a post of some sort that is trendy, funny, or strange enough to bring in a
massive amount of shares online. Viral marketing causes an enormous spike in website traffic
over a short period of time. This is hard to do but the benefits alone make the effort worth a
digital marketer’s time. (Susan, 2017)

Mobile Phone Advertising

Each of the types of digital advertising can happen on a mobile device. Some types of marketing
using a mobile phone do not fit the above types of digital marketing. These include SMS
advertising which could prove an asset to local marketing efforts. A digital marketer can prompt
your consumers to use SMS to receive special offers, coupons, and updates from your company.
(Cheryl, 2013)
2.1.4 Impact of Digital marketing in transforming the tourism industry

In the early 21st century, the use and impact of the Internet on the society and economy can be
considered as one of the key factors for the global business transformation, particularly the
tourism sector. In this regard, the use of the Internet for marketing purposes and the technology
based on it represents one of the most important developments in the performance of the overall
marketing activities, and especially promotional ones. This development has caused the increase
in directing marketing, especially promotion activities, to so-called “electronic” or “digital”
marketing. Hospitality and tourism is one of the industries that is most affected by digital
development. The basis for this diversion is an increasing use of the Internet for the marketing
activities of tourism marketers and tourism policy carriers. The main transformation in tourism
industry in using digital marketing as one of promotional tools can be summarized as follows
(Middleton and Clarke, 2001):

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 Increase power of the customer (ability given to the people to ‘shop around’ for bargains
and choose from a much wider selection of travel opportunities than those offered by the
main travel agency and tour operator chains).The result is that the market is increasingly
dominated by a new type of visitor: a fluent, Independent, confident and curious to
discover - new places and cultures.
 Digital consumption today is very different from what it used to be, even a few years ago.
Consumers have become accustomed to use online digital tool not only to obtain
information but also for the purpose of the booking and final purchase of tourism
products.
 Digital marketing is no longer just for fixed desktops. Nowadays, tourists need to be
connected at all times. Travelling from point A to point B can be a long and tiring
experience. In an attempt to make the journey experience more pleasant for
travelers, airlines install advanced in-flight entertainment systems that allow people to
watch movies and TV shows, play games, listen to the radio and make phone calls from
the aircraft.
 Strategic changes in the tourism sector - the possibility for customers to be able to
compare online prices of all essential parts of the tourism product, the harmonization of
regulations and standards, the elimination of restrictions in the services sector, consumer
protection and the wide application of quality management.
 Much larger selection of tourist destinations that are available to potential guests, often at
the expense of existing developed tourist destinations.
 The creation of a destination management system that should be used as a source of
information and a place for booking and the purchase of destination tourism products.
 At the Destination, additional services result in repeat sales. Before going on a trip, most
people research the place they’re about to visit. Once they arrive at the destination, the
search for the best places to visit continues. Thankfully, the power of Wi-Fi allows
travelers to use their devices anywhere from the hotel room to coffee shops and touristic
attractions. As a result, planning any trip becomes as easy as visiting a review website
and choosing the next destination point.

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2.1.5 Elements of the Digital marketing framework

Digital marketing is about utilizing digital technology to achieve marketing objectives of a

company. According to the Business Dictionary (2014), effectiveness is defined as the degree to
which objectives are achieved and the extent to which targeted problems are solved. With regard
to Digital marketing in promoting tourism destination, these have to have the right digital
marketing strategy in order to stay competitive. From all the channels used to market the
destination, the most effective are those to which the destination marketers should pay more
attention so that the marketing practices can have more success.
Without appropriate planning, continuous market research and systematic analysis, very few
tourism promoting companies are able to achieve their marketing goals and establish valid online
presence. A digital marketing measurements are needed to support a digital orientation of an
organization, and most importantly to align its goals, strategies and tactics. (Chaffey, 2012).
Useful framework for measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing is RACE frameworks.
RACE framework was shaped in 2012 by Dave Chaffey at Smart Insights. RACE acronym
stands for Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.

Figure 1: RACE Digital Marketing Measuring Framework

Source: Dave Chaffey (2012) Smart Insights webpage
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For the purpose of this research, the Digital Marketing Framework (DMF) which was first
proposed by Kierzkowski et al. (1996, pp. 8) are used. They suggested that there are five steps
that a business should follow to market itself successfully through digital technologies. This
DMF is the most popular and widely used e-marketing framework and it focuses on five
elements that are essential in e-marketing, namely attracting customers, engaging customers,
retaining customers, learning about the customers and finally relating back to customers.
(Kierzkowski et al., 1996, pp. 13).

Figure 2: The Digital Marketing Framework

Source: The Digital Marketing Framework by Kierzkowski et al (1996, pp. 8)

Attract customers using Digital Marketing

In this frame work, the first step is attracting the audience, customers and prospective customers
to voluntarily visit an interactive application. Marketers at this stage should utilize the correct
19
tools to attract the types of customer they are targeting. A number of marketing communication
tools should be used to spread the business’s web presence so as to maximize the effectiveness of
digital marketing. In relationship to digital promotion, there are various ways in which a business
attracts customers to its digital media. For example, (Euge, 2015) suggest 3 best methods to
attract clients with digital marketing:

 Respond to the concerns of your public: this is considered as the best customer service
approach since addressing the concerns of your audience favors the recommendation of
your brand by word of mouth and helps you retain current clients as well. To manage the
cost of hiring to handle the public inquiries, it is the best way that to create a standard
responses to Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) which is also save a lot of time.

 Use a brand ambassador: this is not mean that use a famous public figure, which is very
expansive. However, this can be easily managed by Social Media Networks in order
to identify which users interact most with your publications with enthusiastic or favorable
comments on your products or services.

 Use Contests and Discounts to gain clients: as a human nature, we love sweepstakes
and these are an excellent form to attract clients to a digital media.

Engage customers using Digital Marketing

The attention of the customer, the next step of the Digital Marketing Framework is to engage
customers. Marketers need to develop strategies for engaging the customers. To engage
customers, marketers need to generate interest and encourage participation on their web page
(Martin, 2017). Generating interest and participation will encourage visitors to continue
revisiting the site, and this can lead to a successful interaction or transaction. Posting creative
content of high quality which is valuable to customers should engage the customers and create a
user-friendly site.

As Danyl (2014) describes engaging customer is the biggest challenge in marketing, however,
sophisticated tactics are not required in achieving engagement with a customer or fan. He has

20
raised few important points which any digital marketers know to drive customer engagements
towards a company digital promotion. These are:

 Have insights of customers, their needs from online services and perceptions of a
company’s service

 Understand the gap between the customer needs and a company’s delivery and plan on
how to improve and priorities satisfaction

 Provide useful Content and offers that can engage different audience types. Content must
be genuinely useful to your customers for it to be a meaningful. Understand and leverage
consumer motivation, need, intent and/or purchase history then there's the potential to re-
market and so re-engage with someone much more easily. (socialmedia.com, 2013)

 Create an integrated communications lifecycle, integrating channels, content and

marketing around the customer

Any Consumer value useful information and convenience, Mohanbir (2014) says, but they also
want to be inspired to be engaged. Ways of inspire customers is to share your brand’s vision and
share them how the brand is an agent of social impact.

Retain customers using Digital Marketing

Once customers have been attracted and engaged, marketers need to retain them, which is the
third step. Relationships with customers can be built by maintaining contact with them
(Kierzkowski et al., 1996). Continuous renewing of content by marketers on their profile pages
can create a reason for customers to revisit their profile pages. The focus of marketers at this
stage is to lure customers to interact with the business or other users of that web page. According
to (Martin, 2017), at this stage marketers can “make use of the switching cost concept by
increasing the time and energy that the customers spend on the site” or to develop a virtual
community on the web. Chan and Guillet (2011) add that if the business invests more resources
and establishes relationships with customers, it could retain customers by preventing them from
switching to competitors’ sites.

21
Learning about the costumer
Learning about the customers is the fourth step of the DMF. With their interactive nature, social
media sites provide an opportunity for marketers to learn about the preferences of their
customers, which will help the business to enhance its future service. At this stage marketers can
make use of digital media to test their services or products and get feedback from customers.

Relate back to the customer

The final step of the DMF is to relate back to the customer. Because of the two-way
communication offered by interactive media, marketers have the opportunity to deliver a
personalized service or communication about the availability of a personalized service. At this
final stage, Kierzkowski et al. (1996:6) emphasis that marketers need to maximize the “full
potential of the interactive media, especially those particularly applicable to the business’s
product/service category.

