Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Factor to Success in Tourist Relationship Management

Given economic challenges in the recent years, various sectors of the economy has experienced major changes and for this reason, the Tourism Strategic Environment cannot be excluded from these challenges. The tourism has always a long association with human behavioral and emotional dimensions and it is one of the most fundamental human activities. Major part of the tourism literature is focused on the economic results and the positive role of tourism in employment, and exploitation of new opportunities; however, unfortunately, important and vital part of this kind of studies, namely “tourist” as the customer of the Tourism Services has always been neglected. Basic dimensions of emotional intelligence including; determinants of Self-awareness and self-management, Motivation, Social Skills, and Empathy have a direct relationship with human communications, so institutionalization and level increases of emotional intelligence in customer relationship team can be considered as an effective policy for long-term relationship with tourists. To promote tourist attraction rate, Customer relationship management as a business strategy has to boost fundamental factors of emotional intelligence. In this study, by using the Fuzzy AHP we identify and rank the importance of these factors/determinants in order to use them more effectively in Customer/tourists relationship management environment.


Introduction
Development and providing of tourism services can be considered as one of the most complex service designs, because these services are used and evaluated by the tourist at different times.In addition, the tourist's tastes and needs along increase of awareness level are changing day to day.Also, tourists' opportunity cost, their individual interests for getting rid of life pressures, recreational activities, and other items should be particularly taken into account (Xinyan, 2009) and this makes the type of treatment and service offering to the tourist more difficult and sensitive.Iran is in the list of top 10 tourist attractions and has the rank 5 in tourism diversity in the world (UNWTO, 2000).However, lack of optimum policy making leads to waste of resources.In fact, tourist attraction centers and destinations should meet tourists' needs, interests and expectations in the time of visiting.In other words, tourist attraction destinations should be able to create value for tourists, influence the tourist's attitude, and improve their satisfaction.In recent years, various aspects of management techniques have been widely disseminated throughout service and industry chains.For instance, it can be referred to quality of service offering to customers as one of the key elements and requirements of managerial systems in institutes and enterprises (CSSP, 2007).In fact, Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy that its implementation will results in customer's attraction, retention, and promotion and consequently tourism institutes will be able to do their three above mentioned functions by using minimum resources and maintain their core competitive advantage, namely, tourists.Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a useful tool for study and identification of the customers' characteristics, behavior, needs and prediction of their responses in order to establish a long term and strong relationship with the customer.Majority of the structured studies and researches on tourism study and survey about effect of the factors associated to tourism on other environments of society.Taghavi investigated determinants on growth of Iranian tourism industry (Taghavi & Poursoleimani, 2009).Taiyebi has investigated relationship between tourism development and economic growth in Iran and reported his observations (Taiyebi, Jabbari, & Babaki, Study on Relationship between Tourism and Economic Growth Case Study of Iran, OECD countries plus Selected Countries, 2008).Fazelnia published his studies on tourism development strategies in 2010 (Fazelnia & Hedayeti, 2010).Pourkazemi in his research through field study investigated efficiency of tourism industry using non-parametric methods (Pourkazemi & Rezaee, 2010).Dehghan extended the prior research in virtual sphere (Dehghan, 2008), and Ebrahimzadeh using strategic tools has published results of his investigation on determinants of tourism development (Ebrahimzadeh & Aghassizadeh, 2009).The above researches indicate importance of tourism and its development.However, in all above mentioned researches, it has been paid less attention to tourists and observance of their requirements in considering them as the customers using tourism services.Therefore, in this research, the tourist is considered as the customer and tourism is developed and combined with quality management dimensions, i.e.CRM, as well as by Fuzzy ranking it has been tried to facilitate correct application of the determinants of relationship with tourist.

