Lina Anastassova

Abstract:
Innovations are one of the most influential factors on the economic growth and this is the reason why governments nowadays have significant concern about it. Researchers and academics from many countries study the innovations activeness and the type of innovations in various industry sectors but comparing the big scope of academic research on international level, there is unsufficient research on the topic of innovativeness in Bulgaria. And as SMEs present a significant part of the regional and national economies including in Bulgaria, this empirical survey in Bulgaria and Spain is based on samples of SMEs from different sectors in both countries. In order to guarantee comparativeness the same questioning instrument was employed and the analysis revealed many similarities in the attitude to innovations and the type of innovations in small and medium sized companies in both countries. According to the survey results, the SMEs in Bulgaria focus more on innovations in the promotional policy egg. the marketing communications in contrast with the small and medium-sized companies in Spain where the stress in innovations is more on changes in distribution channels and in the pricing strategies. The comparative analysis with the Spanish companies points out that concerning the innovations in “design and packaging of goods” and “usage of new methods for goods and services promotion” the behaviour of the Bulgarian and Spanish companies is similar. At the end of the paper are drawn some conclusions about the innovations activeness of the SMEs in both countries and the similar problems.

Key words: marketing innovations, SMEs sector, innovations’ type, empirical study

The business model of yesterday supported mass marketing, mass production and standardized products and services. But companies will fail in the competition battle if they continue to rely on this old marketing concept. Today, businesses and consumers are coping with choice by selecting key partners with whom they will enter into relationships for large portions of their supply needs. The first two chapters of the book make an overview of the relationship marketing paradigm development and presents the classification of the various relationships. Chapters three and five contain the strategies for client retention and development and the possible organizational structures in the companies applying relationship marketing. The fourth chapter is devoted to the effect measurement of relationship marketing and the possible metrics. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 contain information about CRM, CRM system and the social networks and Relationship marketing through internet. As web marketing is gaining more importance the book discusses the management of the relationship cycle and the means and techniques for contact individualization as well as the metrics for client retention and return on investments in loyalty. As relationships in network and strategic alliances have a significant presence on the global market, the book discusses both topics too.
The last chapter presents different cases for best practices in relationship marketing of Bulgarian and international companies operating on the Bulgarian market. 235  pages

Комплексно рассмотренъi важнейшие теоретико-методологические и практические аспектъi маркетинговъiх исследований в туризме. Значителъное внимание уделено процесъi и методам исследований направленнъiх на изучение средъi маркетинга, ръiнка, туристкого продукта, конкурентов, потребителей и рекламной деятелъности.

Настоящата статия засяга тема, която е от изключителна важност в днешния силно конкурентен пазар, където за компаниите е жизнено важно да имат силен работодателски бранд, който може да привлече талантливи хора за различните позиции. Целите, които се поставя авторът са: дефиниране на понятието „работодателски брандинг“ от гледна точка на неговите компоненти- вътрешен и външен брандинг, формулиране на група от показатели, по които да се прави проучване и анализ на външния брандинг на фирмите, както и представяне на някои методически насоки при провеждане на такива проучвания. Втората част на статията съдържа преглед на няколко отлични примери за работодателски брандинг и са изведени изводи и насоки за успешното му прилагане от компаниите на българския пазар.
сп. Бизнес посоки, БСУ, бр.2, 2022, с.56-69

This conference paper addresses the issue of "reverse" marketing as there are no publications on this topic in the Bulgarian academic and scientific literature. The goal of the paper is to present and comment the opinion of different authors and experts about the meaning of "reverse" marketing and its characteristics. The paper contains a review of various instruments and methods of "reverse" marketing implementation in an international context and data of a desk research conducted online on the current situation of "reverse" marketing implementation in the practices of a sample of 90 companies in the Bulgarian market. The last paper's part is focused on the author's conclusions about the essence of "reverse marketing" compared to other marketing concepts.

Within the context of enormous competition on the international tourist market, destination branding is getting an increasing importance as a way to attract more tourists and visitors. There is an overall trend away from product features towards lifestyle or value systems which reveals that the consumer of today makes choices based on whether or not a product fits into her or his lifestyle and whether a destination represents a desirable tourist experience. After theoretical literature review on brand identity, the results of a festival visitors' opinion survey about "Include the city" festival's contribution to the brand identity of Burgas city are discussed. The survey methodology includes descriptive statistics, Z-score method in order to classify in groups visitor's opinion as well as content analysis of visitors' opinion. Three research hypotheses are checked and suggestions about the festival's marketing contribution in three aspects to the brand ...