2.1.6 Characteristics of a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign

The tourism industry, in particular, has been disrupted as a whole with the rapid development of
the internet. Users purchase services related to tourism online at the click of a button while
comparing amongst other businesses from all over the world. As Gurneet (2017) defined there
are six top characteristics of successful digital marketing campaigns: Quality Website, Strong
Social Media presence, Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing, Engaging Content and
Mobile-Friendly. In order to compete and succeed digitally, these most relevant characteristics of
effective digital marketing briefed as follows:

Quality Website
A digital marketer must find a way to attract customers to visit the web site, engage them there
for a while and make them frequent visitors of their website, to do so, quality website is required.
These days to any established business, quality website is a prerequisite for conducting effective
digital marketing. Destination marketers use their website to work as digital destinations for
tourists who can access it 24x7. As Zach Bulygo at kissmetrics(2015) has outlined the 10 key
elements of a high quality website which are :

22
 Quality content: It is very important to keep the website content quality in which the
content is original, purposeful, and correctly optimized information that people and
search engines are driven to read, view and share .

 Content length: Neither very short nor very long content length is not advisable. Usually
top ranking websites have 900+ words of content per page.

 Images & Video : web pages with more images are ranked better , top ranking web pages
have an average of 7 images. Advisable size of an image is at least 32 x 32 px.

 Readability: this means that the ease in which text can be read and understood. This can
be done by removing all clutter, unnecessary words and limit the length of the content.

 Grammar & spelling: Mistakes in grammar & spelling makes the web look bad in the
eyes of its customer. Flawless copy give it professional look.

 Formatting: web visitors are less likely to read a post with poor formatting. Google can
detect page layout and having poor formatting might lead to get penalized. A web with
good formatting uses short sentences and paragraphs and bold & italics to highlight
important parts.

 Relevance & context: Most search engines like Google is moving towards analyzing
topics and content, not just keywords. The search engines understands the meaning of
words and how they are related to each other.

 Expertise: High quality websites require enough expertise to be influential and

trustworthy on their topic. Web visitors want to read posts from experts that can dig into
a topic and explain it. Excellent web content writing experts focus on detailed, well-
researched posts, link to other posts and give examples to support their points.

 Social media shares: High quality websites have social media buttons present on the
pages and more social media shares correlate to higher search engine ranking.

23
  Google internal & external links: web pages that ranked better generally have a better
internal link structure with more links. Linking to valuable external resources satisfy the
readers.

In addition, a good website should have all the services clearly listed down along with the
relevant information. . The website must be built in a way that it allows the users to make a
purchase without the need of any kind of assistance. It must be updated regularly keeping in
view the changing customers’ needs and preferences. A good website represents the quality the
business stands for and thus it should be developed and maintained keeping in mind the
functionality of the industry.

The most relevant social media platforms for a tourism business include: Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, You Tube and Instagram. These social media platforms enable businesses to reach out
and talk directly to their users. Tourism promoting organizations should focus on posting content
which adds value to tourists which will help to improve the tourists’ engagement rate. Presence
on these platforms not only helps brands to establish credibility, improve customer services but
also provides insights on what your customers are up to. A great social media presence can serve
as an important foundation to a success of promotion using digital marketing. (Business. Com,
2017)
Search Engine Optimization

SEO is an integral part of digital marketing today. The online ranking of a business on various
search engines determines the online popularity and helps increase website visits. There is a lot
of misconception that SEO efforts would lead to immediate results. It is important to understand
that SEO is an ongoing process and takes time to show results. SEO plays a very important role
in determining the website traffic. The businesses need to ensure that equal attention is paid to
both on-page and off-page SEO activities. Use of ‘Keyword Planner’ to find the most relevant
keywords for the tourism business is the first step towards effective SEO. Google, the biggest
search engine, understands synonyms so keywords must be carefully chosen. The focus should
be on creating quality backlinks rather than just increasing their numbers. Usage of long-tailed
keywords such as ‘Best Adventure package Ethiopia’ shall lead to more conversions rather than
short-tailed keywords. (Christopher, 2016)
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Email Marketing

Sending several worthless e-mails to customers is not effective way of Marketing. Email
marketing needs to be planned and executed well to ensure maximum returns. Sending
personalized emails shows a business cares to the customer as well as increases the chances of
getting instant replies from the targeted costumer. Being less costly and ease are the two big
advantages of email marketing. Emailing is an inexpensive way of digital marketing to promote
a company and its products and/or services compared to many other types of marketing.( Susan ,
2017)
Engaging Content

Content is the core of digital marketing. Content used across various online platforms should
lead to increased engagement rates. Businesses need to ensure that they post relevant content
across various platforms at the right time. In the tourism industry, videos and info graphics are
an interactive content type to get noticed and engage the users. Good quality content must be
engaging and add value to the everyday lives of the audiences. According to Sofie (2013),
“There's no secret formula to successfully engaging with your audience on social media, but
applying 'The 80/20 Rule' should always be a big part of your social media strategy. It simply
comes down to this: use just 20% of your content to promote your brand, and dedicate 80% to
content that really interests your audience and engages them in conversations.”

Mobile-Friendly

Everything that a business does digitally today should be mobile friendly. Majority of online
users today access the internet on their mobile phones and this should reflect in every aspect of
digital marketing considerations. There are 6.8 billion people on the planet, 4 billion of them
own a mobile phone, most of which are smartphones. The website, app, updates on social media,
emails, SEO or any other aspect of digital marketing, being mobile-friendly is a prerequisite in
today’s times. (Cheryl, 2013)

2.2. Empirical Framework

As digital marketing is at its early stage of development there are only few studies specifically in
this area. Hence, only few relevant studies will be discussed here for this Study.
25
There are only few studies are found on this research topic area since digital marketing at its
early stage of development specifically in Ethiopia. As a result, few relevant studies will be
discussed here for the empirical analysis.

2.2.1 Digital marketing in promoting a tourist destination

As explained by Edward Brooker, Jason Burgess, (2008), the development of digital marketing
affected consumers’ behavior, in this case tourists purchase decision in good way. This days,
using different digital marketing tools such as social network sites, blogs or websites, tourists are
enabled to reach information quickly and in a great detail. These Various forms of digital
marketing offer an option for tourists in their choice of tourist destination. The development of
ICTs and particularly the digital media empowered the “new” tourist who is becoming
knowledgeable and is seeking exceptional values for money and time. They are less interested in
following the crowds in packaged tours and much more keen on pursuing their own preferences
and schedules.

Process of changing behavior of the tourists, their preferences and demand undergoes the process
of increasing importance of digital marketing as a promotional tool in tourism sector, therefore,
becoming an important variable in our research. (Singh, 2015)
In conclusion, digital marketing elements has influenced and changed the way how tourists
search and buy not only a tour package, but also it refers to related services as well. It influences
people’s travel planning: where to go, when is the best time to go, what to see, where to eat, what
other say about destination and a number of other information about destination are available
online. (Jason Burgess, 2008)

Some of the referred researches have taken one of the element of digital marketing – Social
media and the researchers concluded how important it is for promoting a counties tourism.
According to (Singh, 2015), “social media is playing an imperative role in a digital marketing
world”. He also suggest that social media is appropriate tool in order to increase brand awareness
and that availability of media networks are very important factor. Social media is “a powerful
source for travel planning” and several other studies agree regarding important role of social
media and its impact on travel decision (Michaela, 2017). There are a large number of
26
possibilities to market and brand services (and products) through social media. Awareness,
proper networking, analysis of your competitors, addressing all issues, brand value, more online
visibility and reputation management are some of aspects to deal on social network sites (Singh,
2015).

2.2.2 Measurements of the effectiveness digital marketing

The study conducted in India –Delhi University concluded that any business, especially
destination marketers, to be successful digitally, they require to have quality website, SEO,
Email marketing, Presence on social media, content, mobile-friendly. These elements of digital
marketing play a very crucial role in promoting a country’s tourist destination. (Gurneet, 2017)
For the purpose of this research, the focus was how these crucial digital marketing elements were
utilized. Thompson (2004), in a research entitled, “Usage and effectiveness of online marketing
tools among B2C firms in Singapore”, investigated the five digital marketing frameworks such
as:
 The first element of the Digital Marketing Framework involves how to attract customers
to the firms’ digital marketing elements
 After attracting the attention of the customer, the next step of the Digital Marketing
Framework is to engage customers
 Once customers have been attracted and engaged, marketers need to retain them, which is
the third step
 Learning about the customers is the fourth step of the DMF
 The final step of the DMF is to relate back to the customer.

