The success of agile tourism marketing in post-corona conditions

Introduction: The impact of COVID-19 on the way we live has been unprecedented. Travel and tourism were among the leading sectors to face a catastrophic downturn as national borders were closed to contain the outbreak. Precautionary measures were taken, and social distancing became a norm. Most people had to cancel or postpone their travel plans. The current crisis requires a strong preparation from the industry for a fresh start on health and resilience. The emergence of that deadly disease has led to huge financial losses and created global health and economic crises around the world. Epidemics have a negative effect on the behavior of tourists and their mental health. As a result, they abandon their planned tours for fear of catching the disease, as it seems impossible to avoid the transmission of the virus during the trip. Globally, travel and tourism make a significant contribution to job creation as well as socio-economic and cultural development worldwide. Now, according to the existing potentials and the drivers that can lead to re-upgrading the competitive advantage of travel and tourism after the COVID-19 era in our country, it is necessary to carry out necessary investigations so as to identify the forces affecting it and invest in them. This can again improve Iran's position. Therefore, this research seeks to identify and structure the factors affecting the success of agile marketing in turbulent conditions after COVID-19.
Methodology: This research was conducted with a qualitative approach in terms of data collection. It is also descriptive in terms of its purpose and is in the category of applied research. The statistical population of the research consisted of the professors and senior managers and active experts in the units related to the field of marketing in Yazd City. The selection of the participants in the present research was non-random and by targeted judgmental sampling. The respondents to the questionnaires of this research were 10 professors and senior managers and active experts in the units related to marketing and tourism, of which three professors were in Yazd University, four experts in the field of tourism and three in marketing. In this research, a researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect the data. To design the items of the questionnaire, first, several internal and external articles related to the research topic were reviewed, and agile marketing factors were identified in each article. These surveys to find agile marketing factors were done until saturation was reached and no new factor was encountered. The questionnaire items on agile marketing factors were found from different articles. The data obtained from the research questionnaire were analyzed through the ISM technique. In the current research, the opinions of experts were used to check the validity of the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of a series of completely standard tables related to structural-interpretive modeling, so it had acceptable validity.
Results and discussion: According to the results of the research, thirteen factors are involved in agile marketing. The indicators of responsiveness, market-based organizational learning, group and regional sales development, marketing mix compatibility, and rapid change of marketing mix in pace with the change of market competitive conditions are among the most important factors affecting success. In many cities, regions and countries, tourism plays an important role as a strategic pillar of the economy's GDP. The tourism and leisure industry plays a vital role in economic activity and customer satisfaction, but now it has also become the most vulnerable member of the industry. The development of the tourism industry is of great importance, especially for developing countries that are faced with problems such as high unemployment, limited foreign exchange resources, and a single-product economy. In turbulent environments, industries constantly face challenges. Failure to quickly respond to these challenges may result in significant financial losses. Agile marketing is effective in the turbulent post-corona situation. The analysis of influence-dependency power showed that market-based organizational learning has the most influence and dependency power.
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, in order to increase the success of agile marketing in post-corona unbalanced conditions, it is suggested to use agile marketing to discover opportunities and align the market trends so that they may not adopt ambiguous strategies against sudden changes. Agile marketing makes it possible to make changes to any part of the program without disrupting other parts. It is recommended that there should be very clear and explicit communication and the duties of each department should be specified. Also, by holding daily meetings, important departments in this industry should be aware of the work process. Priorities are taken into account, because it enables different departments to put on the right track, thereby increasing the sale of products and services and making the business prosperous. The agile method allows dividing the goals into different and independent and yet related parts, testing each part on a daily or weekly basis, and checking the results. If it does not work, another method should be adopted. This not only avoids the waste of time and big expenses but also, in a short time, determines the result of every decision and action. It is suggested that all the departments interact and choose the best solutions together. It is also recommended to be customer-oriented because agile marketing is customer-oriented and can always involve customers' opinions in the work process. By changing the customer's behavior, different departments can be quickly organized in line with the customer's satisfaction. And finally, agile marketing allows you to work on all the parts of a big project at the same time. Therefore, it is suggested to comprehensively investigate environmental imbalance with agile marketing