Features of Informal Excursions' Promotion by Means of Internet Marketing Tools (the Case of Saint Petersburg)

In the conditions of constant growth and development of the services’ market in hospitality and tourism industry of Russia, the growth of attention to the quality and variety of tourist products, as well as information and advertising activities becomes significant as means of bringing information about the tourist product to the mass consumer. The review of the literature shows that this approach to promoting informal excursions as a tourist product does not considered in modern scientific researches despite the steadily growing popularity of using Internet marketing tools to promote the products of hospitality and tourism industry, which justifies the relevance of the author's research. The purpose of this thesis was to identify the peculiarities of informal excursions’ Internet promotion in the market of tourist services in St. Petersburg and to develop recommendations for providing organizations to improve it. Informal excursions presented in the market of tourist services in St. Petersburg were an object of the research, the processes of promoting informal excursions on the Internet were the subject of the research. The first part of the thesis describes the theoretical aspects of the formation and promotion of informal excursions as a tourist product, formulates and gives the author’s approach to definition the concept of informal excursion and the classification of informal excursions. In the second part the author carried out a study of the results of the application of the tools for promoting informal excursions on the Internet, discussed in the first part, analyzed the demographic data of consumers of informal excursions, described current trends in the development of this type of tourist product. The third part gives recommendations on the formation of informal excursions and their promotion on the Internet in the tourist market in St. Petersburg, formed on the basis of the research carried out in the second part of the work.