Finally, he has concluded that the utilization of Digital Marketing Framework is useful for
examining the effectiveness of various digital marketing elements.
These digital marketing frame work in measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing elements
is further discussed by Munar (2012), who suggested that, to be successful in digital marketing
elements requires the destination marketing organization like ETO to maintain updated and
valuable content( attract), learn about consumers through engagement(learn & engage) , using
feedback , discussion and other interactive media tools(retain) and also states that DMOs need to
offer information including those of the organization, provide customizable multilingual content

27
to deliver user – friendly web pages(Relate Back) that would foster sustained destination
competitiveness.

2.2.3 Research gap

With reference to the empirical review in the above, Even if promoting a countries tourist sector
using digital marketing elements is a crucial promotional tools, almost no research was found
which focus in Ethiopia, specifically in ETO which is the only destination marketer in the
country. In addition, ETO’s digital marketing practice in terms of the utilization of the digital
marketing frameworks was also not studied. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the digital
marketing practice of ETO in promoting Ethiopian as a tourist destination.

2.3. Conceptual Framework

In order to provide answer to this research questions, the following conceptual framework
diagram was used. The variables are the five elements of digital marketing frame works (attract,
engage, retain, relate back and learning), major tourist information source, Challenges of ETO
and tourism promotion.

Attract

Engage Retain

Tourism
Promotion
Learning Relate
Back

Major tourist Challenges

Information of ETO
Source

Figure 3: Conceptual Model

Adopted: Kierzkowski et al (1996, pp. 8)
28
 CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with research methodology used to carry out the research. The chapter was
organized in nine sub sections. In its first part there is a description of the study area, research
design, then after it was presented subsequently about research approach, population, sample and
sampling technique, data type, sources and instruments, data analysis.

3.1. Description of the study area

Addis Ababa (the name means 'new flower') is of fairly recent origin - Menelik 11 founded the
city in 1887. Situated in the foothills of the Entoto Mountains and standing 2,400 metres above
sea level it is the third highest capital in the world. The city has a population of about two
million. Before moving to the present site of Addis Ababa, Menelik had established temporary
capitals at six different locations caused by exhausting the fuel wood at each of these sites. Addis
itself was in danger of being abandoned until the introduction of fast-growing eucalyptus trees
from Australia provided the city with a regular source of fuel. Addis Ababa is an important
administrative centre not only for Ethiopia but also for the whole of Africa. The headquarters of
the UN Economic Commission for Africa was established here in 1958 and it is the site of the
African Union (AU) headquarters. Addis Ababa is considered as potential tourist attractions
since it has more than 250 bird species, indigenous plants, hot spring water, 150 historic
buildings and monuments, cultural and religious festivals and including frequently visited 13
attraction sites.

3.2. Research Approach

This research made use of both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to achieve
an ultimate goal. Qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews with two ETO’S
director of marketing and team leader of marketing to get deeper understanding on the issue and

29
Quantitative data was collected through standardized questionnaire to analyses the digital
marketing practices of ETO to promote Ethiopian Tourism.

3.3. Research Design

This research used descriptive and explanatory approach. A survey design in order to reach out
large number of respondents, survey research was used which is the systematic gathering of
information from respondents in order to understand and/or predict some aspect of the behaviour
of the population of interest, generally in the form of a questionnaire. A survey is appropriate
when investigating many entities and few variables, and it gives exact data (Kothari, 2004).
Furthermore Survey research provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes,
or opinions of a population by studying a sample of that population. It included cross-sectional
and longitudinal studies using questionnaires or structured interviews for data collection, with
the intent of generalizing from a sample to a population (Kothari, 2004).

This research was employed descriptive research which helped to understand the topic and
interpret what question. These natures of the descriptive research serves to find out ETO’s digital
marketing practices.

3.4. Population and Sample

The target population of this study included randomly selected 399 international tourists who
come to Ethiopia for touristic destination visit. For this study, however, the researcher made use
of samples taken only from the major touristic destination: Addis Ababa. The Tourists who were
found visiting the City were under consideration. And one marketing team leader as an expert
and one director of ETO were part of the selected population since it was believed that these
experts have an in-depth knowledge on their organizations’ approach to adoption and
implementation of digital marketing.
Moreover, the study targeted at 208000 which is the total vacation tourist arrival in 2016/2017 in
Addis Ababa. (Ethiosports, 2017). Among the total population of vacation tourists (208000), 399
was calculated as sample size using the formula described hereunder (Israel, 2009).
30
 n = N/ (1+N (e) 2)

Where,
n = required sample size
N= number of total population
e = level of confidence = 95% (0.05

To gather the required data, a non-probability sampling method, namely purposive sampling
method was employed followed by face to face interview and the researcher’s own observation.

3.5. Data sources and Types

There were two main sources of data that used by the researcher, namely primary and secondary
data. In this study the researcher used both primary and secondary Sources of data.

i. Secondary data

Secondary data for the study was collected from different journals, research studies, books,
articles, newsletters and webpages.
ii. Primary data

Primary data was collected from respondents of the study using questionnaire and face to face
interview was used to answer some of this research question. In addition, the researcher observed
the digital promotion of ETO like its social media and website.

3.6. Data Collection Procedure

Questionnaires were prepared in English language to make it easy for the respondents (tourists).
The interview part was conducted with the company’s experts based on their time schedule. The
qualitative data (information from interviews and researcher’s own observation) was discussed
using the qualitative description in conjunction with quantitative data. The observation was used
to check whether ETO has a digital marketing presence in at least the majority of digital

31
platform. In addition, observation was used to see how the ETO utilized the elements of digital
marketing frame works. Finally, the collected data from questionnaire, interview and observation
was transferred to electronic data format for analysis. This study used Chronbach ‟s alpha to
assess the internal consistency of variables in the research instrument. Chronbach‟s alpha is a
coefficient of reliability used to measure the internal consistency of the scale. According to
Zikmund Etla (2010), scale with coefficient alpha between o.6 and 0.7 indicate fair reliability so
for this study a Chronbach‟s alpha score of 0.70 or higher is consider adequate to determine
reliability.

3.7. Validity and Reliability

This study used Cronbach’s alpha coefficient in order to test the internal consistency of variables
in the research scale. The closer Cronbach’s alpha is to 1, the higher the internal consistency
reliability (Sekaran, 2003). Overall, the internal reliability coefficients for the entire constructs
are very strong as all alpha coefficients are more than 0.8. In conclusion, the relationships among
the items are reliable for further analysis.

In order to ensure the quality of this research, Standardized questionnaire was used so that the
instrument is already tested and valid.

Table 3.1 Reliability Analysis of Variables

Cronbach’s
Variables alpha Number of Items
coefficient
Attract 0.982 6
Tourist information source 0.915 6
Engage 0.909 7
Learn and relate back 0.903 5

Contribution of Digital Promotion by destination marketer 0.837 4

Retain 0.836 5

32
3.8. Data Analysis
As the data type is both quantitative and qualitative, different methods were also used in
analysing the data. In analysing quantitative data (information from the questionnaire), a
statistical software packages such as Statistical package for Social Science (SPSS vs. 20) and
Microsoft excel were employed. The questionnaire comprises items describing various online
marketing tools used in the five elements: attract, engage, retain, learn and relate of the Digital
Marketing Framework. For each item, the extent of usage is rated on a five point Likert scale
ranging from (1) strongly disagree to use to (5) strongly agree to use. Then interpretation and
discussion of the results was done. The qualitative data (information from interviews) and the
researcher’s observations were discussed in conjunction with quantitative data.

3.9. Ethical Consideration

This study was not fabricated, falsify or misrepresent the data. The paper was approved by Addis
Ababa University School of commerce, department of marketing management. And the consent
of each participant/sample unit was obtained before data collection was commenced. The
researcher was undertaken to protect the rights of the respondents by:

 Confirming that all collected data was used solely for the academic study purpose and
kept confidential.
 Informing the respondents to participate without any forced act.
 Clearly informing all respondents the reason and purpose of the research

33
 CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND
INTERPRETATION

The chapter deals with data analysis and discussion of the research findings. The data analysis
was made with the help of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS v. 20). The data obtained
from the distributed questionnaire were subjected to descriptive statistics analysis using one way
& two way(Cross tabulation) frequency tables , mean (central tendency) , Cronbach alpha . In
order to make the collected data suitable for the analysis, all questionnaires were screened for
completeness. Out of the 399 distributed questionnaires, 348 were collected, however, 6
incomplete questionnaires were identified and discarded while the collected questionnaires were
checked during data editing. Therefore, 342 questionnaires were found to be valid and used for
the final analysis. The information gathered from the interview were discussed in conjunction
with the quantitative data.

