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  A new growth model for traditional tourism countries : how to become more productive while creating jobs that are more attractive ?

Klaus WEIERMAIR - University Professor and Head of the Center for Tourism and Service Economics, University of Innsbruck, Austria

 

 

Content of the paper

I. Tourism as a fragmented industry: Competitive forces and entrepreneurship in the "old tourism"
II. The "new tourism": Restructuring and Re-engineering in a new environment of heightened competition
III. Novel forms of governance of tourism enterprises as vehicles of growth and development
IV. Outlook.

 

I. Tourism as a fragmented industry : Competitive forces and entrepreneurship in the "old tourism"

In most parts of the world, but notably in many regions of Europe tourism has developed into and has until recently been considered a "fragmented industry". A fragmented industry typically consists on the supply side of many small- or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) producing and selling very competitive or slightly differentiated products (services) which face on the demand side small regional markets with buyers displaying strong local and locational preferences.

Fragmentation has been far stronger and more prevalent in vacation tourism as compared to business tourism and has also played less of a role in underdeveloped or newly developing economies where tourism arrived late and with the helping hand of multinational and transnational enterprises (see e.g. Clegg, 1987). The historical importance and dominance of the small business sector in tourism can be easily illustrated with a few stylized facts from the hotel sector: In the European Union 94.4 % of the accommodation & food sector is classified as small business employing nine employees or less. The big companies with more than 250 employees cover 17.2 % of all employees. SMEs are still more prevalent in the hospitality industry as compared to other industries: in Europe, SMEs employ 83 % of all hospitality workers, while across all industries SMEs provide employment for 66 % of the labor force (Eurostat, 2000). For instance, most typical of the situation in central and southern Europe, the average size of hotels was 35.3 beds in 1994 from where it changed only marginally to 37 beds by 1998 (Eurostat, 2000). Figures for Italy, Spain and France for the same period are as follows :

¹

As will be shown later, competitive forces are presently changing the make up, structure and functioning of the tourism industry towards a "new tourism" subject to new forms of governance. Before these new competitive forces will be described it pays to first investigate the determinants, which sustained "old tourism". In the main there are two forces that shape the patterns of growth and development in any industry, e.g.

a) the quantity and quality of entrepreneurs forming new tourism business and/or sustaining and developing existing ones and

b) the existence and/or development of competitive forces shaping the competitiveness of entire regions and/or industries as analyzed with Porter's diamond (1993).

ad a)

Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have always played an inordinate role in tourism. In some OECD countries accommodation and food is the branch of economic activity with the largest number of independent workers (e.g. in Austria 10.1 % are independent ; in tourism industry more than 23 % are independent workers) and from all apprenticable occupations and/or apprenticeship schooling programs, among those specializing in accommodation and food related businesses the largest percentage number of graduates usually went into forming their own businesses and/or taking it over from their parents (Austria : 1981 : 20.9 % in tourism vs. 11.6 % total ; 1991 : 15.75 % in tourism vs. 9.4 % total) (Tschurtschenthaler, 1998).

ad b)

In the wave of the post war II build up of mass tourism covering the period 1955 to 1975/80 many resource owners in the primary sectors of the economy such as fishing and agriculture converted their resources into tourism properties and became owners/managers of hotels, restaurants and other tourism related businesses. Among them only a small proportion were true entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian sense who single-handedly transformed little fishing villages or sleepy alpine farming communities into mega-destinations or resorts. Next to these tourism pioneers the remaining great majority of tourism entrepreneurs and/or would-be-entrepreneurs entered tourism in the 60ies and 70ies at a time when a sellers' market existed in many European regions. The latter enabled them to enter the market with absolute and relative low entry barriers in terms of physical, financial or human capital, technology and management know-how. Also the ease of entry into the industry was not matched with a symmetrical ease of exit for reasons of high net opportunity cost of market exit for tourism entrepreneurs (Weiermair, 1997). Thus, a great many entrepreneurs in tourism enjoyed local.monopolies and could afford to pursue satisficing instead of maximizing behavior yielding what might be termed a "life style entrepreneur" (Weiermair, 1998). The conditioning and functioning of entrepreneurship fitted very well the remaining competitive environment for tourism at the time. It could best be analyzed and described using below Porter's diamond of competitiveness :

