Electronic Communication Strategies of the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism to Promote the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

This study aims to identify the communication strategies used by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism to promote the Sultanate of Oman as a tourist destination electronically, as well as the extent of employing electronic communication activities to support these strategies, in line with the premises and objectives of the Tourism Strategy 2040. The study relied on the media survey methodology to achieve its objectives and answer its questions using several tools: observation, document and data analysis, and content analysis. The results of the study concluded that the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism uses several communication strategies to promote the Sultanate of Oman electronically as a tourist destination, which are push strategy, pull strategy, cognitive strategy, emotional strategy, persuasion strategy, information strategy, dialogue strategy, consensus-building strategy, and relationship-building strategy. The study results also indicated that the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism has a diversified electronic communication activity, focusing more on websites and social media. The study confirmed that the (Experience Oman) account tweets daily during the study sample period, and the ministry uses images in most of the study sample’s tweets. Additionally, 74٪ of the tweets are not content created by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism but instead sharing of the content of others. The study showed that interaction with the account’s posts is modest. Finally, the study recommends developing electronic communication activities, virtual reality technologies, and artificial intelligence, optimizing search engines, and focusing on storytelling content. The study also recommends updating the social media strategy in line with modern trends in the media content industry. Keywords: Communication strategies, electronic communication activities, Promotion, Ministry of Heritage and Tourism, Sultanate of Oman.