Innovations are one of the most influential factors on the economic growth and this is the reason why governments nowadays have significant concern about it. Researchers and academics from many countries study the innovations activeness and the type of innovations in various industry sectors but comparing the big scope of academic research on international level, there is insufficient research on the topic of innovativeness in Bulgaria. And as SMEs present a significant part of the regional and national economies including in Bulgaria, this empirical survey in Bulgaria and Spain is based on samples of SMEs from different sectors in both countries. In order to guarantee comparativeness the same questioning instrument was employed and the analysis revealed many similarities in the attitude to innovations and the type of innovations in small and medium sized companies in both countries. According to the survey results, the SMEs in Bulgaria focus more on innovations in the promotional p...

Настоящата статия изследва състоянието на отразяването онлайн на дейностите
свързани с корпоративната социална отговорност на хотелите в България и дали съществува връзка  между онлайн „докладването” от страна на хотелите и оценката им от потребителите в  резервационната система booking.com. Докладът съдържа резултати от контент-анализ на сайтовете на 130 хотела в България на основата на разширен от авторката модел от 5 индикатора (Holcomb, Upchurch & Okumus, 2007), както и изводи относно необходимост и възможности за подобро използване на социално-отговорните действия на хотелите за нуждите на онлайн ма

The article discusses, after presenting the global franchising market in 2012, the essence of franchising, its types and the specific of hotel franchising. The first aim of the article is to classify the marketing differ ences of the various hotel franchise systems applied in Bulgaria. Based on the desk research the second important article aim is, after providing an actual review of the hotel franchising in the country, to draw conclusions about the barriers and problems in front of the franchisees in Bulgaria as well as the perspectives in the country of this modern marketing integration and distribution system.

IntroductionTourism is a key industry in the Bulgarian economy and it contributes according to different official and unofficial statistical sources by 13-14% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (http://www.nsi.bg; http://www.investbulgaria. com; http://www.wttc.org). The revenues in the tourism industry depend directly from the tourist flow incoming to the country as the domestic tourism contribution is low: the Bulgarian tourists spend 10 times more abroad than in Bulgaria (http://www.dnevnik.bg/pazari/). Having in mind the enormous global competition on the tourism market due to the new emerging tourist destinations the issue of international tourist loyalty becomes more and more important in growing number of publications (Reichheld, 2001; De Wulf, Odekerken-Schroder & Jaccobucci, 2001, Niininen & Riley , 2003; Groeppel-Klein, Koenigstorfer & Terlutter, 2008; Tsu & Cai, 2009; Yuksel, Yuksel & Bilim, Y., 2010).Correspondingly, research related to important marketing aspects of in...

IntroductionIn tourism markets with enormous competition nowadays between tourism destinations and between resort hotels inside destinations one of the most significant problems for hotel marketers is to know the attributes that determine the accommodation choice of tourists which means to know the hotel attributes that are perceived as most important by tourists when choosing a resort hotel. On the other hand, every destination hotel is part of the overall tourism product of the destination because the overall tourism product refers to the whole holiday consisting of various components such as transportation, accommodation, meals, image etc. (Mehmetoglu &. Normann, 2013). Research and studies often link this set of destination product components to tourist quality perception (Blazquesz, Molina & Esteban, 2012). As known the destination product components are on a macro level (Murphy, Pritchard & Smith, 2000) but there is another approach which combines micro level variables with th...

The article discusses the problem for city destination branding and for this reason the first article part discusses the different views about brand identity and how the local population's opinion and attitude fits to the branding concept. The analytical part of the paper is based on primary data from a survey with the local people and visitors' sample about the awareness and advertising campaign for the Burgas festival "Include the city" and the festival's contribution to the brand image of Burgas as festival destination. The last part of the paper contains methodological directions for such kind of surveys and suggestions about necessary organizational steps and marketing activities in the process of city brand building and strengthening.

It is well known that small and medium sized enterprises play a significant role in the economies and especially in smaller countries and in their economies as they reduce unemployment which has a beneficial effect on the social development of societies. The role of innovations as a new and major factor in economic growth continues to be underestimated and this is valid for Bulgaria as well where there is a deficit of research on the innovation activities of the SMEs in Bulgaria. Тhe main goal of this empirical study is to find out the attitude to innovations in SMEs, what kind of innovations related to marketing are conducted by the Bulgarian SMEs - in product design, packaging and marketing communications, what are the differences in the orientation of the business models to innovations. The main data collection method is an online survey with a random sample of SMEs. Part of the empirical data from survey questions are compared with the data from similar research in Iceland provi...

