Abstract
Many nations have adopted tourism as a strategy for developing their destinations to spur on economic growth. An increased number of technological advances has led to an increasingly competitive global marketplace, with diverse marketing techniques. The current study’s primary purpose was to develop a framework by means of which to align tourism-related digital marketing strategies with tourists’ needs and expectations, so as to improve tourists’ digital experience in tourism, using the Free State province in South Africa as a case study area. Using a mixed method research design, data were collected from leisure domestic tourists (n=401), by way of a structured self-administered questionnaire. In addition, face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 purposively selected key informants who were involved in tourism marketing. The qualitative data were analysed using the Atlas.ti, with the quantitative data being analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 27. Significant findings revealed that the tourists involved were tech-savvy and dynamic, and that the tourists’ exposure and interactions with various current and emerging digital trends and tools influenced decision-making, in relation to the intention to travel. In addition, given the proliferation of technology in marketing, the study revealed digital marketing strategies that effectively influence tourists’ behaviour. Emanating from the study, preferences, motivation, expectations and perceptions were determined as being the key psychological factors influencing the consumer behaviour of digital marketing platform users. Key findings from the study demonstrate a long-standing correlation with, and interaction between, digital marketing tactics and traditional marketing methods, with text-based digital marketing strategies tending to be the most favoured. Satisfied motivational factors were highlighted as being influential in the continuous use of, and the future intentions to use, digital marketing tools and platforms. Expectations gave insight into factors shaping the perceptions of digital marketing. Consequently, perceptions of usefulness, information quality, system quality and service quality were found to influence the consumer behaviour of digital platform users. The study findings were useful in terms of the development of a framework aligning tourism digital marketing strategies with tourists’ needs and expectations. While grounded in existing models, the developed framework draws its strength from using a multidimensional theoretical framework, which strengthens the individual theories adopted, the framework’s versatile ability to exist within the context of a developing nation and the involvement of marketers and tourists in the study. The present study contributes to the advancing amount of literature on digital marketing and evolving trends affecting consumer behaviour in tourism.