Development of E-Tourism to Achieve Excellence and Sustainable Development in Tourism: Ha’il Region Case Study

Abstract

E-tourism is one of the most important levers for social and economic development. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has declared 2017 the year of sustainable tourism for development. When relying on sophisticated communication technologies. Certainly, these innovations in the field of this analysis aim to determine the main factors of e-tourism achieving excellence in tourism in the Ha’il region. Tourism has disrupted this sector with new and different dimensions of tourism development. This has led various regions and countries to accelerate the search for the tools necessary to achieve excellence and sustainable development in tourism. This research aims to study the development factors of e-tourism to achieve excellence and sustainable development in the tourism of the Ha’il region. Therefore, the gap in this research is represented by the lack of a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between e-tourism development factors and factors that promote tourism excellence in the Ha’il region to achieve sustainable development. For this reason, we applied two analyses: in the first one, we used a statistical analysis based on the survey sent to 500 employees from tourism companies. This analysis aimed to determine the main factors that influence e-tourism to achieve excellence in tourism in the Ha’il region. The results of the statistical analysis gave us the following elements: There are only four main factors that allow authorities to achieve excellence in tourism in the Ha’il region, namely Supporting Technology (ST), Competition Pressure (CP), Human Resource Skills (HRS), and Socio-Cultural (SC) factors. Then, we proceed with a second analysis to determine the main factors of excellence in tourism that drive the achievement of sustainable development in tourism in the Ha’il region. For this reason, we applied an artificial intelligence method based on the unsupervised machine learning technique. The results obtained from the machine learning technique show that five factors determine the excellence in tourism and reveal the sustainable development of Ha’il’s tourism. These factors are ST, CP, Financial Performance (FP), HRS, and Government Commitment (GC). Consequently, we consider that all the factors found in both analyses are important to realise excellence in tourism and sustainable development in tourism. However, to achieve sustainable development in tourism in Ha’il, Saudi authorities must develop the three common factors found in the two analyses, namely ST, CP, and HRS. Therefore, this study is expected to help introduce ways of excellence in e-tourism by marketing it using artificial intelligence, enabling the development of the tourism sector in an enormous area. It will also contribute significantly to the formulation of plans, policies, and strategies that will largely ensure the development of Ha’il’s tourism sector.