4.1. General profiles of respondents

The first part of the questionnaire consists of the general information of the research participants
who are international tourists. For that reason, the following variables about the respondents
were summarized and described in the subsequent table. These variables includes: region of their
residence, sex, age, the frequency and purpose of their visit to Ethiopia, their trip organizer and
their knowledge of ETO.

34
Table 4.1.1: General profile of respondents

Variables Catagories N(%)** Variables Catagories N(%)**

Africa 24(7%) If your answer to question #4 is One 50(14.6%)
Europe 159(46.5%) “NO”, how many times have you Two 29(8.5%)
North America 41(12%) visited Ethiopia before Three 5(1.5%)
Region of residence
South America 3(0.9%) Total 84(24.6%)
Asia 115(33.6%) Business 41(12%)
Total 342(100%) Conference 101(29.5%)
What is purpose of your visit to
Male 188(55%) Vacation 174(50.9%)
Ethiopia?
Sex of respondant Female 154(45%) Others 26(7.6%)
Total 342(100%) Total 342(100%)
18-30 26(7.6%) Tour Operation company 168(49.1%)
Ethiopian Tourism Organization
31 - 45 68(19.9%) 4(1.2%)
(ETO)
Age of the respondant Was your trip to this destination
45– 60 168(49.1%) Ethio-holidays (Ethiopian Airlines 60(17.5%)
organized by
60+ 80(23.4%) I arranged my trip 8(2.3%)
Total 342(100%) a conference organizer 101(29.5%)
Is this your first visit to this Yes 258(75.4%) Total 342(100%)
No 84(24.6%) If your answer to question # 10 is Yes 90(23.3 %)
destination (Ethiopia) Total 342(100%) “Yes”, kindly write how you get to No 252(73.7 %)
know about ETO? Total 342(100%)

Table 4.1.2 Respondents’ profile of Gender versus their age

Age of the respondant
18-30 31 - 45 45– 60 60+
Sex of respondant Male Count 14 44 68 62
% within Sex of respondant 7.4% 23.4% 36.2% 33.0%
Female Count 12 24 100 18
% within Sex of respondant 7.8% 15.6% 64.9% 11.7%
Total Count 26 68 168 80
% within Sex of respondant 7.6% 19.9% 49.1% 23.4%

Table 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 shows among the total number of respondents 188 (about 55 %) are male
and 154 (45%) of the total respondents are female. It can be said that the number of male tourists
who visit Ethiopia are by 5% higher than female tourists. Participants (tourists) were categorized
by Young age ( 18- 30 years; n = 26) , adults (ages 31 -45years, n = 68), middle-aged adults (45 -
60 , n = 168) and older adults ( 60+ years old , n = 80). It can be said that most of the tourists in
this sample population were middle aged adults and older adults between aged 45 to 60 + that
consisted 248 which is almost 73 % of the population and slightly higher number of male(n =30).
The data collected from interview also assured that these age groups are higher in number in
visiting Ethiopia because such group is mainly interested in history, culture and landscape. They
are curious and keen to learn about the places they travel to and are independent ‘active’

35
sightseers. They want to encounter new places and out-of-the-ordinary experiences that is why
they select a country like Ethiopia which is very rich on history, culture and landscape. They are
likely to travel as a couple or with other adult friends that is why the number of Male and Female
shows slight difference.

Table 4.1.3 Respondents’ region of residence versus purpose of their visit

Region of residence * purpose of their visit to Ethiopia Crosstabulation
What is purpose of your visit to Ethiopia?
Business Conference Vacation Others
Africa Count 0 12 7 5
% within Region of residence 0.0% 50.0% 29.2% 20.8%
Europe Count 20 38 96 5
% within Region of residence 12.6% 23.9% 60.4% 3.1%
Region of North Count 7 14 15 5
residence America % within Region of residence 17.1% 34.1% 36.6% 12.2%
South Count 0 0 3 0
America % within Region of residence 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 0.0%
Asia Count 14 37 53 11
% within Region of residence 12.2% 32.2% 46.1% 9.6%
Total Count 41 101 174 26
% within Region of residence 12.0% 29.5% 50.9% 7.6%

Based on Table 4.1. 3, majority of the international tourists who come to visit Ethiopia are from
Europe (n= 159, 46.5 %) and Asia tourists (n= 115, 33. 6 %) and their purpose of visit were
Vacation. It can be said that Europe and Asia are the main tourist generating regions for
Ethiopia. These regions are among the technologically advanced regions and this is also
supported by the interview data which indicated that these regions are high users of the digital
marketing of ETO as the experts of ETO’s found out from their digital marketing analytic report.

36
Table 4.1.4 Respondents’ age versus purpose of their visit
purpose of their visit to Ethiopia * Age of the respondant Crosstabulation
Age of the respondant
18-30 31 - 45 45– 60 60+
What is Business Count 5 25 9 2
purpose % within What is purpose of 12.2% 61.0% 22.0% 4.9%
of your your visit to Ethiopia?
visit to Conference Count 7 7 76 11
Ethiopia? % within What is purpose of 6.9% 6.9% 75.2% 10.9%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Vacation Count 14 24 69 67
% within What is purpose of 8.0% 13.8% 39.7% 38.5%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Others Count 0 12 14 0
% within What is purpose of 0.0% 46.2% 53.8% 0.0%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Total Count 26 68 168 80
% within What is purpose of 7.6% 19.9% 49.1% 23.4%
your visit to Ethiopia?

Table 4.1.3 and Table 4.1.4 indicate that 51 % of the sample population came to spend their
vacation in Ethiopia , majority of them are the middle aged adults and older adults between aged
45 to 60 + that consisted n= 248 which is almost 73 % of the population. In addition, one -
fourth of the sample population who are under this age group came to Ethiopia for conference
and they were found doing the city tour after the conference is over. As a result, it can be said
that conference tourism is the second potential area which attract international visitors to come to
Ethiopia. However, Among the total population (n= 26) of young age group (18- 30) , 54 % of
them came to Ethiopia for vacation purpose. This indicate that even if insignificant number of
young generation was shown on the sample population, their typical purpose was visiting the
country and they can be called real tourists.

37
Table 4.1.5 Respondents’ purpose of their visit versus their trip organizer
purpose of visit to Ethiopia? * trip organizers Crosstabulation

Was your trip to this destination organized by

Ethiopian Ethio-
Tour Tourism holidays
Operation Organizatio (Ethiopian
company n (ETO) Airlines Other Total
What is Business Count 11 2 28 0 41
purpose of % within What is purpose of 26.8% 4.9% 68.3% 0.0% 100.0%
your visit to your visit to Ethiopia?
Ethiopia? Conference Count 0 0 0 101 101
% within What is purpose of 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Vacation Count 155 2 17 0 174
% within What is purpose of 89.1% 1.1% 9.8% 0.0% 100.0%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Others Count 2 0 15 9 26
% within What is purpose of 7.7% 0.0% 57.7% 34.6% 100.0%
your visit to Ethiopia?
Total Count 168 4 60 110 342
% within What is purpose of 49.1% 1.2% 17.5% 32.2% 100.0%
your visit to Ethiopia?

Table 4.1.5 shows that majority of visitors who came for vacation purpose (n= 168, 49 % of the
sample population) organized their trip through tour operation companies while 1.2 % of the
sample population organized their trip through ETO. The data obtained from the interview
conducted to ETO marketing experts also proved that ETO does not directly involve in tour
operation and only familiarization tours for potential foreign tour companies and investors are
organized by ETO as part of its marketing activities and ETO share the information to legally
registered local tour companies whenever the group tourist package requests are received. As a
result, it can be said that this insignificant number of visitors who organized their trip to Ethiopia
through ETO were potential foreign tour companies or investors who came for familiarization
tour invited by ETO.
Table 4.1.6 Respondents’ awareness about ETO versus their source of information
knowledge about ETO * how they get to know about ETO Crosstabulation
information source
at a
tourism i saw its Social
trade fair website media
Do you know about Yes Count 57 5 28
Ethiopian Tourism % within Do you know about Ethiopian 63.3% 5.6% 31.1%
Organization (ETO)? Tourism Organization (ETO)?
Total Count 57 5 28
% within Do you know about Ethiopian 63.3% 5.6% 31.1%
Tourism Organization (ETO)?
38
Table 4.1.6 indicates that Out of the total surveyed international visitors (n= 90, 26 % of the total
sample population) were aware of the existence of ETO which very few in number. Majority of
them (63 %, n= 57) explained they got to know about ETO at a tourism trade fair. The
remaining visitors said that their information source about ETO is social media (n= 28, 31 %)
and visiting ETO’s website (n= 5, 5.6%). The data from the interview assured ETO participated
a number of international trade fairs per year that is why this survey showed the majority were
aware about ETO at tourism trade fair. As research found out through interview and personal
observation of ETO’s social media presence, ETO Facebook has 15,173 followers, tweeter
1231 followers and four videos on YouTube have a total of 21,278 viewers within two years. As
a result 31 % of the visitors (participants) who are aware of the existence of ETO mentioned
social media is one of their source of information to know about ETO followed by tourism trade
fairs.

4.2. Tourist information Source and the degree of usage of the digital
marketing elements

One statistical approach for determining equivalence between groups is to use simple analyses of
central tendency (Mean). The mean indicates to what extent the sample group on average agrees
or does not agree with the different statement. The lower the mean, the more the respondents
disagree with the statement. The higher the mean, the more the respondents agree with the
statement. (Bhattacherjee, 2012).

Table 4.2.1 Tourists information source

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree Mean

Source of Tourist Information
Social media (like Facebook, YouTube , Twitter,
LinkedIn) 0(0%) 32(9.4%) 28(8.2%) 113(33%) 169(49.4%) 4.23
Search engines (like Google and etc.) 0(0%) 0(0%) 7(2.1%) 139(40.9%) 194(57.1%) 4.55
e-commerce Websites 4(1.2%) 20(5.8%) 120(35.1%) 96(28.1%) 102(29.8%) 3.80
E-mail marketing 6(1.8%) 36(10.5%) 176(51.5%) 87(25.4%) 37(10.8%) 3.33
Content marketing (like blog, e-newsletter & etc.) 4(1.2%) 36(10.5%) 133(38.9%) 115(33.6%) 54(15.8%) 3.52
Mobile advertising (SMS) 39(11.4%) 36(10.5%) 156(45.6%) 74(21.6%) 37(10.8%) 3.10

39
On the request of the source of tourist information (Table 4.2.1) , participants (tourists) replied
social media (n=169; 46.4% as strongly agree and n=113 ; 33% agree), search engines (n=194;
57 % as strongly agree and n=139 ; 40.9 % agree) , search engines (n=194; 57 % as strongly
agree and n=139 ; 40.9 % agree) and e-commerce websites (n=102; 28.8 % as strongly agree and
n=96 ; 28.1 % agree). Search engines (M=4.55) became the most used information source to
come to Ethiopia followed by Social Media (M= 4.23), e-commerce (M=3.80), Content
marketing (M=3.52), E-marketing (M=3.33) and Mobile advertising (M=3.10). As it is presented
on Figure 9, the researcher has done her own observation by checking the Google search engine
to check whether ETO’s websites found at the top or not, the website was shown on the front
page of the search engine even if it was not found at the top. More Over, the observation
depicted that the social Medias of ETO like Facebook, YouTube, Tweeter and LinkedIn have
very few visitors and followers. As a result, it can be said that ETO failed to boost its digital
presence that is why insignificant number of the sample population know about ETO (Table
4.1.6).

Table 4.2.2 Digital marketing elements which attract tourists

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Mean SD

Variables disagree agree
user friendly website (get assess the information of the website
easily) 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.6%) 61(17.8%) 279(81.6%) 4.81 0.408
Prefer to get information from the websites which I get at the top of
any search engines? 0(0%) 0(0%) 4(1.2%) 87(25.4%) 251(73.4%) 4.72 0.474
digital promotions which present a profile and contact details of the
company 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.3%) 87(25.4%) 247(72.2%) 4.70 0.508
websites or other digital marketing which present attractive pictures
& Video of tourist sites & etc. 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.3%) 87(25.4%) 247(72.2%) 4.70 0.508
digital promotions which present contests , service discounts & the
likes 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.3%) 87(25.4%) 247(72.2%) 4.70 0.508
get immediate response online or from offline FAQ(frequently asked
questions) 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.3%) 87(25.4%) 247(72.2%) 4.70 0.508

Table 4.2.2 shows that digital marketing elements in which participants (tourists) were attracted.
User friendly web site (n= 279; 81 .6% as strongly agree and n = 61 ; 17 .8 % agree & M= 4.81),
websites which are found at the top of any search engines (n= 251; 73.4 % as strongly agree and
n=87 ; 25.4 % agree & M= 4.72 ).The rest of the variables which are digital promotion with
contact and profile details of the company, websites present attractive pictures ,video, contests,
40
service discount similarly rated strongly agree (n= 247 ; 72 % & M= 4.7 ) and agree (n=87 ;
25.4 % & Mean ) . Referring the mean for the above mentioned variables, all of the rate shows M
> 4 which means that all of the above mentioned digital marketing elements help in attracting
tourists towards any digital promotion, especially if it is user friendly website (M= 4.81). As per
the researcher’s observation of ETO’s website, it can be said ETO’s website
(www.ethiopian.travel) moderately fulfill the above mentioned elements to attract more tourists
to visit the site. For instant, it has attractive pictures & video and presents contact and profile of
the company and the information from the website can be assessed easily. However, it failed in
presenting contests and online / offline responses (FAQ)(not interactive).

Table 4.2.3 Digital marketing elements which engage tourists

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Variables disagree agree Mean
virtual online communities, forums and discussion
groups 0(0%) 17(4.98%) 44(12.87%) 152(44.45%) 129(37.72%) 4.1
websites provide information in different languages
(User friendly) 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 61(17.84%) 279(81.58%) 4.8
trip advisory or testimonials on websites
(recommendation about the tourist destinations) 0(0%) 0(0%) 10(2.93%) 71(20.77%) 261(76.32%) 4.7
social media interaction in handling tourists
complains on time 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.34%) 87(25.44%) 247(72.23%) 4.7
digital promotion introduce new services to tourists 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 153(44.74%) 187(54.68%) 4.5
social networking site with discussion wall 0(0%) 17(5%) 43(12.65%) 151(44.42%) 129(37.95%) 4.2
digital promotion which has lucky draws 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.34%) 87(25.44%) 247(72.23%) 4.7

Table 4.2.3 indicates that the participants’ degree of engagement in digital marketing elements.
virtual online communities, forums and discussion groups (n= 129; 37 .7% as strongly agree and
n= 152; 44.5% agree, M= 4.1), websites provide information in different languages (n= 279;
81.58% as strongly agree and n= 61 ; 17.84 % agree & M = 4.8 ) , testimonials on websites (n=
261; 76.32 % as strongly agree and n= 71 ; 20.77 % agree & M = 4.7 ), on time interaction on
social media (n= 247; 72.23 % as strongly agree and n=87 ; 25.44 % agree & M = 4.7 ), provide
updates on new services(n= 187; 54.68 % as strongly agree and n= 153 ; 44.74% agree & M =
4.5), discussion wall in social network sites (n= 129; 37.95 % as strongly agree and n= 151 ;
44.42% agree & M = 4.2) and digital promotion with lucky draws(n= 247; 72.23 % as strongly
agree and n=87 ; 25.44 % agree & M = 4.7). Referring the mean for the above mentioned
variables, all of the rate shows M > 4 which means that all of the above mentioned digital
marketing elements help in engaging tourists towards any digital promotion, especially if the
41
website is user friendly website (M= 4.81). As per the researcher’s observation of ETO’s web
page, it can be said ETO’s website (www.ethiopian.travel) failed to fulfill the above mentioned
elements to engage tourists when they visit the site. As shown on Figure 4 and 5, the pictures,
videos and update on the new services on ETO’s social media pages (tweeter, Facebook and
YouTube) are outdated and static. The website failed to have testimonials and lack in presenting
different languages platform which used only in English language and it might be a stumbling
block to other language speakers not to spend more time on the website.

