An Investigation of the Quality of Printed Information Resources in Tourism from Foreign Tourists' Perspective (Case Study: Tehran Province)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor at Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor in Tourism Management, University of Mazandaran

3 Postgraduate Research, University of Mazandaran

Abstract

Extended Abstract
Use of advertising and information resources are important tools for boosting tourism industry; they can indeed help the development of this industry. And thus, the current study attempts to investigate the quality of printed information resources of tourism from the perspective of foreign tourists who visit the province of Tehran. The statistical population of this research consists of the foreign tourists who visited the province of Tehran in the first 6 months of 1393. By using the formula, the sample size was calculated to consist of 170 tourists. The data were collected through a questionnaire and the analysis was done through one-sample t-tests, independent t-tests, ANOVA and Friedman by using SPSS22 software. The results showed that the quality of printed information resources of tourism (having useful information, Remarkable, user-friendly, encouraging/stimulating, reliability and usefulness), from the perspective of foreign tourists visiting Tehran province has been relatively good and the priority of quality printed information resources of tourism, respectively further down to less related to remarkable, encouraging/stimulating, usefulness, reliability, user-friendly and having useful information.
 
Introduction
Information is a source of power, a competitive tool, a means of promoting and a factor for national growth and development. On the other hand, people in the tourism sector for various reasons travel and receive their needed information from various channels.
Therefore, communication and information technologies have changed tourism industry since the 1980s and played an important role in its development (Amaro & Duarte, 2005).
Therefore, the present study tries to investigate the quality of printed information resources of tourism from the perspective of foreign tourists who visit the provinces of Tehran. Achieving this goal will offer a clear view of the variety of
Picture of the transportation needs and the facilities needed. Also, the question of the research is how the quality of printed information resources of tourism should be investigated.
 
Materials and Methods
This current study is a descriptive-survey research and its statistical population are the foreign tourists who visited Tehran province in the first 6 months of 1393. By using the formula, the sample size was calculated to be 170 tourists. Data were collected through a questionnaire. Data analysis was done through one-sample t-tests, independent t-tests, ANOVA and Friedman by using SPSS22 software.
 
Discussion and Results
Considering the fact that the mean of hypothesis was higher than (3.00) and its significance was less than (0.05), it can be argued that the main hypothesis and secondary hypothesizes with 95% of confidence was accepted. This result shows that foreign tourists who visited Tehran province were satisfied. Evaluation of perspective diversity of foreign tourists in quality of printed information resources of tourism industry based on demographic features showed that between the opinions of foreign tourists who visited Tehran province, there is no significant difference in the quality of printed information resources based on age, gender, education and nationality.
 
Conclusions
The data analysis yielded the following result:
An investigation of the quality of printed information resources of tourism from the perspective of foreign tourists who visited the provinces of Tehran determined that they were satisfied.
Since, printed information resources of tourism are evaluated as good from the perspective of foreign tourists, it is suggested that more useful and reliable information resources are used in Tehran province for foreign tourists. It is noteworthy that more than 70% of foreign tourists who visited the province of Tehran had decent education; this is indeed a good sign of the importance of printed materials that can be made available at Iranian airports, hotels, and recreational facilities.
 
Keywords: Quality of Information Resources, Printed Information Resources, Tourism.
 
References:

Amaro, S. and Duarte, P. (2015), An integrative model of consumers' intentions to purchase travel online, Tourism Management, No. 46: 64-79.
Damghani, H. and Mehnatfar, Y. (2006). The role of information technology in promotion of structure improvement level of tourism and cultural heritage in Mazandaran province, First Conference of the Role of Tourism Industry in Mazandaran Province, university of social and human science, Mazandaran university, babolsar. [In Persian].
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Mansfeld, Y. (1992). From motivation to actual travel, Annals of Tourism Research, No.19: 399-419.
Rasekhi, S., Karimi Potanllar, S. and Hosseini, S. (2014). Factors affecting on tourism aggregate in chosen developing country, Journal of Tourism Planning and Development, 3(8): 69-86. [In Persian].
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Keywords


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