Figure 1 : Competitive Factors of the "old" tourism (Source : based on Porter, 1993, S.151)

 

The four corners (determinants) of the above diamond model are shown to simultaneously codetermine competitiveness and thereby dynamically reinforce competitive processes. Thus, the then dominant form of mass tourism consisted largely of conservative inexperienced tourists who in the main wanted traditional holiday products at affordable (low) prices. As long as holiday products provided the right location (e.g. mountain or sea side) at low perceived risk (in terms of food habits, health and safety hazards or financial and information uncertainty) customers (tourists) easily turned into loyal repeat visitors vacationing in the limit their entire life at the same destination and/or in the same hotel (accommodation). Thus there was little pressure towards tourism entrepreneurs from the demand side to innovate their production and/or marketing of traditional holiday products (services). As long as traditional tourism services (in terms of accustomed hospitality) were offered at the right location and at the right time a competitive equilibrium prevailed. The latter was helped by the low cost and availability of traditional production conditions in terms of nature and tourism infrastructure, low cost and sufficiently qualified labor (usually a mix between unqualified seasonal often guest workers and vocationally trained indigenous workers) financial capital (usually provided through conventional financing in the form of mortgage finance) and small scale tourism enterprises. Only very few other sectors could be considered or treated as related industries namely agriculture and food processing.

Starting in the mid seventies/beginning eighties in many OECD countries the competitive conditions conducive to the traditional form of tourism and hospitality have radically changed (see also Poon, 1993). Before going on to describe the competitive framework for the "new tourism" next in chapter II, it may be useful to first outline the competitive disadvantages which by the time of the eighties could be found in large parts of the small and medium (SM) sized segment of the tourism industry. In a market characterized by "hard" competition, SM sized tourism enterprises must overcome these competitive disadvantages which can evolve through external or internal forces. Schematically these can be shown as follows in Table 2.

Traditionally economists and tourism industry analysts have been mainly concerned with market driven e.g. externally induced changes in competitiveness as shown on the left hand side of diagram 2. Much has been written about the competitive consequences of externally induced shocks (e.g. Witt & Witt, 1992; Smeral et al., 1998) hence they do not need further discussion and/or elaboration in the context of this paper which is more concerned with firm internally created barriers towards growth and competitiveness. The firm's inability to produce a competitive value for money in tourism as elsewhere suggests that the firm is either unable to produce an average (market) quality at a lower (competitive) price or that it is unable to deliver tourism services which have a standard competitive market price at higher than average market quality. As elsewhere inter-firm differences of competitiveness in the tourism industry derive from different configurations of size and organization yielding differences in cost/quality dimensions and involving economies of scale and scope, learning.and innovation and access to unique factors of production (Porter, 1980 ; Goshal, 1987 ; Dunning, 1988).

 

Historically Grown Competitive Disadvantages

Due to Firm External Developments	Due to Firm Internal Developments
Unpredictable market development in sending countries (economic situation, exchange rate/price level, leisure trends, changing preferences)	Inefficient and ineffective management
Technological development Altering competitive situations in old and new tourism destinations	Insufficient adjustment of entrepreneurial capacities & behaviour
Development of the domestic economy (highly improved productivity in other industries – cost pressures)	Sucession problems of family businesses
Development of tourism related industries (such as agriculture, foodprocessing, transportation, architecture, trade, culture, entertainment, sports, etc.)	Insufficient adjustment of leadership styles (e.g. employee guidance & coaching)
	Problems related to quality management
-	Deficiencies in product development
-	Missed market opportunities (in terms of new competitive strategies, new positioning, internationalisation, etc.)
-	Incorrect investment planning (wrong investment focus, abandoned investments)
? Necessity for business adjustment	? Necessity for restructuring and/or reorganisation of internal processes

Table 2 : Sources of competitive disadvantages for traditional SMEs in tourism.