Тhe study is examining the necessity of exploring and understanding customer expectations and the need of service design in order not only to fulfilв but to exceed customer expectations. The first part of the study explores the essence and characteristics of the services and the concept of service quality of A. Parasuraman and V. Zeithaml which is one of the best service quality models. The second part of the study defines the яшьжея of service design and analyses different cases for successful service design containing positive experience and emotions which leads to customer retention and loyalty. The conclusions and suggestions for successful service experience strategies are drawn on the content analysis of qualitative data from consumer forums, hotels’ and services’ web sites and personal observations and service experience of the author with the investigated b

Authors: David Mwesigwa, Mohammed Bogere, Lina Anastassova

Purpose: This study set out to assess the level of policy formulation in Hoima district local government for effective service delivery in Uganda. Research methodology: A quantitative case study design was embraced, aiming at 30 local councillors and 60 technical officials. The real sample was 54 respondents. Data were gathered via a self-administered questionnaire and an interview guide. Numerical and non-numerical data were examined by way of descriptive statistics as well as thematic analysis. Results: Results suggest a moderate mean for policy formulation in Hoima as generated from all the five constructs namely; problem identification (µ=2.88; SD= 1.346), problem manifesto (µ=2.76; SD =1.347), policy agenda (µ=2.17; SD =1.268), policy debate (µ=2.58; SD =1.271) and policy decision (µ=2.20; SD =1.268). This was so because the overall mean was 2.52 and the overall SD was 1.300. Nevertheless, the numerous impediments confronted mainly at policy decision disrupted the process. Limi...

Abstract: Abstract: The recent paper addresses the important issue about regional strategic alliances in tourism. The conceptual part of the paper presents a review of the literature about the essence of the regional alliances, their functions and possible benefits for the destinations and the region. Using the method of typologisation, the author makes an attempt for developing a typology of the tourism alliances depending on their structure and types of partners in the alliance. After reviewing the successful practices of the developed countries, as well as Bulgaria and Kazakhstan, the paper finishes with some suggestions for future development of this model for regional partnership. Key words: regional tourism alliances, destination marketing, typology of regional tourism alliances

The study contributes to the examination and conceptualization of the customer shopping experience in food retail chains.  The main objectives of the research paper are to conceptualize the shopping experience in retail food chains by developing a list of attributes, to explore the customers’ opinions about the importance of the attributes and the differences between the importance assessment and the experience assessment of customers for 2 food retail chains in Bulgaria as well as to draw conclusions about the area of concern in both chains. The technique employed for the analytical purposes of the research was traditional Importance-Performance Analysis and 2 alternative IPA techniques- Alternative IPA representation and IPA with gap between focal performance and competitor’s performance. The recent study reveals that from the viewpoint of the experience model of Schmitt (1999), the 5 most important attributes shaping the customers’ shopping experience belong to 3 of the experience model components: sensory, emotional and cognitive component. The paper contains findings about the comparison between both food retail chains based on traditional IPA method and alternative IPA techniques and the areas of concern for future improvements of the customer shopping experience in the food retail chains in the country.

Key words: customer experience, shopping experience, IPA method, retail chains

The current paper examines at the beginning the principal differences between the traditional marketing and the more recent marketing paradigm- the relationship marketing. The main goal of the paper is to discuss and present via literature review the author's opinion about the possible metrics which can evaluate the effect of relationship marketing implementation– their essentials and the way the metrics can be calculated. The most important metrics are: retention rate, share of customer wallet, number of attracted clients per 1 current client for defined period, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), Cost per lead (CPL), percentage of the turned leads into real clients per 1 representative, Cost for retention per 1 client (CPR) etc. The paper discusses and presents shortly in its last part the capabilities of the various CRM systems- simple and more advanced for implementation of effective relationship marketing.
Keywords: Relationship marketing, Marketing accountancy, Customer Lifetime Value 
         
http://bjournal-bfu.bg/bg/broy-2/marketingova-otchetnost-pri-relatsionniya-marketing-sashtnost-i-metriki

Brand diagnostic is an inseparable part of the activities belonging to the area of marketing management as brand management is one of the important duties of the marketing department. Actually brands are a direct consequence of the target marketing and the strategy of product differentiation of every company. Diagnosing brands is a very complex and sophisticated task for smaller companies which do not have sufficient financial resources to commission a research to marketing consultancy for diagnosing their brands and using the diagnostic results to develop improvements.
For this reason the main goals of this paper are:
• to conduct a preview of the concepts and research about the essence and appropriate components of a framework for brand diagnostic and
• to suggest a structural framework composed by a set of indicators for brand diagnostic with the appropriate research methods and metrics.

