Search results

To explore and critically analyse entrepreneurship theories and concepts within the context of the small family tourism business, and the extent to which owner‐managers and their enterprises can be classified as entrepreneurial.

A model has been developed and applied to support a “drilling down” approach that moves from a surface understanding of entrepreneurship as a process through to an industry setting, to penetrate the organisational context and consequential entrepreneurial socio‐economic outcomes.

It has been demonstrated that understanding of the entrepreneurial process, as it interplays with family business, is best served by reference to the cultural, industry setting and organisational context within which entrepreneurs are embedded.

The tourism industry has been deliberately selected as an illustrative context due to the low degree of entrepreneurial behaviour that it has traditionally exhibited. Through the application of the model explanations are provided for this, and conclusions are drawn that do classify small family tourism businesses as a manifestation of entrepreneurship as broadly conceived.

This paper presents a marketing perspective that may have considerable relevance within niche markets that are served by hotels positioned at the top end of the market, with distinctive lifestyle products. It considers the extent to which such products can be effectively positioned through semiotic marketing strategies. Emergent strategies are presented in a model of a live market communication system. It is proposed that this represents a reorientation in focus of positioning strategies from product and transaction, to cultural criteria and sensory differentiation. Justification is presented on the basis that while core hotel products and services and their functionality are easily duplicated, semiotics, aesthetics and their lifestyle associations are more difficult to mimic. The application of this reorientation is illustrated through the examples provided as an extraordinary collection of highly individual hotels. These products have been deliberately defined to align to conceptions of self‐image, selling a set of symbolically defined features that are prototypical of a certain lifestyle.

Develops a conceptual framework for qualitative research directed at small hospitality firms, ensuring an appropriate “fit” between theory, research and analysis, and aiding subsequent practical applications for hospitality research practitioners. Proposes that certain key theoretical and qualitative research issues are often absent from hospitality research. This is to the detriment of the development of the subject area. Investigates justification, implications for choice, and application of methodologies. This serves to explore the relevance of one central school of social scientific thought, the action/interaction approach, to the multidisciplinary hospitality field of study. Shows how this model fits in with a research approach which takes the point of view of the subject or respondent. The overall aim is to debate the utility of this orientation for small hospitality firm research in contrast to the more commonly taken structural or organisational analysis. Examples are drawn from a specific empirical research enquiry to illustrate how conceptual and practical challenges of concern to critics of this approach are resolved in the field.

Tracks the evolution of a small hotel firm marketing consortium from 1990 when Scotland’s Commended Hotels, now called Scotland’s Hotels of Distinction (SHD), was formed. It can be described as an association of individually‐owned and managed country and town house hotels from 3‐star to 4‐star levels in terms of the Scottish Tourist Board grading and classification scheme. It currently has 62 members, which represent 1,116 bedrooms, giving an average size of 17 bedrooms. Key aims of SHD are to: maintain its position as the leading professional consortium for Scottish hotels which meet membership criteria; and to be active in marketing terms on behalf of members. This involves seeking opportunities to maximise profitable returns by accessing domestic and overseas markets which would otherwise be difficult on an individual small firm basis. In addition, SHD promotes co‐operation to enhance inter‐member referral business. The unification of such a peripheral segment of the hotel industry sector enables effective marketing of a tourist destination to the potential business performance benefit of individual member small firms.

Aims to provide an insight relative to the motivations of individuals entering into entrepreneurship. Analysis is made of the respective biographies of a female and a male immigrant entrepreneur who chose to participate in the domain of commercial hospitality, albeit separated by 68 years. A model of entrepreneurial motivation first presented by Naffziger guides this analysis. The model is attractive in that it combines wider environmental forces with the intrinsic motivations and social context of the entrepreneurs. It is concluded that it may be possible to isolate an independent common set of “out‐of‐time” factors associated with entrepreneurial motivation, that encompass the personal domain of the entrepreneur (characteristics, environment, goals). These combine with dependent “in‐time” factors (business idea, business environment) arising from the economic and social trends of the day to present a complex amalgam of events, characteristics and traits. It is proposed that entrepreneurs are “travellers through time”. Times may change, but the motivation, emotion, drive, purpose and “mania” of entrepreneurs remain constant.

