Analysis of effective factors on the competitive positioning of tourism brand in Guilan province

Tourism industry has always played an important role in economic growth and development as well as increasing the national income of a country. The purpose of this study is to present a model of effective factors in the competitive position of tourism brand in Guilan.This research is of the combined type, in the qualitative part of which Grounded theory is used and according to the data collection method, it is considered as field research. The statistical population of the study is university professors and tourism managers in Guilan. In the qualitative part, theoretical sampling was used and the number of sample sizes due to theoretical saturation was 11 people.Analysis of data interviews to develop a competitive position model Guilan tourism brand by coding method showed that 300 open codes were identified and classified in 23 concepts in six main categories including competitive sources, Guilan brand competitive position, contextual factors, destination management operations. Destination, and intervening factors were divided. In order to measure the designed model, in the quantitative part of the research, the opinions of 169 managers and experts in the field of tourism in Guilan were used.It can be said that the key factor in positioning the destination brand in the minds of customers is the operations related to positioning, branding and advertising of that destination, and all other factors will be more pronounced with the correct implementation of this factor.