Tourism
Tourism with modern features includes newly emerging phenomena which are in accordance with technological evolution and modernity cultural developments.Until the 19th century, few people were in state to travel apart from business trips and the travel itself was the sign of social position.In the late 19th century, with development of rail way for the first time, mass travel became possible (Kalantari & Farhadi, 2008) and until then, mass travels were handled in caravans called "Grand Tour" (Gui, 2008).Study of Tourism is based on classification of various tourisms in terms of form, content, purpose, frame and their agents (Zotti T, 2000).Tourism is a French word which is derived from the origin "Tour".Tour, in French language, means rotating movement, traversing, and circulation (Baghaee & Norouzi, 2005).Tourism industry is a combination of various activities which take place as chain for providing service to tourists.Therefore, tourism includes all the phenomena and relationships resulting from interaction of tourists, suppliers and sellers of tourism products, hosting states and societies in the process of attracting and receiving tourists (macintosh, Goeldner, & Ritchie, 1995).Some others have defined tourism as action to travel with purpose of recreation and service offer for this action.A more comprehensive definition has been proposed by the World Tourism Organization: tourism is a service industry which is consisted of a number of material and immaterial compounds.The material elements includes transportation systems (air, rail way, marine, and today spatial), reception (residence, food, and tours), the services related to it such as banking, insurance, health and safety services, and immaterial elements include resting, relaxing, culture, and new and different adventure and experiences (WTO, 2004).Tourism is considered as a dynamic, large, diverse and clean industry and one of the growing sectors in the national economy system, therefore all countries are after the ample benefits arising from it and provide relative welfare for present and future of their societies (Stynes & Halloran, 2004).The first reason for tourism development in most countries is exploitation from its economic benefits, although other reasons are stated as well.According to some scholars and experts, tourism industry may have great impact on promotion of employment and government's income (Taiyebi, 2009).Since tourism is one of the service industries, the income obtained from this industry is considered as a part of countries' GDP which directly affects their economic growth (Stynes & Halloran, 2004).Tourism also indirectly affects growth, because it shows dynamism effect or other external effects as overflow in the whole economy (Taiyebi, 2009).so that tourism due to a lot of interaction with other economic activities that provide product or services to it or consume its product, makes them to move forward with it, i.e. tourism may act as an engine for economic growth which drives forward other activities (lee, 1999).

Customer Relationship Management
One of the most important changes in the field of performance improvement which took place in the last decade of the 20th century was discovery of customer's satisfaction measurement as one of the principal elements and requirements of managerial systems in businesses and enterprises (Winnie & Kanji, 2001).To identify the organizations' attributes that their customers are always satisfied, organizations' business consultants try to find some tools for measuring the customers' satisfaction and establish continuous quality improvement systems which meet customers' feedback.Promotion of performance management tools and improvement of customer orientation, which are done by researchers and business managers, shows that customer's satisfaction is regarded as one of the most important factors of organizations' success in business and profitability.Organizations emphasize on customers' satisfaction in order to increase their main customers, loyalty, income (return), profit, market share and survival and try to keep their customers satisfied and consider customer's satisfaction as the critical factor of organization's survival and profitability (CSSP, 2007).Therefore, it is very necessary for every enterprise to compile and possess a framework for understanding, analysis and assessment of its customers' satisfaction state.Padilla believes that there may be various types of customer's satisfaction according to product or service's position; different factors such as type of product, service, customer's experience, purchase decision, seller, store, service supplier, reputation or other things may result in customer's satisfaction (Padilla, 1996).World Trade Organization considers customer's satisfaction as a psychological concept which comprises a good and pleasant feeling achieved from obtaining attractive service or product which was expected.Klaus defines satisfaction as: "customer's mental estimation from consumption experience based on relationship between customer's perceptions and product's objective attributes" (Pizam & Ellis, 1999).The most general interpretation of satisfaction is a feeling which is achieved from evaluation process of what is perceived compare to what was expected in purchase decision given the needs and interests (Fecikova, 2004) (See Table1).A customer-focused business strategy (Anon, 2002), (Chalmeta, 2006).

Lindgreen & Antioco
A strategy that rests on the five-pillar approach: The five basic issues that are to be tackled and managed by companies wanting to implement relationships with their clients are segmentation, information networking, algorithms, IT systems, and sales and client support (Lindgreen & Antioco, 2005).

Kotler & Armstrong
The overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering superior customer value and satisfaction (Kotler & Armstrong, 2004).

Emotional Intelligence and Tourist Relationship Management Team
Human beings, while being rational creatures, have other characteristics and features which make them emotional creatures.For years in different cultures due to prevalent customs and rules, actions based on emotions were considered disgraceful because there was the belief that emotions are the source of violence and these characteristics contradict with lofty thinking process including intelligence.However, today, psychologists by raising the concept of emotional intelligence have tried to clarify this point that the two categories of intelligence and emotion are not contradictory to one other (Averill, 2007).Emotional Intelligence is the last evolution in understanding relationship between rationality and emotion and it is referred to as the trigger of a great revolution in promotion of mental hygiene.In fact, the concept of emotional intelligence is a multi-factor field comprising a set of social skills and competencies which affect individual's abilities for discernment, comprehension, management of emotion, problem solving, and adaptability and effectively match and adjust individual with needs, requirements, pressures and challenges of life (Bar-on, 2006).In recent years, emotional intelligence due to numerous applications in diverse areas such as education, jobs, individual growth, etc has gained an increasing popularity (Elias, Tobias, & Friedlander, 1999;Goleman D., 1998).Emotional intelligence is the ability to distinguish one's emotions and those of others and adjust emotions in social situations (Koczwara & Bullock, 2009).Emotional intelligence is a subject which tries to describe and interpret position of human sentiments, emotions, feelings and capabilities.Emotionally intelligent managers are the effective leaders who achieve goals with maximum productivity, and employees' satisfaction and commitment (Donohue & Stevensen, 2006;Cadman & Brewer, 2001).As well as in psychology literature, it is claimed that emotional intelligence helps people be more successful in leadership, decision making, sale, and even in receiving debts (Koczwara & Bullock, 2009).Emotional intelligence is a multi-factor structure which is formed of individual's coherent sentimental, personal and social abilities helping us in the face of daily life exigencies and it can be considered as capabilities of a person in facing with environment's challenges which predicts people's success (Livarjani, Golmohammadinezas, & Ghaem Shahanaghi, 2008) Goleman, & Rhee, 1999).Tourism activities are all based on human efforts in which some as providers of services and some other as users of services are making constant efforts to achieve their goals.Tourism relationship management is consisted of soft inputs as customer management software and hard inputs including people and other factors.Considering the above presented and explained concepts, it can be said that emotional intelligence related to tourists is of double importance, because effect of humans' internalized and institutionalized behavior may in the long run affect the two-way relationship between tourist and customer relationship team and this in fact is the turning point the relationship with the tourist as a business strategy.In the following, by presenting a decision making tree of emotional intelligence determinants in tourist relationship management team, we will rank these structures in a fuzzy method.

