Development of a Promotional Strategy for an Eco-Gastronomic Tourism

This work is devoted to the promotion process of eco-gastronomic tourism and the role of social communities in this process. The purpose of this master's thesis is to develop a promotion strategy of eco-gastronomic tourism in St. Petersburg using the marketing potential of social communities. The work is based on the method of benchmarking which allows to compare investigated objects in three destinations: St. Petersburg, Madrid, Los Angeles as well and to identify the best practices among them. There was also used the method of theoretical analysis and systematization, content analysis of the Internet resources, Web Analytics with the use of additional programs for collection and analysing information. All this helped to identify the features of gastronomic tourism and its development; to identify and describe the features of eco-gastronomic tourism models; to differentiate eco-gastronomy consumers in groups, to analyze the satisfaction and preferences of eco-gastronomy consumers; to systematize the existing social communities and determine their marketing potential in the promotion process of eco-gastronomy products and services; to develop and substantiate the promotion strategy for eco-gastronomic tourism on the basis of the marketing potential of social networks.