Key words: brand diagnostic, brand diagnostic constructs, brand equity, brand interactivity

Бранд разширението като брандинг стратегия се използва много интензивно и успешно в хотелската индустрия, като проучванията на практиката в различни публикации сочат разнообразни подходи. В настоящия доклад най-напред се разглеждат в концентиран вид концептуалните основи на различните брандинг стратегии вкл. разширението на бранда в маркетинговата политика на хотелските вериги, историята и ползите и недостатъците на тази стратегия. Във втората част на доклада се прави аналитичен преглед на практиката по бранд разширения на 4 международни хотелски вериги с висок индекс на клиентска удовлетвореност и чрез връзката им с таргет маркетинга се представят и целевите им сегменти, като се правят сравнения и по други маркетингови показатели. Изследователските подходи, които се използват са " кабинетно проучване " на голям обем информационни източници, включително и онлайн, сравнителен преглед и на вторична информация и др. Ключови думи: бранд разширение, хотелска верига, таргет маркетинг, Abstract: The brand extension is a branding strategy used very intensively by the big hotel companies during the last 30 years. As there is not much research on this topic in the Bulgarian literature, this study provides an insight in the branding strategies of th well established hotel brands. The first part of the paper discusses the conceptual basis of the 3 main branding strategies and their advantages and disadvantages. In the second part of the paper analysis of the branding strategies of 4 strong brands is conducted and their connection with the target marketing is presented. The methodology is related to desk research and is based on secondary data analysis and synthesis from many theoretical and other online resources. The paper ends with conclusions about the trends of the branding strategies in the hotel industry and the expected developments.

This is a research note of a current research which will be finalized next year.
In the era of enormous competition tourists are no longer satisfied with traditional services only- they want to go beyond that and have therefore created demand for diversified experiences (Banff Lake Louise Tourism, 2005). Providing an excellent tourist experience becomes a crucial factor for destinations’ future success on its strategic road to market leadership.
Some Black Sea resort destinations lost their product differentiation in the Bulgarian transition period on the way to market economy. They even had in the socialist period stronger brand differentiation when Sunny Beach was the resort for family tourism, Albena and Primorsko  were established brands for youth tourism on the Central and Eastern European tourist market. Due to the not proper privatization of the Bulgarian resorts’ tourism facilities after the change of the political system in 1989, it came to uncontrolled overbuilding with hotels of some of the Bulgarian resorts. Because of lack of marketing strategy of the destinations and lack of proper targeting and positioning at this moment there are no clear target segments of some big Black Sea resort destinations and there is no strong destination brand differentiation.
Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate and determine the perception of main attributes of tourists’ experiences in 2 Bulgarian summer resort destinations and their impact on tourists’ emotions, feelings, senses, intellectual thoughts and memories.
Tourists are no longer satisfied with traditional services only- they want to go beyond that and have therefore created demand for diversified experiences (Banff Lake Louise Tourism, 2005). Providing an excellent tourist experience becomes a crucial factor for destinations’ future success on its strategic road to market leadership.
Some Black Sea resort destinations lost their product differentiation in the Bulgarian transition period on the way to market economy. They even had in the socialist period stronger brand differentiation when Sunny Beach was the resort for family tourism, Albena and Primorsko-  were established brands for youth tourism on the Eastern European tourist market, Golden Sands resort – for high quality tourism e.g. for upper tourism market segment of Western Europe. Due to the not proper privatization of the Bulgarian resorts’ tourism facilities after the change of the political system in 1989, it came to uncontrolled overbuilding with hotels of some of the Bulgarian resorts. Because of lack of marketing strategy of the destinations and clear targeting and positioning at this moment there are no clear target segments of some big Black Sea resort destinations and there is no strong destination brand differentiation.
Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate and determine the perception of main attributes of tourists’ experiences in 2 Bulgarian summer resort destinations and their impact on tourists’ emotions, feelings, senses, intellectual thoughts and memories.

