Explain and analyze the advertising strategy in reconstructing the mental image of tourists

Tourism is considered a major power where it has a constructive effect on the environment, society, and the overall economy. The importance of the tourism industry is derived from its role as a strategic economic function for so many countries around the world. According to them, this study was conducted due to the great importance of the tourism sector and its influence on other economic sectors, and because of the growing implementation of the destination image concept in the field of tourism, where the mental image of a travel destination has an important role in convincing people to visit that place. The purpose of this study is to study tourism advertising strategies and analysis the components of each dimension of an effective advertising strategy in order to reconstruct the tourist image of the tourist destinations in crisis.

This study is a qualitative study based on the grounded theory and, in terms of purpose, is an exploratory study. A review of the theoretical basis and literature review in the field of reconstruction of tourists' mental images and the models used in these studies have been used to extract their elements. At this stage, and in order to get to the purpose of the study, a number of questions were designed that include the main question and some sub-questions. The main question is: what is the advertising strategy for reconstructing the mental image of tourists? The sub-questions of the research are: 1) who is the target audience of the considered advertising strategy? 2) What is the content of advertisements for the reconstruction of the mental image of tourists in crisis countries? 3) What media is suitable for reconstructing the mental image of tourists? 4) What should be the frequency of repetition of the ad needed to reconstruct the mental image? The exploratory section used semi-structured interviews with tourism industry experts in Syria and Iran to collect samples. The refined variables and the relationships between them have been identified using grounded theory to increase the understanding of the problem. Content analysis methods have been used. In this regard, to analyze the interviews and obtain the findings, (Atlas Ti) software was used, which has produced several graphs with the help of this software. The statistical population of this research, as we said before, was the tourism industry experts of Syria and Iran, where it consisted of 11 experts. In this study, the sample size was selected based on the theoretical saturation of academic and tourism industry experts. Purposeful sampling was performed according to the theoretical saturation approach.

The experts of the tourism industry in Syria and Iran stated that regarding the specific situation in Syria, the target audience should be either neighboring or friendly countries, where they may have the ability to know the real situation that exists in the country in the light of its special conditions. In addition to that, overseas tourism agencies can also be considered a target audience. Speaking about advertising content, it can be designed in several ways, such as using the concept of religious tourism, health tourism, war tourism, documentary advertising, other travel details, focus on the desert, historical and archaeological places and destinations that were exposed to war, use of a combination of advertising types, including video, photos, and posters, use of domestic tours as advertising, focus on government actions and security, and cultural and entertainment aspects of the destination. The data collected from tourism sector experts showed that it is better to use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Websites, Wikipedia, and others to spread this advertisement. Television is also still an influential tool. In addition, international tourism exhibitions may be one of the most important means to be used in order to promote the destination, and word-of-mouth advertisements may also have a great influence in this respect. On the other hand, inviting public figures, communicating with foreign tourism companies, and having an agent in foreign countries can be used to promote the destination's image abroad too. Also, the role of embassies and tourist ministries should not be ignored. Finally, in order to determine the number of repetitions of the advertisement, accurate research should be done to determine the average usage of the selected media by the people of the target countries. But in this regard, it must be mentioned that some experts think that broadcasting advertisements less than four times a day will not be effective enough. Others think that the advertising must be taken into consideration for at least six months to get the expected benefit from it. On the other hand, there is no specific number of contributions to the international tourism exhibitions, and the usage of word-of-mouth advertising cannot be connected to repetition.

Many concepts must be taken into consideration in order to develop the tourism sector in a country where it is considered one of the vital sectors that has the potential to increase national income and help strengthen and revive the country's economy. This sector has a significant effect on many other economic sectors, but despite that, it is very sensitive and capable of being affected by many factors. According to this, the importance of this study comes from the growing importance of the tourism industry and the destination image, which play a great role in affecting visitors' perception of a destination and forming their attitude toward it.