The effect of intellectual capital on social capital with the mediating role of brand equity of the destination city of Isfahan during the Covid 19 epidemic (Case study of Isfahan)

Extended Abstract

Due to the prevalence of coronavirus in all parts of the world, Iran is no exception to this rule and the tourism market has been widely affected by the outbreak of coronavirus. Along with this trend, 1.7 million people working in this field directly and about 5.2 million people working indirectly in Iran's tourism industry are on the verge of becoming unemployed. Objective: Intellectual capital can be used to anticipate customer needs and create value to maintain companies' long-term profits as an effective management tool to create a competitive advantage. Intellectual capital is an important mechanism because it enables service companies to learn. In addition, the tourism industry in the field of virtual reality services shows a high capacity for national and regional development. In addition, in providing a competitive advantage, intellectual capital is one of the most important features of a hotel's financial performance. Intellectual capital, which is based on relational, human and organizational capital, not only helps the needs of the tourism industry by changing customer needs, but also responds to the capacity of services to create shared value and explore market opportunities. Studies have shown that virtual reality is a powerful marketing tool that provides the opportunity for a potential tourist to provide a picture of a tourist destination or destination pre-experience. Since consumers of tourism industry products can only evaluate the product when using it, the tourism brand image plays a vital role in tourism marketing. Due to the prevalence of coronavirus in all parts of the world, Iran is no exception to this rule and the tourism market has been widely affected by the outbreak of coronavirus. Along with this trend, 1.7 million people working in this field directly and about 5.2 million people working indirectly in the Iranian tourism industry are on the verge of becoming unemployed. This is while the tourism industry has suffered the first and greatest blow from coronary heart disease and has almost reached the point of bankruptcy of the industry's economy. In the future, the economic consequences of coronary heart disease will be serious. If preventive measures in this area are not done properly, the tourism industry will face the effects of further decline and eventually lead to economic collapse. The government, in the Iranian economy in the general sense and in the tourism sector in the specific sense, has a very important role in policy-making and even implementation (prevention and stopping demand in the future of the tourism industry). In such a crisis, which is unpredictable and uncertain, any kind of forecast for further development in the economy, including in the tourism sector, can be difficult. It can be considered that after the end of the quarantine period, the tourism sector will be able to improve worldwide. A strategic development plan can be prepared for the sustainable development of tourism. The new program should be aimed at developing local tourism to increase jobs and take proper care of the infrastructure. in the level of statistical blocks of ghaemshahr city and relationship of those two with each other.

Methods: This research is a descriptive survey research in terms of practical purpose and method. The information was collected by library and field methods. The statistical population is all managers and experts of travel services offices active in the field of virtual tours in Isfahan. The reason was that the exact number of Instagram users was not known. The statistical population was considered unlimited. Cochran's formula was used to determine the number of research samples and the statistical sample of 384 people was selected using random sampling. In this study, the intellectual capital variable is considered as an independent variable and the social capital variable is considered as a dependent variable. Also, variables of brand equity and managerial relations are considered as mediating variables. To collect the necessary data, 47 questions have been allocated, which are listed in Table 1 of the dimensions and items of the model. In inferential analysis of the data, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and to determine the internal stability of the instrument, KMO test and Bartlett sphericity were used to determine the sample size and factor separation and to determine the causal relationship between variables, structural equation modeling method was used. All statistical calculations of this study were performed using SPSS 19 statistical software and analyzes related to structural equation modeling using Amos 23 software and the significance level of the whole test is P <0.05.

Results: In this study, the effect of intellectual capital on social capital with the mediating role of the brand equity of the tourism city in virtual reality during the Covid 19 epidemic in Isfahan has been investigated. The brand equity of the tourism city in virtual reality mediates the positive relationship between intellectual capital and social capital during the Covid 19 epidemic.

Conclusion: In this research, the role of brand equity on social capital and brand image and also the role of social capital on brand image is investigated. Kim and Kim (2005) in a study examined the relationship between brand equity and corporate performance in luxury hotels and restaurant chains. The results showed that brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand image are important components of customer-based brand equity. There is a positive relationship between customer-centric brand equity and corporate performance in luxury hotels and restaurant chains. A somewhat different scenario emerged from the relationship between customer-centric brand equity components and corporate performance in luxury hotels and restaurant chains. The result of this hypothesis is consistent with the research of Fallah Amoli (1397) and Kim and Kim (2005). Organizational capital mediates the positive relationship between relational capital and human capital during the Covid 19 epidemic. Structural capital creates an environment through which knowledge is created and ready to enter the market.