Before much of the stakeholders in the tourism industry, particularly the portion of S&M enterprises, had realized the potential and need to restructure and reorganize their tourism enterprises in order to regain a competitive edge, the tourism industry itself underwent strong structural shifts driven by a host of factors such as dramatic changes in customer preferences, heightened technological change, internationalization and globalization of markets and the availability of new factors of production to name only the most important ones. Both of these internally and externally induced changes laid the foundation towards new forms of organization and management/entrepreneurship in tourism. They will be dealt with next in II.

II. The "new tourism" : Restructuring and re-engineering in a new environment of heightened competition

Starting in the eighties and mid-eighties (depending on the tourism receiving region in question) a number of dramatic environmental changes occurred which moved the "tourism industry" much closer to the characteristics of the new economy. On the demand side the undifferentiated conservative and economizing mass customer (tourist) gave way to a much more traveled, experienced and quality conscious individualist as tourist; "mass tourism" seemed to have been replaced by the "individualized mass" (Poon, 1993; Opaschowski, 1993 ; Weiermair & Peters, 2000). Used to more convenience, faster service and more options from his/her every-day-life the new tourist also insisted on more options, more entertainment and fun, more diversified sports facilities and cultural variety in his/her vacation (see e.g. Weiermair & Fuchs, 2000). This new consumer (tourist) thereby exercised pressure upon the tourism industry and tourism enterprises to develop new products, services and experiences.

Where the latter had become globalized - such as was the case with hotel accommodation and fast food, car rentals, certain leisure products and entertainment (e.g. international films), etc. - global companies very quickly began penetrating formerly fragmented and local tourism markets. Left only with local competitive advantages (Dunning, 1988), and more so competitive disadvantages vis-à-vis the international or transnational tourism enterprise, pressure mounted in many, notably European, regional and local tourist destinations to restructure, reengineer and/or redesign "hard-, soft- and human ware" within the core and peripheral tourism businesses. This process, which is still ongoing, involved and benefited from a new set of factors of production and enlarged and better integrated clusters of tourism-related businesses and industries.

On the top of the list of newly available factors of production were the new information and communication technologies, often even specifically designed for the tourism industry such as e.g. CRS (computer reservation systems) or DIS (destination information systems), tourism web-sites on the internet or computer assisted back up systems for complex vacation or business travel packages. Manpower in tourism becomes much more human capital intensive and now becomes considered by enlightened management and tourism entrepreneurs as an asset rather than a cost item (Tschurtschenthaler, 1998). As a consequence there has been a dramatic change in the schooling and training of the tourism labor force (Weiermair & Fuchs, 1997 ; Bieger, 1998). Gradually the industry also experiences the rise of a new type of.entrepreneur who is less operation- and more strategy-oriented, assumes calculated risks, is on average better trained and/or experienced, more oriented towards problem-solving and assumes more up-to-date styles of leadership (see e.g. Weiermair & Wöhler, 1998 ; Hinterhuber & Krauthammer, 1997).

 

Figure 2 : Competitive Factors of the "new" tourism (Source: based on Porter, 1993, S.151)

Location and climate, while still remaining important factors of production for tourism products/services, share their importance with other man-made factors such as design features, entertainment content or virtual options of tourism structures and supra-structures (see e.g. Pine & Gilmore, 1999 ; Wolf, 1999 ; Weiermair & Peters, 2000). The latter become supplied or otherwise connected through diagonally integrated non tourism firms and industries such as financial services, architecture, design and real estate development, sports, culture and entertainment, health care and education, food processing, beverage and agriculture, to name only the more important branches of economic economy. As before with "old tourism" these new competitive conditions re-enforce each other in the competitive diamond for "new tourism" as can be shown in Fig. 2.

