Customer relationship management in the tourism industry of
Iran

Abstract: 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.