Fuzzy Hierarchical Analysis Process
Asgarizadeh (1965) introduced Fuzzy theory for solving the problems in which there are no clear defined criteria (Momeni, 2008).For example, if uncertainty of human decision making is not taken into account, results may be misleading.A generality among the descriptive phrases such as "with high probability", "it is probably so", and "it's not much clear" which often is heard in daily life means that all these descriptions bear some degree of uncertainty.Fuzzy theory is used to solve such problems.This theory is divided into the exactly defined mathematical subjects that depend on classical, logical rules and the other method of linguistics approach (Tzeng, Chiang, & Li, 2006).The principal logic of the linguistics approach is that true performance values are fuzzy (vague) sets and laws of inference are rather approximate than accurate.Triangular fuzzy number is well known in Fuzzy applications.Figure 1 shows the triangular Fuzzy number M indicated by (a, b, c) and its membership function (See Figure1).

∞ ∞ Figure 1. Fuzzy Number
Parameter b is the biggest membership degree and fM (b) = 1, while a and c are lower and upper boundaries, respectively.To produce weight, several steps should be taken: first step, construction of hierarchical structure of decision factors; second step, stability/sustainability analysis; third step: consistency index; fourth step: establishing the Fuzzy positive matrix; fifth step: formation of pair comparisons combinatory matrix; sixth step: calculation of Sk for each pair comparisons matrix which itself is a triangular number; seventh step: calculation of Sks largeness relative to each other; and eighth step: calculation of indices weights in pair comparison matrix.

Fuzzy AHP Decision Chart
For prioritization based on hierarchical analysis Fuzzy model, it is first needed to draw the decision tree.Therefore, given the prior studies and use of scholars and experts' views, the following factors have been selected for ranking emotional intelligent in tourism relationship management (See Figure 2).

Conclusion
Emotional intelligence has always been one of the most important applied and investigable factors in human-like behaviors particularly in tourist relationship management team and study on non-cognitive aspects of intelligence and effort for comprehension and discernment of human behaviors can be considered as one of the most important factors for tourist relationship management team.Tourists due to cultural differences of nations always require a kind of peace in mind in order to properly enjoy tourism services.Increase and promotion of emotional intelligence level in tourist relationship management team will lead to comprehension and understanding of one's sentiments and emotions as well as that of others and showing and emerging ethical behaviors accompanying with social conscience.As a result, we will be able to correctly identify our feelings and behaviors and those of others and to use them for improvement and enhancement of service quality and tourists' satisfaction level.Table 13 presents the most important applied elements of emotional intelligence in tourist relationship management team as Fuzzy ranking which can be a comprehensive model for extension in other tourism behavioral contexts.In line with this research, it is recommended for future research, the other multi-criterion models such as DEMATEL, Network Process Analysis to be employed and by preparing a comprehensive model, impact of each of the introduced components to be measured.

Table 1 .
Definitions of Customer Relationship Management

Table 2 .
Conversion of Combinational Pair Comparisons Scores into Linguistic Variables

Table 3 .
Combinational Pair Comparisons Matrix of Emotional Intelligence Determinants in Tourist Relationship Management

Table 4 .
Non-Normalized and Normalized Weights of Emotional Intelligence Determinants in Tourist Relationship Management

Table 12 .
Non-Normalized and Normalized Weights of Social Skills Determinants Table7shows Combinatory pair comparisons matrix of motivation determinants indices.The obtained results in table 8 indicate that "innovation" with 0.328 weight is the most important factor in motivation determinants."Achievement orientation" with 0.298, "commitment" with (0.209), "Initiative" with 0.096 and "optimism" with 0.014 are respectively placed in next ranks.The obtained results in table

Table 13 .
Final Ranking of Emotional Intelligence Determinants in Tourism Relationship Management