As can be seen from the diamond model in Figure 2 the newly constituted competitive advantages within a novel competitive environment are only sustainable in a proper business and/or entrepreneurial climate and environment providing vision, leadership and appropriate organizational structures and processes which ultimately can supply desired customer-oriented problem solutions and/or customized tourism experiences (Pine & Gilmore, 1999).

This in turn requires new forms of organizations and governance which will be discussed next in III.

III. Novel forms of governance of tourism enterprises as vehicles of growth and development

At the root of new configurations of service firms' transaction systems outside the firm with their customers and inside the firm in their resource allocation and decision making mechanism lie the twin forces of globalization, the rise of the transnational enterprises and increased competitive pressures on the one hand and on the other hand the new information processing and communication capabilities of present IT technology which Quinn has labeled "informalisation" (Quinn, 1992), others have coined the term "informate" (Zuboff, 1988).

New information and communication technologies (ICT) are particularly relevant for the tourism industry, indeed some have claimed them to be today the entire backbone of the tourism industry (Sheldon, 1997). Certainly a mushrooming literature today points at the instrumental role of tourism-related IT in all strategic and operational decisions, promising productivity and competitive improvements in all parts of the tourism industry and including S&Ms (Buhalis, 1998; Evens & Peacock, 1999; Sigalla et al. 2000).

While some very basic computer applications, such as word processing, accounting and reservation systems, only represent simple automation processes which can reduce employment and/or downsize operations, others can e.g. include the establishment of separate support systems (e.g. the linking of reservation systems with yield management algorithms) or the introduction of "hyperautomation" algorithms (Groth, 1999). The latter typically includes such integrations as e-procurement with inventory control, production, sales and accounting systems. E.g. the linkage of customer data base management with yield management, reservation and marketing automation systems can create one automated system of Customer Relationship Management.

Among the most important discussed organizational effects of ICT are the changing of the firm's boundaries. Organizations will undertake reconfigurations as their boundaries are stretched by cost effective IT communications between customers, suppliers and firms.

Enterprises become in this way reconstructed as market-based organizational entities by with outsourcing specialized firms and replacing functions formerly performed within hierarchies (Hirschhorn & Gilmore 1992, Quinn 1992).

IT at the same time has the capacity to "create" knowledge, know-how and competencies or "informate" by generating "information about the underlying production and administrative processes through which an organization accomplishes its work" (Zuboff, 1988, p. 280). Thus IT is at the root of the "intelligent enterprise" (Quinn, 1992) feeding the process of creating and recreating employees' capabilities to seek, build, use and share knowledge in order to create superior services. Thus knowledge management has not only become a real "fad" for academics involved in business and management research (see e.g. Yoffie, 1997 ; Quinn, 1992 ; Stewart, 1999 ; Groth 1999) but also truly reflects ongoing restructuring processes of firms towards greater competitiveness through improved organizational learning and knowledge-management (Hamel, 1991).

As has been pointed out previously, the "new tourism" offers growth and development prospects in form of customer-oriented production and distribution of differentiated tourism services or experiences to new or existing customer segments by relying heavily on IT or ICT.

Competition is fierce as many SMEs in tourism today face lean global companies who think global and can act locally in a very fast and flexible way (Weiermair, 1998).

Survival in this new business environment is reserved for those enterprises who possess optimal organization design and redesign capabilities. Organizational form and governance have thus become the new factors of competitive success and constitute sources of competitive advantage (see e.g. Nohria & Eccles, 1992). There now exists a consensus both among organization theorists and practitioners that the "network organization " in its various possible structural configurations (e.g. as cooperative partnerships, strategic alliance,.confederation of loosely allied partners, management contracts, franchising, etc.) remains the most viable form of organization for the delivery of complex service bundles to a "multi-option" consumer (tourist) in the context of international and dynamically changing markets.

