المستخلص: |
Branding of places now is common in tourism sectors related to the wide range of benefits to the places and locals, it is considered as an effective tool to change the place image that helps with a bifurcation of the business in the same region. The purposes of this study are to evaluate Umm Qais Ajloun trail and discuss the possibility of branding, and expose the unique features of the place in order to build "Brand Equity" & measure the attitude of Local Community to tourism development. Using a mixed approach (qualitative & quantitative) methodology by semi-structured surveys, were distributed to the local community & tourists. Additionally, the Experts received open ended questions surveys confine with SWOT analysis of the trail. The results summarized that the Local community is "Strongly Interested" in tourism development and respect all kind of tourists as long as the tourists respect the local community’s traditions and "covered" dressing, this match with the first step of the branding strategy. However, All of the experts agreed to all of the strengths points, that the trail deserves to be a "Brand" on account on the (Socio-Cultural, Environmental, Archeological, Historical) diversity, and the old-present experience of local community dealing with the tourists and tourism development, as long as the tourism plans and programs involve the local community on all levels of the tourism development. The experts emphasized that this is an opportunity to raise environmental awareness, and sustain the (Cultural, Environmental) heritage, also increase and maintain the local community income. The experts also commented that the trail needs "Specific Capacity" and it needs more Tourism services and infrastructure as weaknesses. Moreover, future fears arising from the involvement of competitor services providers such as "International Organizations" in the tourism development strategy that leads to side-stepping from the local community as threats. Finally, the Tourists confirmed that the greatest unique feature of the Trail is "Landscapes" followed by, "Sunset", "Sunrise", "Lands", "Nature" of the place, these were the highest frequency responses from the tourists, which confirmed that the Trail needs more marketing in all categories, also, the tourists "Image" changes significantly before and after the journey, before the journey was relative to "Unknown" destination, but after the journey was relative to "Awesome!", "Mystery!", "Unique!", "Fabulous!" as a convention.
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