Much of tourism development is predicated on the successful working of organisations alignment in the form of partnerships or “networks”. However, tourism networks have been relatively neglected as an area of academic study. This paper presents findings of research focusing on international tourism networks and draws out learning points from the examination of relatively successful examples. A review of relevant literature considers the definition and description of networks, their benefits, and identifiable success factors, and the research methodology applied is described. Discussion follows as to the main functions and benefits of tourism networks in relation to learning and exchange, business activity, and community. Key issues that emerge include: structure and leadership, resourcing, engagement of participants, inter‐organisational learning, and sustainability. The paper concludes by identifying significant success factors and consequential management implications with specific references to tourism destinations as learning communities.

Hospitality management higher education’s historic origins have resulted in a strong vocational ethos permeating the curriculum. Knowledge about hospitality has been drawn from the industry and the world of work rather than from the many disciplines or other fields of enquiry, which can help to explain it. By the late 1990s there was a strengthening international movement, driven by higher education hospitality academics towards the liberation of hospitality management higher education from its vocational base and to explore the inclusion in the curriculum of a broader and more reflective orientation. This paper investigates the historical evolution of hospitality management education, concepts associated with liberal education, and provides an illustrative case study that evaluates how a more liberal base was introduced into the curriculum at two universities located in Australia and Scotland respectively.

Over the last decade, research has been reported that appears to underline a mismatch between what is supplied by public sector support agencies in the form of small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) management and leadership development programmes and market needs and expectations. Thus, this paper analyses the underlying issues and progresses understanding through the use of a case study of a significant public sector support agency, along with a focus on one particular industry sector – that of tourism. Findings confirm views that historically there has been a degree of market failure, however, currently there is evidence of sound attempts to reorient from a supply‐driven to a market‐driven model of management development provision. Still to be fully addressed is the development of a cohesive framework that co‐ordinates and facilitates management and leadership development as a lifelong learning. Thus, one of the contributions of this paper is the formulation of such a framework that could provide a reorienting model for SMEs.

This research aims to extend knowledge pertaining to SMEs in general within the context of the tourism industry, and to establish a richer understanding relative to major factors affecting the development of SME travel agents in China.

In a pilot research project, exploratory in‐depth interviews were conducted with owner‐managers of SME travel agencies.

The findings indicate that being small in size and simple structure, short period of time in business operation, lack of management experience and market recognition have formed the major characteristics of these SMEs. Furthermore, they are facing an increasingly competitive environment and their sustainability is being threatened by a continuously decreasing market share and reducing profit levels.

A total of nine in‐depth interviews were conducted and the results cannot be generalized to the whole travel agent sector in China.

The research results also indicate that a series of internal and external factors are affecting the development of SME travel agents in China. Co‐operative and collaborative networking is recommended designed to strengthen SME travel agency business models.

SME travel agents have a very short development history in China and very little is known about the nature of the SMEs. This study intends to provide enhanced understanding of the SMEs which can serve as the base for future study.

Discussion and analysis of small businesses tends to work on generalised, popularised understanding and knowledge of what their motivations are and how they behave in a business environment. The need to explore below these generalisations into the submerged variables and relationships is argued in this paper if academics and policy makers seriously want to interpret and induct theory and practice from the key actors within their natural habitat. Thus, this paper provides a conceptual framework relative to small, urban tourism business performance, which is used as an analytical framework to guide the interpretation of qualitative research undertaken with small businesses in the City of Glasgow. Specifically, discussion and conclusions focus on the complexity and multi‐dimensional nature of small tourism business performance, aspects pertaining to competitive advantages, and the enterprise development issues arising from the prioritisation of lifestyle objectives over those of a more explicit economic nature. Conclusions are drawn relative to research, managerial and enterprise policy implications.