Germane to the intellectual development of the "network "organization have been the path-breaking treatises on the economics of transaction cost and the control and coordination of market and non-market activities by Williamson (1996) and others (Imai & Itami, 1996 ; Miles & Snow, 1996; Richardson 1996). Using the same theoretical underpinnings Doz & Hamel (1998) have shown how the network organization can create value through various forms of partnering.

Figure 3: Interrelationship between the forces of globalization and the quest for value generation through strategic alliances (Source : Doz & Hamel, 1998, p. 36)

Availability and continuous improvement of ICTs for application in tourism have further strengthened the role and importance of the network organization in tourism. Schematically Doz & Hamel (1998, p. 36) have illustrated as to how the twin forces of globalization and technology create the necessity for networking to achieve competitive advantages as is seen in Figure 3 above.

The trend of the new economy towards new forms of corporate governance in network organizations has equal relevance for the growth and development of all tourism enterprises including SMEs. The trend is relevant for the question as to whether historically grown competitive disadvantages of tourism SM enterprises can be eradicated through appropriate forms of governance structures and processes in cooperative networks and for the question as to what some of the remaining barriers to this new organizing mode still are (Weiermair, 1999). Secondly as to whether governance through appropriate "network" organizations can offer cost effective, hence competitive ways to deal with the critical growth and management issues of developing, transferring and controlling service (quality) concepts in tourism (see e.g. Belz & Bieger, 2000).

So far reconfiguration of service processes and a new division of core competencies through diagonal integration and corporate governance in "business bugs" have been best observable in professional and financial services (Österle et al., 1999).

Organizational transformations in the SMEs sector of the tourism industry are still slow in the making as owner/managers of these enterprises often lack strategic vision and technical/professional qualification in the field of organizing service concepts and service deliveries across production or enterprise like entities and across national borders. The biggest hurdle derives from the fact that owners of SMEs still insist on total control and ownership of their resources (Weiermair & Peters, 1998).

As SMEs in tourism are becoming exposed to ever increasing competitive threats from multinational and transnational tourism enterprises, transaction cost considerations will win over behavioral constraints and institutional rigidities. The arrival of new forms of governance of contractual and non-contractual relations will likely coincide with the arrival of a new Schumpeterian type of entrepreneur.

IV. Outlook

Many European and/or OECD tourism enterprises and many tourism destinations are still stooped in and work with paradigm of the old tourism economy which can at least in part be blamed for market saturation and/or -maturity and for the secular decline in competitiveness observable in many tourism destinations and -enterprises..For destinations and enterprises to regain competitiveness the major prescription provided in this paper has been a suggestion of major restructuring towards new forms of business models and business concepts which came in the forms of networks and/or tourism clusters and which are governed by new unconventional governance structures and processes.

The new competitive environment also requires some departure from traditional tourism policies which have provided and/or subsidized traditional tourism infra- and supra-structures, and/or which have supplied subsidies for high cost/risk investments to SMEs associated with the reduction of negative externalities only.

The new tourism economy, if it is to evolve with a clear competitive edge, needs more attention to be paid to the existence and market-like functioning of venture capital markets and/or generally a better access of the tourism industry to capital markets, more attention to human capital accumulation associated with innovation, product development and cross border activities and above all the securement and further development of tourism related ICT (in terms of hard-, soft-, and human ware).

Finally local, regional, national and international governmental bodies should concern themselves more actively with the pursuit of promoting more heavily sustainable tourism networks. In some cases where private partners are weak (either because of size or lacking professionalization) governments may be called upon to initiate and participate in strategic alliances and partnerships. The latter is particularly important where the development of new products, services and/or core competencies are at stake. Even though the "new economy" has been late in arriving in the tourism sector, it has been important in boosting competitiveness and hence "new tourism" is likely to stay.

 

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Notes :

1 Mergers, acquisitions, and the development of international hotel chains account for the sharp increase in hotel size and bed capacities in Spain. Back to text.