Within the context of enormous competition on the international tourist market, destination branding is getting an increasing importance as a way to attract more tourists and visitors. There is an overall trend away from product features towards lifestyle or value systems which reveals that the consumer of today makes choices based on whether or not a product fits into her or his lifestyle and whether a destination represents a desirable tourist experience. After theoretical literature review on brand identity, the results of a festival visitors' opinion survey about " Include the city " festival's contribution to the brand identity of Burgas city are discussed. The survey methodology includes descriptive statistics, Z-score method in order to classify in groups visitor's opinion as well as content analysis of visitors' opinion. Three research hypotheses are checked and suggestions about the festival's marketing contribution in three aspects to the brand identity extension of urban destination Burgas are presented.

Тhe study is examining the necessity of exploring and understanding customer expectations and the need of service design in order not only to fulfill  but to exceed customer expectations. The first part of the study explores the essence and characteristics of the services and the concept of service quality of A. Parasuraman and V. Zeithaml which is one of the best service quality models. The second part of the study defines the stages of service design and analyses different cases for successful service design containing positive experience and emotions which leads to customer retention and loyalty. The conclusions and suggestions for successful service experience strategies are drawn on the content analysis of qualitative data from consumer forums, hotels’ and services’ web sites and personal observations and service experience of the author with the investigated brands.

The article discusses the interactivity level of hotels' online marketing in Bulgaria. After the literature
review on website marketing and usage of social media as marketing channel, a framework based on a
set of indicators for analysing the interactive online marketing of hotels is proposed. The next section
puts focus on the results of empirical study of online marketing of 130 hotels in Bulgaria with regard to
the indicators' set in the proposed model and the usage of social media depending on the hotel starcategory
and the location type of hotels. The last section of the article explores the relationship between
star category and interactivity level of hotels and between star category and the overall ratings of the
sample hotels in booking.com. The paper finishes with some conclusions about hotel online marketing
in Bulgaria and practical implications for improving the interactivity level of their marketing.
Key words: hotel online marketing, social media, interactivity level

The article presents the results of a secondary data analysis examining Polish tourists’ perception of tourism product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels. The researchers examined data collected by Itaka travel agency regarding tourists’ satisfaction with the package holidays in Bulgaria between 2010-2013. Since the number of Polish tourists visiting Bulgaria has increased over the last years, it has been hypothesized that Bulgarian hotels offer a competitive value proposition and a very good price/quality relationship. The surveyed sample of tourists spent their summer holiday in one of 14 summer resorts located in Sunny Beach and in Golden Sands area, 4 – three-star hotels and 10 – four-star hotels and the total sample volume is 1212 tourists. The quantitative analysis of tourists’ perceptions of product quality offered by Bulgarian hotels was performed through the scale based on the evaluation of a list of the hotel attributes representing values important for tourists. The qualitative analysis was based on the tourists’ comments regarding their holiday experience in Bulgaria.
Authors: Maria Johann and Lina Anastassova

Abstract: 
The paper discusses the relatively new marketing approach
-the “experience marketing”, its basics,  differences with the classical marketing and its components. Based on a desk research the theoretical framework is supported by cases of companies implementing successfully in their marketing the components of this modern approach. The second part of the paper presents the essence and instruments of the “content marketing” as a new approach in the company communication mix and the new
marketing research methods in the last decade. The  paper ends with conclusions about the  recent changes in marketing due  to the  shift in the  behavior of the
postmodern consumer  towards enriched  brand experience. 
12-14 june 2015, Burgas

The paper explores the reporting of social responsible activities of the hotels in Bulgaria and examines if there is a relation between the online ”reported” social responsibility  and the consumer assessment of the hotels in the reservation system booking.com. A модел of 5 indicators for CSR “reporting”(Holcomb, Upchurch & Okumus, 2007) is extended and implemented for the purposes of the study which is based on content-analysis of  130 hotel  websites of Bulgarian hotels. The paper contains conclusions about the state of  the CSR online “reporting” of the Bulgarian hotels and suggestions about better usage of it for hotel online  marketing.

Research related to important marketing aspects of international tourism has increased significantly. The analysis and exploration of the concept of loyalty is gaining a significant attention in the tourism research during the last two decades. The main objectives of this research paper are: first to explore the tourist population structure of the Bulgarian Sunny Beach resort depending on the loyalty level of the tourists to Sunny Beach brand and to make an attempt for extracting a typology of the tourist segments. The second task of the research paper is to determine the brand image perception by the tourists with different level of loyalty and to identify the key attributes of the tourism product which distinguish the image of Sunny beach brand. The study analysis and conclusions are based on two probability samples- in seasons 2009 and 2010- stratified samples according to the variable “country of origin”. The study reveals differences in the image perceptions of loyal and disloyal tourists and points out that better understanding of the image perception by the loyal tourists can help the marketers to improve the destination branding strategy.