Internet marketing for sustainable development and rural tourism

Abstract

Internet is very widespread in all business sectors and has been an extremely important tool for the promotion of business sales. Moreover, internet-based marketing is widely accepted by tourism enterprises. Sustainable tourism refers to development in such a manner and at such a scale, that it remains viable over an indefinite period. There is a special relationship between the concept of sustainable tourism and the rural tourism. This paper assesses internet and e-marketing adoption for the sustainability of rural tourism enterprises, for the case of Greece. Rural tourism enterprises are analysed and further ranked as to their e-marketing features and ICT functions accomplished. An integrated-dynamic framework is developed for ranking the enterprises based on the multicriteria method PROMETHEE II and the results are discussed. Finally, we identify and describe the optimum enterprises to be used as a model for designers of websites promoting e-marketing activities for rural sustainability.