Table 4.2.4 Digital marketing elements which retain tourists

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Variables disagree agree Mean
Present games, contests and forums to users 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.34%) 87(25.44%) 247(72.23%) 4.7

Provide hyperlinks on the promotion to related sites 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 61(17.84%) 279(81.58%) 4.8
webpage which has security features and privacy
statements 1(0.3%) 23(6.73%) 19(5.56%) 123(35.97%) 176(51.47%) 4.3
digital promotion provide fresh content on regular
bases 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 153(44.74%) 187(54.68%) 4.5

digital promotion which receives visitors comments 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.34%) 87(25.44%) 247(72.23%) 4.7

Once tourists have been attracted and engaged, marketers need to retain them and thwart them
from switching to competitors’ sites. As a result, participants (tourists) stated the elements which
make them to visit the web pages time and again (Table 4.2.4) are Present games, contests and
forums to users (n= 247; 72.23% as strongly agree and n= 87; 25.44% agree, M= 4. 7), Provide
hyperlinks on the promotion to related sites (n= 279; 81.58% as strongly agree and n= 61 ; 17.8
% agree & M = 4.8 ) , webpage which has security features and privacy statements (n= 176;
51.47 % as strongly agree and n=123 ; 35.97 % agree & M = 4.3 ), digital promotion provide
fresh content on regular bases(n= 187; 54.68 % as strongly agree and n= 153; 44.74 % agree &
M=4.5)and digital promotion which receives visitors comments (n= 247; 72.23 % as strongly
agree and n=87 ; 25.44 % agree & M = 4.7 ). In this regard, the researcher observed that
ETO’S website has privacy policy (Figure 6) to protect itself (M= 4.3) and the web visitors
which is appreciated if it is dynamic and controlled well. Hyperlinks to related sites (M= 8) like
links to tour operators & hotel owners associations, Ministry of culture & tourism, Ethiopian
airline and Ethioholidays are provided (Figure 7). This feature is highly favored by the web
tourists as one of the major features which can retain them, as a result, it can be said its one of
42
the qualities of ETO’s website. However, ETO’s website does not make use of some of the major
web features to encourage tourists to revisit the page since it failed in offering fresh content on
regular bases and visiters’ interactive environment was not observed.

Table 4.2.5 Digital marketing elements which helps to learn about tourists and relate back

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Variables disagree agree Mean
I prefer if they websites support chat groups 0(0%) 0(0%) 8(2.34%) 87(25.44%) 247(72.23%) 4.7
I suggest if they update customers about content
change on their websites 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 148(43.28%) 192(56.15%) 4.6
I suggest if they engage in real time interaction with
the visitors 0(0%) 0(0%) 6(1.76%) 103(30.12%) 233(68.13%) 4.7
Provide personalized responses 0(0%) 0(0%) 6(1.76%) 103(30.12%) 233(68.13%) 4.7
Provide linkages to other related & relevant links
0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 61(17.84%) 279(81.58%) 4.8

Table 4.2.5 shows the participants’ suggestion on features to be presented on the digital
promotion of tourist destination. The degree of their preferences of these features were shown as
follows: Websites supports chat groups (n= 247; 72.23 % as strongly agree & n=87; 25.44 %
agree & M = 4.7), timely update customers on content change on a website (n= 192; 56.15 % as
strongly agree and n=148 ; 43.28 % agree & M = 4.6 ), engage a real time interaction with web
visitors and provide personalized response both shown as ( n= 233; 68.13% as strongly agree &
n=103 ; 30.12 % agree and both showed M = 4.7. Even if they get report from Google analytics
which can help to learn about the tourists’ interest (preference) and try to relate its services &
products back to towards their interests, they could not make use of the data to achieve these
objectives. As ETO’s experts mentioned during the interview, they are well aware of the
importance of these digital marketing Framework but they failed to work on it in depth due to the
high turnover of the digital marketing experts.

43
Table 4.2.6 Contribution of Digital Promotion by a destination marketer to plan a trip

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Variables disagree agree Mean
Make me to be well aware of Ethiopia
0(0%) 0(0%) 7(2.05%) 131(38.31%) 204(59.65%) 4.6
Provide me a lot of preferences of different tourist
attraction places 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(0.59%) 61(17.84%) 279(81.58%) 4.8
Provide me travel information for safety and
security 0(0%) 0(0%) 6(1.76%) 103(30.12%) 233(68.13%) 4.7
Provide the local service providers information like
hotels , tour operators and car rental companies 0(0%) 0(0%) 6(1.76%) 103(30.12%) 233(68.13%) 4.7
Based on the descriptive data on Table 4.2.6 , make me to be well aware of the country( n= 204;
59.65 % as strongly agree & n= 131; 38.31 % agree & M = 4.6 ) , Provide me a lot of
preferences of different tourist attraction places( n= 279; 81.58 % as strongly agree & n=61 ;
17.84 % agree & M = 4.8 ), Provide me travel information for safety and security and Provide
the local service providers information like hotels , tour operators and car rental companies( n=
233; 68.13% as strongly agree & n=103 ; 30.12 % agree and both showed M = 4.7 ). The
participants responded that they highly expect a DMO’s like ETO to provide a lot of tourist
attraction preference its digital marketing elements (M=4.8). In this regard, the researcher
observed that ETO’S website has root base pictorial description of attractions (Figure 8) by
which tourists can get general information on the tourist attraction places.

4.3. Summary of the interview

After the secondary data were obtained, in-depth interviews with two ETO’S director of
marketing and team leader of marketing were conducted. These experts have more than 7 years
experiences as a destination marketer in ministry of culture and tourism and later transferred to
ETO. These interviews helped the researcher to gather primary data which could not be found in
published form but they are important to answer some of the research questions about the
company under this study - ETO.

44
4.3.1 Who is responsible for digital marketing in ETO?
They informed that ETO has two strategic sessions for marketing strategic business unit: offline
marketing unit and digital marketing unit. As a result of high turnover in the technical experts of
digital marketing, the digital marketing unit currently does not have dedicated personnel to
manage the digital promotion actively.

4.3.2 What are the digital marketing practices implemented by ETO?

They have used that most of digital marketing strategies which are mentioned on Ethiopian
tourism marketing strategy are not implemented due to some many teething troubles. The digital
marketing practices implemented by ETO currently are :
 Social media accounts : Youtube Face book and twitter accounts under the brand
name of ‘Ethiopia land of orgins’
 Website, URL: www. Ethiopia .travel’
 Search engine optimization to bring ETO’s website at the top of Google’s search
results.
 Mobile App which can be installed by Google play store and provide useful
information on the destination.
 Distribute USB which contains a brand awareness information’ Ethiopia land of
origins’ as giveaway for international trade fairs.

Referring the literature review on Chapter two of this research (2.1.3 Elements of digital
marketing) , the major digital marketing elements which are a must to be implemented by any
DMO were not practiced by ETO.

4.3.3. What are the challenges of ETO in promoting the Ethiopian tourism using digital
marketing?

The experts replied in detail on the challenges on ETO which become obstacle not to implement
all digital marketing campaigns which are stated on the country’s tourism marketing strategies in
effective manner. These challenges are:
 Lack of manpower to administer the digital marketing elements

45
  Very hard to manage the perception of the decision makers towards the
effectiveness of digital marketing since most of them are in adopting such
technology
 Inadequate financial resources to manage digital marketing campaigns,
traditionally adequate budget is allocated for attending trade fair but there is
shortage of budget to conduct digital campaign as planned
 The high turnover of the experts in the organization
 Lack of expertise in the digital marketing field
 Lack of ICT infrastructure

4.3.4. Checking ETO’s website if it is user friendly

Both of the experts replied that the users can swiftly connect to the website and access the
information easily since the server is hosted in USA not locally and also the domain name of the
website is very simple. However, they have said it does not fulfil some of the digital features to
say the site is very friendly so that they said it is moderate. (Refer: the survey result discussion
on Table 4.2.2 & 4.2.3)

4.3.5. ETO’s practice in boosting its website

The interviewees could not give clear answer on this issue. However, the researcher has done its
one observation by checking the Google search engine to check whether ETO’s websites found
at the top or not. As shown on below (Figure 9) , the website was shown on the front page of the
search engine even if it was not found at the top. Hence, it can be said that ETO moderately
implements SEO. As it is shown on the survey result and the observation (Figure 9), the major
information sources of tourists to come to Ethiopia are search engine and Social media so that
ETO would have been achieve its objective of promoting Ethiopia if ETO put much effort on
these digital elements.

