Strategy for Tourism

Citation

Ekiz, E. (2012), "Strategy for Tourism", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 352-353. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596111211218643

Among literally thousands of “business strategy” and hundreds of “tourism strategy” books, Professor John Tribe's Strategy for Tourism book stands out by being written in a highly accessible and student‐friendly manner while not compromising the coverage of all aspects of an effective strategy. From my point of view, the author struck a right balance between theory (with a good summary of what has been written previously) and practice (with a rich selection of international and highly relevant case studies). For this reason alone, this book should be read, regardless of whether one is a lecturer looking for course text or a tourism professional looking for successful business strategies.

The book is structured in a way to reflect four fundamental components of any strategy; namely purpose, analysis, choice and implementation. The author used these components as headings for the four parts of his book. There are 12 chapters detailing these components. Part I, containing three chapters, aims to provide basic understanding on strategic process. To start with, chapter 1 presents introductory issues and presents a framework for an effective strategy process. This chapter is followed by a detailed examination of strategic mission concept in chapter 2. This chapter also presents a well‐rounded analysis of aims and purposes of tourism entities. In addition, chapter 2 introduces the idea of stakeholders and their importance in tourism industry. The next chapter highlights the importance of national culture in any strategy and its formulation. It provides an overall view of essential culture theories and links them to strategy. Part II of the book aims to elaborate the strategic analysis and techniques used for situational analysis. Chapter 4 introduces the external environmental factors (political, environmental, socio‐cultural and technological), known as PEST analysis. Different ways of analyzing competitive environment is evaluated in chapter 5. Subsequent chapter presents a detailed analysis of internal resources by focusing on strengths and weaknesses of tourism organizations. Chapter 6 also presents a useful and complete SWOT analysis that summarizes the issues covered in previous two chapters. After analyzing the internal and external environment choosing an appropriate strategy is the next of strategy process. Part III conveys points to consider while proposing and justifying a particular strategy for tourism enterprises. To do so, chapter 7 establishes the major types of strategies, by taking Porter's (1998) model as a foundation. Once an organization decides on its strategies next step would be choosing the direction and method to follow, chapter 8 highlights these issues in detail. In order to choose an apposite strategy all competing strategies must be evaluated. To this end, chapter 9 put forward an easy to understand and follow set of guidelines. After this evaluation, the best possible corporate strategy is chosen to be implemented. Part IV presents useful tips and guidelines to construct a plan to operationalize affective strategies for a tourism organization. Chapter 10 confers of implementation by focusing on financial, physical and human resources facets of the process. Next chapter deals issues regarding to management, control and evaluation of strategies. Finally, chapter 12 concludes the book by providing a straightforward set of guidelines on how to write and present a strategy document. This chapter also presents useful tips on crisis strategies and some final closing remarks.

The abovementioned logical flow makes the book easy to read and teach from. As a lecturer I found the case studies in each chapter quite interesting and highly up‐to‐date. Moreover, having the definition of the important concepts on the left side of the pages where they are mentioned makes the readers' life easy. I am sure that my students will find the “review of the key terms”, “multiple choice questions” and “discussion questions” at the end of each chapter very useful. They help the readers to review the material and test their understanding of the content provided in the chapter. Besides, having reference sections right after each chapter makes it easy for students and researchers to go deeper into the literature.

Although, I believe Professor Tribe aimed to provide a systematic and comprehensive yet easy to read introductory book for understanding strategies in tourism industry, yet I think this is a must‐have book for industry practitioners. By following the steps explained in this book, they can come up with better, more efficient and less costly strategies for their businesses. This book also can be used as a complementary material for business students, interested in services management. All in all, I strongly recommend this book as a well‐written course material and a must‐have to each manager in the tourism industry.