Smart Marketing Strategies for Sustainable Tourism in Fragile Protected Areas: Evidence from Egypt

Tourism development in fragile protected areas presents a critical managerial challenge, as marketing activities must simultaneously support economic value creation and environmental conservation. this challenge is intensified by weak institutional coordination, limited community involvement, and inadequate data-driven marketing practices. Despite the growing relevance of smart and sustainable marketing, empirical evidence on its application within environmentally sensitive destinations remains limited in business research. This study investigates the key determinants shaping the effectiveness of smart marketing strategies in fragile protected areas, using Egypt’s Wadi El Rayan Protected Area as an empirical context. Drawing on expert-based data, the research applies the DEMATEL method supported by fuzzy logic to analyze the causal relationships among six dimensions influencing smart marketing implementation: infrastructure quality, promotional effectiveness, community engagement and empowerment, environmental awareness among tourists, biodiversity value, and inter-agency coordination. The findings reveal that biodiversity protection, community empowerment, and inter-agency coordination function as the primary causal drivers of smart marketing effectiveness, whereas infrastructure development, promotional campaigns, and environmental awareness emerge as effect dimensions shaped by improvements in the causal factors. Notably, although biodiversity exhibits the strongest direct influence, inter-agency coordination ranks highest in overall structural importance, highlighting its critical role in system-level performance.