Exploring the Status of Mashhad Tourism Attractions in the Virtual Space

The Internet serves as a powerful medium in the tourism industry and this industry is currently one of the most important ones affected by technological advancements and the information revolution. The process of producing and exchanging information is increasingly developing. Information and communication technology is a novel and revolutionary in the marketing of tourism destinations. This technology, by breaking the limitations of traditional media and crossing geographical borders, disseminates information more effectively and quickly. This study evaluated the status of Internet advertising of tourism attractions in Mashhad and determined the role of each of the tourism stakeholders in terms of introducing and informing about attractions through the Internet. Tourism website stakeholders were classified into 5 groups: Individuals; free encyclopedias; tourism organizations; non-governmental institutions; hotels, travel agencies, and tourist service centers. Initially, 17 attractions from the most important tourist attractions of Mashhad were selected (out of a 122 different attractions). Then, each of the websites or blogs on tourist attractions (about 100,000 links) were explored and analyzed based on a seven indicators of Alexa analytical tool. The results of comparing the total of selected domestic sites with the selected foreign sites showed that the Vatican site, with 37,719 links, has the highest rank in terms of the number of links, and the site of holy shrine of Imam Reza has the highest average visit time (8:56 minutes). In addition to the low ranks of domestic sites among the studied sites, the share of governmental stakeholders in the tourism sector is about three percent in information dissemination.