46
4.3.6. Presentation of ETO’s website

The interviewees answer for this direct question was yes. They have said ETO presents high
resolution pictures on its social media pages (website, Facebook and twitter) and posted 8
thematic and very interesting videos. However, as per the researcher observation (Figure 4 & 5),
ETO failed to make the pictures and videos updated and dynamic. (Refer: the survey result
discussion on Table 4.2.3)

4.3.7 ETO’s practice in using the Digital Framework (Learn & Relate back)

The interviewees mentioned as ETO uses Google analytics to learn about the tourists’ interest
and develop a product/ services to meet their expectation. Referring the literature review of this
research, Google analytics is a vital tool to address two of the digital marketing frame works
(learn and relate back). Google (2018) defined the Importance of Google Analytics as a
very important digital marketing tool, which allows a firm to measure the results of its digital
campaigns in real-time, compare the data to previous periods, and learn(understand ) about
costumers interest.
4.3.8. The majority Regions which use the digital promotion of ETO

The interviewees mentioned tourists from Europe, Asia and North America regions are using the
digital promotion of ETO to plan a visit to Ethiopia. The survey result also shows majority of the
tourists come from these regions, however, only 26% the sample population knew about the
presence of ETO.
4.3.9. The majority age group who usually come to Ethiopia

The response of the experts said that the majority of the tourists who are coming to Ethiopia are
middle aged and old age tourist (Refer, Table 4.1.2). Recently, the growth has also shown on the
young age tourists. Therefore, ETO has an integrated marketing communication mix which is a
mix of traditional marketing and digital marketing to address both groups. As the survey result
shows (Table 4.1.4) , almost above 50% of the young age group came to Ethiopia for vacation
purpose who are called real tourists. Hence, it can be said that ETO can achieve its objective if it
strength its internal resources and focus more towards the implementation of its integrated
marketing communication mix strategy.

47
 CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter aims to review the problem of the research and conclude the findings with regard to
the general and specific objectives of the study. Recommendation that focuses on how the
problem identified could be addressed is included in this chapter.

5.1 Summary of Major Findings

The purpose of this study was to analyze ETO’s digital marketing practices in promoting
Ethiopian Tourism. Moreover, it had specific objectives such as identify the digital marketing
elements ETO is employing currently , analyze ETO’s contemporary digital marketing practices
in terms of its utilization of the elements of the digital marketing frame work, assess the major
information sources for tourist to learn about Ethiopia and the challenges of ETO in promoting
the Ethiopian Tourism using digital marketing.
The researcher used questionnaires at 86 % return rate, observation and Face to face interview as
instruments for data collection. Statistical tables and figures based on respondents and
descriptive analyses were used to explain the data collected.

Based on the analysis undertaken by the researcher the following findings were brought out:

 From the researcher’s own observation and the face to face interview, it was identified
that Social media accounts (YouTube, Face book and twitter), Website, Search engine
optimization, Mobile App and digital content are the digital marketing elements which
ETO is employed currently.
 From the mean score value of the descriptive statistics , Search engines became the most
used information source to come to Ethiopia followed by Social Media. Mobile
advertising were found out to be the last preference of the tourists to serve as tourist
information source.
 The practice of ETO’s utilization of the features of the digital marketing frame work
(attract, engage, retain, learn and relate back) were assessed by statistically analysing the
48
 response from the tourists, the researcher’s own observation and the data from the
interview. As a result of these analysis , it was found out that ETO partially utilized the
two digital marketing frameworks called attract and retain whereas ETO failed in the
utilization of the three digital marketing frame works which are called engage , learn
and relate back .
 From the data collected through the face to face interview and the researcher’s own
observations, the challenges of ETO to implement the digital marketing were identified.
These challenges are lack of manpower to administer the digital marketing elements,
perception of the decision makers towards the effectiveness of digital marketing
,inadequate financial resources to manage digital marketing campaigns, the high turnover
of the experts in organization, lack of ICT infrastructure and adequate skills / expertise in
the digital marketing field.
5.2. Conclusion
The study attempted to meet its objectives addressing the raised research questions by employing
different analysis techniques. So as to address its first objective the research through analyzing
different prior studies and theories come up with the five elements of digital Marketing
Frameworks which entail several issues and practices that can guide a digital marketer in which
elements of digital marketing tools should focus on by assessing the preference of their
customers in the utilization these elements.

The first element of the Digital Marketing Framework involves how to attract tourists to ETO’s
digital marketing elements. The result of this research indicated ETO partially utilizes this farm
work. However, the full utilization can be achieved by implementing a digital marketing
elements which are majorly user friendly followed by digital marketing elements presents
attractive pictures, videos, service discounts and contests and also using SEO ETO can attract
more users/tourists towards its website.

The second element of the Digital Marketing Framework relates to engaging users’ interest and
Participation, after attracting them to the digital promotion, so as to achieve an interaction or a
transaction. The result of this research identified that ETO failed in utilizing this farm work. The
participants (tourists ) response showed that they can be engaged more if the digital marketing of
49
tourist destination( in this case ETO) make use of virtual online communities, forums and
discussion groups, websites provide information in different languages , testimonials on
websites , on time interaction on social media , provide updates on new services and digital
promotion with lucky draws.

The third element in the Digital Marketing Framework relates to customer retention strategies.
The results suggested that ETO partially utilized this frame work. It is important to keep website
sites ‘‘fresh’’ by continuously renewing content and/or providing dynamic content , provide
hyperlinks on the promotion to related sites, present security features and privacy statements on a
webpage and an interactive digital media which can receives visitors comments and provide on
time response accordingly.

The last two elements of the Digital Marketing Framework revolves round providing customized
interactions and delivering value to Customers (relate back) after the relevant information about
customers are abstained (learn). The result of this research depicted that ETO used Google
search analytic reports to learn about its customers (tourists), however, it failed in using this
reports effectively which can help to provide customized digital promotion which can meet the
tourists interest followed by developing a customized products / services.

The second objective of this research was met by employing face to face interview to ETO’s
marketing experts, this research found out the digital marketing elements which are implemented
by ETO which are Social media accounts (YouTube, Face book and twitter), Website, Search
engine optimization, Mobile App and digital content. The research concluded that these digital
marketing implemented by ETO are very minimal as ETO is the only destination market in
Ethiopia.
In addition, the third objective of this study was met by the survey conducted through
questionnaire. The result depicted that Search engines became the most used information source
to come to Ethiopia followed by Social Media. Mobile advertising were found out to be the last
preference of the tourists to serve as tourist information source during planning their trip.

50
In conclusion, the results indicated that the five features of digital marketing framework as well
as several digital marketing tools as indicated in the literature review part of this research were
not widely adopted by ETO. This study pointed some plausible reasons which are lack of
manpower to administer the digital marketing elements, perception of the decision makers
towards the effectiveness of digital marketing ,inadequate financial resources to manage digital
marketing campaigns, the high turnover of the experts in organization, lack of ICT infrastructure
and adequate skills / expertise in the digital marketing field.

5.3. Recommendations
Depending on the findings of the study and conclusions made, the researcher came up with some
important recommendations that can be used by ETO in order to achieve its major objective to
promote Ethiopia to be among the major destinations which are preferred by tourists from the
major tourist generating regions. The recommendations are:

1. The implementation of the digital marketing communication strategy requires significant

resource investments. Although financial investments are quite minimal, as digital
marketing initiatives are cost-effective, human and infrastructure investments have to be
substantial. Therefore, it is essential for management of ETO allocate the infrastructure
and follow state of the art technologies and human resources accordingly. To implement,
maintain and develop the digital marketing strategy using the five digital marketing
frameworks, digital marketing tasks required to be managed by skilled people with
capabilities and having knowhow on the digital technology. Such human resources shall
support the digital strategy through continuous delivery, control, follow up and
optimization of digital communication and content.
2. Based on the results of the study, ETO must give due emphasis on working towards search
engine optimization in order to present its web page on top of search engines. As this
research found out that search engines are the major source of information for tourists to
come to Ethiopia.
3. Digital channel in tourism marketing has become essential part of strategy of many
destination marketing organization in the world. . Nowadays, even for small tour
companies, there is a very cheap and efficient way to market their products or services.

