Volume 2 • Issue 2 • 1000112 J Tourism Hospit ISSN: 2167-0269 JTH, an open access journal Research Article Open Access Salem et al., J Tourism Hospit 2013, 2:2 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2167-0269.1000112 Research Article Open Access Tourism & Hospitality Determinants and Effects of Applying Electronic Marketing in Alexandria Hotels: Current Status and Future Trends Islam Salem 1 *, Osman Ahmed El-Said 1 and Mohammad Nabil 2 1 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Alexandria University, Egypt 2 Hotel Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Alexandria University, Egypt *Corresponding author: Islam Salem, Hotel Management Department, Faculty of Tourism & Hotels, Alexandria University, Egypt; Tel: +2 012 2794 50 59; E-mail: Islam_salim1@yahoo.com Received May 03, 2013; Accepted June 25, 2013; Published June 28, 2013 Citation: Salem IEB, El-Said OA, Nabil M (2013) Determinants and Effects of Applying Electronic Marketing in Alexandria Hotels: Current Status and Future Trends. J Tourism Hospit 2: 112. doi:10.4172/2167-0269.1000112 Copyright: © 2013 Salem IEB, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Keywords: E-Marketing; Transactions Introduction However Electronic Marketing (E-Marketing) is still a relatively new concept, particularly for organizations operating in developing countries that have limited resources, bad infrastructure, and strong competition and cannot aford to make unwise investments or wrong decisions. herefore, there is a need to have a much clearer understanding of E-marketing implementation, problems as well as its opportunities for such organizations; and how these technologies can be used to carry out the organization marketing activities and processes in a more efective and eicient way than reliance on traditional marketing practices [1]. He added that E-marketing adoption and implementation by Egyptian tourism organizations can be a very important tool in solving the current problems associated with Egyptian tourism industry as a result of the political unrest not only in Egypt but also in the Middle East. he adoption and implementation of E-marketing can help Egyptian tourism organizations in inding leverage points that can help such organizations in overcoming its current problems. Alexandria city is one of the very important tourism destinations in Egypt. Hospitality organizations in Alexandria are growing in numbers, while the market demand is not growing in the same trend. herefore the gap between market demand and supply in Alexandrian market will increase. herefore, this paper presents indings of a survey of hotels in Alexandria. It examines the adoption of E-marketing by hotels. Issues such as awareness and general policy of E-marketing activities; pre-sale information and communication with online customers; various ways of transactions; post-sale communication and enhancing E-image and E-relationship; and general image of application of E-marketing were addressed and are reported on. In addition, a review of the literature on E-marketing tools adoption and usage reveals that most of the extant studies limit themselves to only understanding the current nature of E-marketing tools adoption and usage without providing insights into the future usage patterns of E-marketing applications, which is an equally critical issue to help hotels make informed decisions. Literature Review E-marketing in the tourism and hospitality industry he internet had become an integral part of the tourism information system, afecting inal purchase decisions by acting as a portal of information for tourism businesses. It is concluded by Litvin and others [2] that those hospitality establishments who opted not to use the World Wide Web were likely losing an important competitive advantage. herefore, the rapid adoption of Internet marketing by hotels has yielded myriad studies of hospitality Internet adoption and its impact on hotel operation [3]. Many studies discussed the current stand of and potential role of internet in marketing and promoting tourism destinations [4-8]. his progress is also apparent in studies further considering hotel website dimensions and attributes and their efect on the perceptions of online browsers and purchasers, such as those of [9-11]. Moreover, other studies intended to analyze the usage of E-marketing applications in the tourism and hospitality industry [12]. Hanson suggests that E-marketing can be seen as a distinction between three stages: the publishing stage (one way communication), the database and forms stage (simple interaction including e-commerce), and the personalization stage (complex interaction) [13]. While, Brodie et al. deined E-marketing as using the internet and other interactive technologies to create and mediate dialogue between the irm and identiied customers, clients or patients.E-marketing is characterized as being reliant on technology to enable interactivity as it involves establishing an electronic dialogue that provides individual customers access to information, and in turn, the use of interactive technologies also allows these customers to provide information to the business [14]. Moreover, Park and Gretzel stated that E-marketing includes all electronic data and applications used for the marketing of a irm’s products, such as customer proile and marketing mix Abstract Alexandria is an international tourist destination. Due to its limited natural attractions and growing regional competition, Alexandrian hotels’ operators need to adopt and implement creative marketing tools. This study explores the current and future adoption and role of electronic marketing [E-marketing] strategies and e-distribution channels in Alexandrian hotels. Despite the exponential growth of E-marketing, little is still known about its application and effectiveness in Alexandrian hotels. This exploratory study aims to ill in this gap. Field study revealed that most e-marketing procedures have not been applied, application of Awareness/General-Policy-related procedures helps better apply procedures in other phases, and that 5-star hotels apply E-marketing partially better than 4-star hotels. Further managers’ opinions and thoughts have been sought, concerning the overall context and perceived barriers of applying E-marketing, both current and future aspects. Finally, best E-marketing practices are identiied, and a simpliied strategy for developing an effective E-marketing mix is proposed.