Page 26 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.81, # 1, 2024, pp. 22-39

Tsekouropoulos et al. (2012) studies Greek skiing centres and their digital marketing
policies. About a half of them did not have e-marketing policies. 52% provided rich
information on their websites. 52% used interactive e-marketing for customers
including chatting. 35% used third party advertising through the website. 40% offered
sales discounts and similar promotional options. Vasios et al. (2020) explained how a
local problem in Lemnos island (increasing wild rabbit population affecting the
biodiversity) could be potentially solved with targeted marketing for the location as a
hunting tourism destination.

Some studies considered marketing of the destinations in general (countries, cities or
regions) instead of individual companies. Such marketing activities are organized by
local or national authorities, international projects or non-governmental organisations.
In particular, Belias et al. (2019) wrote that tourists first pay attention to destination.
After choosing it, they start searching for a proper hotel. Therefore, destination
marketing is also important in addition to tourism enterprise marketing.

Papa & Avgeri (2009) used a comparative analysis of the official National Tourism
Organizations portals of the European Union member states. Greece and Italy
underperformed by four aspects: marketing, customer, technical and information for
the destination. Dionysopoulou & Tsakopoulou (2021) described the efforts of Greek
regional authorities and tourism industry associations to facilitate digital
transformation of Greek small and medium tourism enterprises. Halkiopoulos et al.
(2021b) devoted their research to the case of the European Program “Regio-Gnosis -
Information and updating on cohesion policy in Greece” with social media campaigns
with cultural and tourism information. They explained that advertising in Facebook
could be useful. The posts mainly contained information about photo contests cultural
events, workshops, live streaming videos and photos of these events. Photo contests
were the most efficient to reach response of the users.

Deffner & Metaxas (2006) discussed methodology of city marketing plans within the
INTERREG IIIC CultMark project aiming at creating a successful image of the
participating cities. The analysed case in Greece was about the Olympic Municipality of
Nea Ionia in the Prefecture of Magnesia. After auditing its distinctive features it decided to
focus on promoting cultural, sports and food tourism. 8 components were considered
(product, partnership, people, packaging, programme, place, price, promotion). Deffner &
Metaxas (2008) continued to study city marketing and their relationship with culture and
tourism. The analysed case was again about Nea Ionia.

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