Email this article 
The strategies to promote Sudan’s tourism destinations post COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract
The global pandemic has brought a halt to various economic, business, as well as tourism activities around the world. It also happens in various countries in Africa, including Sudan. Sudan’s tourism has constantly lasted out of all main economic sectors. The tourism business in Sudan provides many jobs, government revenue, and foreign exchange profits. By analyzing all the marketing actions, media regulations, crisis communication techniques, and advertising campaign components, this article aims to identify strategies used by tourism players in Sudan to re-establish a positive tourism destinations image in times of uncertainty, panic, and struggle, as well as to entice international tourists to return to Sudan’s tourist attractions. The study used qualitative content analysis of the media and marketing strategies, global and local tourism reports, and press interviews to integrate practice and theory and followed the multistep approach for transforming place image. The result shows that Sudanese actors used three strategies to restore a good image of Sudanese tourism destinations: new media strategy, available content strategy, and audience-focused strategy. This study demonstrates why this epidemic must be viewed as an opportunity to adapt to a new normal and rebuild the destination’s image for tourism in a new way.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Avery, E. J., Lariscy, R. W., Kim, S., & Hocke, T. (2010). A quantitative review of crisis communication research in public relations from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review, 36(2), 190–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.01.001
Avraham, E. (2015). Destination image repair during crisis: Attracting tourism during the Arab Spring uprisings. Tourism Management, 47, 224–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.10.003
Avraham, E. (2021). From 9/11 through Katrina to Covid-19: Crisis recovery campaigns for American destinations. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(20), 2875–2889. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1849052
Avraham, E., & Ketter, E. (2012). Media strategies for marketing places in crisis. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780080557076
Benoit, W. L. (1995). Sears’ repair of its auto service image: Image restoration discourse in the corporate sector. Communication Studies, 46(1–2), 89–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510979509368441
Collins-Kreiner, N., & Ram, Y. (2021). National tourism strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic. Annals of Tourism Research, 89, 103076. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.103076
Coombs, W. T. (2010). Parameters for crisis communication. In W. T. Commbs & Sherry J. Holladay (Eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication (pp. 17–53). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444314885.ch1
Dinarto, D., Wanto, A., & Sebastian, L. C. (2020). COVID-19: Impact on Bintan’s tourism sector. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11540/11764
Feng, W., & Wang, P. (2020). Research upon the relativity between digital media and tourism. In A. Marcus & E. Rosenzweig (Eds.), HCII 2020 (pp. 594–607). New York: Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49757-6_43
Gössling, S., Scott, D., & Hall, C. M. (2021). Pandemics, tourism and global change: A rapid assessment of COVID-19. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1758708
Govers, R., & Go, F. M. (2004). Projected destination image on the world wide web: Content analysis of online textual representations of Dubai. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2004 (pp. 369–379). Vienna: Springer Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0594-8_35
Hall, C. M., Scott, D., & Gössling, S. (2020). Pandemics, transformations and tourism: Be careful what you wish for. Tourism Geographies, 22(3), 577–598. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1759131
Harrigan, P., Evers, U., Miles, M., & Daly, T. (2017). Customer engagement with tourism social media brands. Tourism Management, 59, 597–609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.09.015
Haryanto, T. (2020). Editorial: COVID-19 pandemic and international tourism demand. Journal of Developing Economies, 5(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.20473/jde.v5i1.19767
Huertas, A., Oliveira, A., & Girotto, M. (2020). Gestión comunicativa de crisis de las oficinas nacionales de turismo de España e Italia ante la Covid-19. El Profesional de La Información, 29(4). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.10
Kadarisman, A. (2021). Government public relations dalam pengembangan pariwisata masa pandemi COVID-19 di Geopark Ciletuh. PRofesi Humas, 5(2), 270–290. https://doi.org/10.24198/prh.v5i2.29800
Kaushal, V., & Srivastava, S. (2021). Hospitality and tourism industry amid COVID-19 pandemic: Perspectives on challenges and learnings from India. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 92, 102707. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102707
Lu, J., Xiao, X., Xu, Z., Wang, C., Zhang, M., & Zhou, Y. (2022). The potential of virtual tourism in the recovery of tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(3), 441–457. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2021.1959526
Musa, H. G., Mulyana, D., Bajari, A., & Navarro, C. J. S. (2020). Promoting Indonesian tourism through Sudanese tourists communication experiences in Bandung. Jurnal Studi Komunikasi, 4(1), 21–31. https://doi.org/10.25139/jsk.v4i1.2150
Musa, H. G., & Qamari, I. N. (2020). The motives of Sudanese tourists to choose Bandung as a tourism destination. Jurnal Manajemen Bisnis, 11(1), 76–89. https://doi.org/10.18196/mb.11189
Novelli, M., Gussing Burgess, L., Jones, A., & Ritchie, B. W. (2018). ‘No Ebola…still doomed’ – The Ebola-induced tourism crisis. Annals of Tourism Research, 70, 76–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2018.03.006
Pike, S., & Page, S. J. (2014). Destination Marketing Organizations and destination marketing: A narrative analysis of the literature. Tourism Management, 41, 202–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.09.009
Qiu, R. T. R., Park, J., Li, S., & Song, H. (2020). Social costs of tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Annals of Tourism Research, 84, 102994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.102994
Sigala, M. (2020). Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and implications for advancing and resetting industry and research. Journal of Business Research, 117, 312–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.015
UNWTO. (2021). Tourist arrivals down 87% in january 2021 as unwto calls for stronger coordination to restart tourism. Retrieved from unwto.org website: https://www.unwto.org/news/tourist-arrivals-down-87-in-january-2021-as-unwto-calls-for-stronger-coordination-to-restart-tourism
Vaishar, A., & Šťastná, M. (2022). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural tourism in Czechia Preliminary considerations. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(2), 187–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2020.1839027
Van der Wal, Z. (2020). Being a public manager in times of crisis: The art of managing stakeholders, political masters, and collaborative networks. Public Administration Review, 80(5), 759–764. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13245
Walters, G., & Mair, J. (2012). The effectiveness of post-disaster recovery marketing messages—the case of the 2009 Australian Bushfires. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 29(1), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2012.638565
Wu, A. W., Connors, C., & Everly, G. S. (2020). COVID-19: Peer support and crisis communication strategies to promote institutional resilience. Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(12), 822–823. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-1236
Yeh, S.-S. (2021). Tourism recovery strategy against COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Recreation Research, 46(2), 188–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2020.1805933
Ylipukki, H. (2021). Cultural Influence?: A study of organizational cultures and their possible influences on employees CSR commitment. Södertörn University.
Yuan, Y., Chan, C.-S., Eichelberger, S., Ma, H., & Pikkemaat, B. (2022). The effect of social media on travel planning process by Chinese tourists: The way forward to tourism futures. Journal of Tourism Futures, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1108/JTF-04-2021-0094
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24198/prh.v7i1.37042
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2022 Hussein Gibreel Musa, Indah Fatmawati, Nuryakin Nuryakin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
PRofesi Humas Indexed by:
Editorial Office of PRofesi Humas:
Faculty of Communication Science, Universitas Padjadjaran
Jl. Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km. 21 Jatinangor, Sumedang, Indonesia 45363
WA: +6282316731181 (Chat Only)
Telephone: +62227796954
Faxmile: +62227794122
Email: jurnal.profesihumas.fikom@unpad.ac.id
PRofesi Humas Supervised by:
