Digitalization of Rural Tourism Products: Evaluating Stages and Managerial Readiness

This study examines the critical phases involved in the digitalization of tourist village products, encompassing planning, packaging, and marketing. These stages are foundational to the effective mapping of tourist village products, ultimately leading to their digital representation. To ensure the successful implementation of digitalization, the optimal preparation of human resources is imperative, as inadequate readiness risks perpetuating a lack of awareness within rural communities. The study aims to evaluate the readiness of tourist villages to adopt digital approaches in planning, packaging, and marketing their products. The primary data collection employed a consultative methodology, integrating focus group discussions (FGDs) with workshop-based sessions. Four distinct rounds of data collection were conducted, each addressing specific themes: digital marketing, the Godevi digital platform, tour package development for tourist villages, and governance frameworks for these villages. Godevi, the partner organization driving the market localization initiative for tourist villages, served as the principal unit of analysis. A manager from one of the tourist villages in the 25th round of evaluation was selected as a key informant for this study. The findings reveal that 25 tourist villages required assistance in the planning phase. Nevertheless, these communities demonstrated the capacity to design trip packages aligned with prior product mapping initiatives, albeit requiring continued guidance in product packaging. Conversely, in the domain of digital marketing, tourist villages were found to exhibit limited proficiency in leveraging the requisite digital systems effectively.