Customer relationship management in the tourism industry of Iran

To survive in the global markets, focusing on the customer is becoming a key factor for SME's. It is known that it takes up to five times more money to acquire a new customer than to get an existing customer to make a new purchase. Hence, customer retention is in particular important to SME's because of their limited resources (Baumeister, 2002). Moreover, a dissatisfied customer causes market damage because they are more likely to defect to competition and more likely to persuade others to defect. It is therefore no surprise that CRM is an important topic of conversation in business world (Feinberg, Kadam, Hokam, & Kim, 2002). Tourism industry in Iran has a deep gap to attract tourist from any segments. These barriers originate has many reasons from economical to political, principals to complicated tools for tourism attraction, from legislation to implementation. Iran as a developing country needs a greater portion of tourism industry. In this study by reviewing literature review of CRM and using CRM concepts I try to find some solutions for decreasing barriers and restrictions to develop Tourism industry and attract tourist and pleased them. I have high lightened the importance and potential impact of CRM on customer relationship in tourism SME's (Travel agencies, Hotels, Hotel apartments in Tehran). I have focused on factors influencing the implementation CRM at tourism SME's and the most barriers for implementing CRM in tourism SME's.Validerat; 20101217 (root