51
 Digital marketing has no boundaries. ETO can use any devices such as smartphones,
tablets, laptops, televisions, game consoles, digital billboards, and media such as social
media, SEO (search engine optimization), videos, content, e-mail and lot more to
promote Ethiopia as a tourist destination.
4. Moreover, ETO’s Digital marketing may succeed more if it considers user needs as a top
priority by identifying its target group. This research found out that the major tourist
generating regions to Ethiopia are Europe, Asia and North America and the age group the
tourists are middle and old ages. ETO must also focus on the demographic differences of
the tourists so as to arrange digital promotions that fits to the needs and requirements of
these different segments of international tourists.
5. Finally, further studies should be conducted nationwide to boost the country’s tourism
sector using different digital marketing platforms. Since there overall has been little
research performed in the field of Ethiopian Tourism promotion from digital marketing
perspectives, more extensive studies are indeed are recommended to be undertaken.
While this study took a specific research approach, it is suggested that future studies
focus on wider in scope within this context.

52
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ANNEXURE

I
 Annexure I: Observation of ETO’s Digital Elements

Figure 4 : Screenshot of ETO’S Tweeter page

Figure 5 : Screenshot of ETO’S YouTube page

I
Figure 6: Screenshot of ETO’S websites page which shows privacy policy

Figure 7 : Screenshot of ETO’S website home page which presents hyperlink to related

II
Figure 8 : Screenshot of ETO’S website on root base pictorial description of attractions

Figure 9 : screenshot of search engine to check the effective usage of SEO by ETO

III
Figure 10: ETO’s usage of Google analytic report

IV
 Annexure II : Questionnaire

ABABA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF COMMERCE

DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT
GRADUATE PROGRAM

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES

Dear Respondent,

This questionnaire is an invitation to consider your participation in the study. I am conducting

research as part of the Masters of Art in Marketing Management at School of Commerce, Addis
Ababa University under the supervision of Dr. Tewodros Mesfin. My research title is:
“Analyzing the practice of digital marketing in promoting Ethiopian Tourism in case of
Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO)”.

As a result, the questionnaire is targeted to travelers who have visited Ethiopia. This study is
purely for academic purpose and thus does not affect you in any case and the purpose of this
questionnaire is to gather data regarding analyzing the practice of ETO in promoting Ethiopia
using digital marketing.

Therefore, I would kindly ask you to take a few minutes of your time for filling out this
questionnaire and all the information you will provide is considered confidential and data will be
used EXCLUSIVELY for the needs of this research. The success of this study is depend on your
genuine, frank and timely response.

Thank you in advance for your Cooperation!

Sincerely,

Roman Dessie , +251 911469 692

E-mail: [email protected]
If you would like to receive a copy of this research, please state your e-mail address:
________________________________________

V
PART I: Respondents’ general profiles

You are kindly requested to put ‘circle’ for your answer to the questions provided below.

1. Region of residence:

1. Africa 3. North America 5. Asia

2. Europe 4. South America 6. Others

2. Your Gender:

1. Male 2. Female

3. Age

1. 18-30 2. 31 - 45 3. 45– 50 4. 60+ 5. Others

4. Is this your first visit to this destination (Ethiopia)?

1. Yes 2. No

5. If your answer to question #4 is “NO”, how many times have you visited Ethiopia
before?

1. One 2. Two 3. Three 4. Four and more

6. What is purpose of your visit to Ethiopia?

1. Business 2. Conference 3. Vacation 4. Others

7. If your answer to question # 6 is “Other”, kindly write your purpose of visit?

________________________________________________
8. Was your trip to this destination organized by?

1. Tour Operation company 3. Ethio-holidays (Ethiopian Airlines)

2. Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO) 4. Other

9. If your answer to question # 8 is “Other”, kindly write who organized your trip?

________________________________________________
10. Do you know about Ethiopian Tourism Organization (ETO)?

1. Yes 2. No
11. If your answer to question # 10 is “Yes”, kindly write how you get to know about ETO?
VI
 ________________________________________________

PART II: Tourist information Source and the degree of usage of the digital marketing
elements

Please show the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statements given below. This is to
assess the following on the scales of strongly disagree to strongly agree. Strongly disagree is
given the least weight of 1; while strongly agree is given the highest weight of 5.

1= strongly disagree 2= Disagree 3= Neutral

4= Agree 5= strongly agree

(5)Strongly
(1)Strongly

(3)Neutral
(2)Disagre

(4)Agree
General
Disagree

Agree
S.No. (you can choose more than
e
one)

I. Which of the tourist information source you have used to come to

Ethiopia?

1 Social media (like Facebook,

YouTube , Twitter, LinkedIn)
2 Search engines (like Google
and etc.)
3
e-commerce Websites
4
E-mail marketing

5 Content marketing (like blog,

e-newsletter & etc.)

Mobile advertising (SMS)

6

VII
 Measurements of digital
promotions

(5)Strongly
(3)Neutral

(4)Agree
(you can choose more than

(1)Strongly

Agree
(2)Disagre
S.
one)

Disagree
No.

e
II. Which one of the following attract you while you search information
about tourist destination?
user friendly website (get
7 assess the information of the
website easily)
Prefer to get information from
8 the websites which I get at the
top of any search engines?
digital promotions which
9 present a profile and contact
details of the company
websites or other digital
10 marketing which present
attractive pictures & Video of
tourist sites & etc.
digital promotions which
11 present contests , service
discounts & the likes
get immediate response online
12 or from offline
FAQ(frequently asked
questions)
III. Which aspects of digital promotions engage you and make you spend
more time on them?

13 virtual online communities,

forums and discussion groups
websites provide information in
14 different languages (User
friendly)
trip advisory or testimonials on
15 websites (recommendation
about the tourist destinations)
social media interaction in
16 handling tourists complains on
time

VIII
 17 digital promotion introduce
new services to tourists

18
social networking site with
discussion wall
19
digital promotion which has
lucky draws
IV. Which aspects of digital promotions make you to revisit the promotion
sites time and again?

20 Present games, contests and

forums to users

21 Provide hyperlinks on the

promotion to related sites

22 webpage which has security

features and privacy statements

23 digital promotion provide fresh

content on regular bases

24 digital promotion which

receives visitors comments
Tourists preference of digital (5)Strongly
(1)Strongly

(3)Neutral
(2)Disagre

(4)Agree

marketing feature Agree

Disagree

S.
e

No.
(you can choose more than
one)
V. What do you suggest on the features to be presented on digital
promotions of tourist destination?

25 I prefer if they websites

support chat groups

26 I suggest if they update

customers about content change
on their websites
I suggest if they engage in real
27 time interaction with the
visitors
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 28
Provide personalized responses

Provide linkages to other

29
related & relevant links

(5)Strongly
(1)Strongly

(3)Neutral
(2)Disagre
Tourists Opinion on the

(4)Agree

Agree
Disagree
S. importance of digital

e
No. marketing (you can
choose more than one)
VI. How do they think a specific country destination marketer digital
promotion (in this cast Ethiopian tourism organization) helps you during
planning your visit?

25 Make me to be well aware of

Ethiopia

26 Provide me a lot of preferences

of different tourist attraction
places

27 Provide me travel information

for safety and security

28 Provide the local service

providers information like
hotels , tour operators and car
rental companies
Adopted: Rosemary M, Roberts L & Mercy M, (2016)

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 ANNEXURE III: Interview Guide

Interview questions for marketing Experts and director of ETO

This interview is designed to obtain information from marketing experts and director of
Ethiopian Tourism Organization in terms of: digital marketing practices in promoting Ethiopian
Tourism. You will be presented with a series of closed & open ended questions and the decision
to answer each question is your own. However, your contribution in answering as many
questions as possible so as to provide important information would be greatly appreciated.

1. What is your role in this organization?

2. Who is responsible for digital marketing in your organization?
3. What are the digital marketing practices implemented by ETO to promote Ethiopian
Tourism?
4. What are the challenges of ETO in promoting the Ethiopian Tourism using digital
marketing?
5. Do you think the ETO's website is user friendly (tourists access the information easily)?
6. If the answer for question No. “6 “is” yes" how? Or if the answer is "No" why not?
7. Do ETO exercises any search engine optimization activities? Is the digital promotions
easily accessed at the top of known search engines?
8. Do you think all the digital promotions of ETO presents the profile & contact details of
the company and have attractive pictures and videos?
9. Do ETO presents security features and privacy statements on its websites?
10. What mechanisms are practiced to attract, engage, and retain visitors towards ETO's
digital marketing?
11. What mechanisms are practiced in ETO's digital marketing to learn about visitors' interest
and respond towards their interests?
12. How often the digital marketing elements including websites updated or provide fresh
contents?

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