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The case was developed from two 2-h interviews with the Chief Operating Officer of A-Basin, Alan Henceroth; there is no CEO of A-Basin. The second interview was recorded on a Zoom call to provide accuracy of quotations and information. A variety of secondary sources were used in terms of better understanding the current state of the ski industry, as well as its history.

Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin) is a historic, moderately sized, ski area with proximity to metropolitan Denver, Colorado. For over 20 years A-Basin partnered with Vail, allowing skiers to use the Vail Epic Pass, for which A-Basin received some revenue from Vail for each skier visit. The Epic Pass allowed pass holders unlimited days of skiing at A-Basin. More and more skiers were buying the Epic Pass, thus increasing the customer traffic to A-Basin. However, the skier experience was compromised due inadequate parking, long lift lines and crowded restaurants. The renewal of the contract with Vail was coming due, and A-Basin had to consider whether to renew the contract with Vail. The case is framed primarily as a strategic marketing case. The authors use Porter’s five forces model to assess the external environment of A-Basin, and the authors use the resource-based view and the VRIO tool to assess A-Basin’s internal strengths. Both frameworks provide useful analysis in terms of deciding whether to continue A-Basin’s arrangement with Vail or end the contract and pursue a different strategy. In 2019, after consultation with the Canadian parent company Dream, A-Basin made the decision to disassociate itself from the Epic Pass and Vail to restore a quality ski experience for A-Basin’s customers. No other partner had ever left its relationship with Vail. An epilogue details some of A-Basin’s actions, as well as the outcomes for the ski area. Generally A-Basin’s decision produced positive results and solidified its competitive position among competitors. Other ski areas have since adopted a similar strategy as A-Basin. A-Basin’s success is reflected in a pending offer from Alterra, Inc., to purchase the ski area.

The A-Basin case can be used in both undergraduate and graduate strategic (or marketing) management courses. It is probably best considered during the middle of an academic term, as the case requires students to apply many of the theoretical concepts of strategy. One of the best books to enable students to use Porter’s five forces is Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Magretta was a colleague of Porter for many years and was an Editor of the Harvard Business Review. For a discussion of the VRIN/VRIO concept, see Chapter 4 of Essentials of Strategic Management by Gamble, Peteraf and Thompson (New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2019).

The case includes issues in sustainable enterprises, marketing management, organizational development, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, organizational leadership and small business management.

The Bahia Aventuras case may be used at both the undergraduate and graduate levels of study within most business school curricula (BSBA, MBA and MS). Potential courses may include building sustainable enterprises, marketing management, organizational development, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, organizational leadership and small business management.

Bahia Aventuras is an ecotourism company in Costa Rica. A local entrepreneur, Walter Brenes, started the company in 2007 to specialize in marine tours, including whale watching, bird viewing and snorkeling. However, the founder had no business training and confronts both internal and external challenges to achieve sustainable success, both financially and environmentally. Internally, there were few financial control systems in place and as a result Walter's ability to accurately account for revenues and expenses was limited. Bahia Aventuras and Walter also faced external challenges. Construction of a new highway was likely, and that could bring more competition, including hotel chains such as the Marriott and Sheraton. Government regulation cut both ways for the company. He was the classic small businessperson, who needed help in moving to the next stage of development for his small business. Thus, a small ecotourism business was caught in the middle of rapid economic development, a growing national infrastructure and increasing pressures to preserve and protect the coastal ecosystem and rainforest of south central Costa Rica. He was just trying to figure out how to “stay alive” as a business. The case has a tragic ending for the owners. Both Walter and his partner, along with one of their tour guides, died in a car accident. But family, friends and the community has kept Walter's vision alive, and Bahia Aventuras continues to day.

outcomes Upon completion of the Bahia Aventuras case, each participant will be able to: Describe the economic development and growth prospects of ecotourism within Costa Rica. Evaluate the socio-economic challenges which confront Costa Rica as a developing nation within the Central American region. Describe how Costa Rica's environmental regulations have affected the continued growth and development of ecotourism within the country. Describe the complex set of relationships that may exist between small business owners, their employees, regulatory agencies and the local community. Apply management skills and competencies to analyze and propose feasible solutions to organizational performance problems. Explain how the implementation of sustainable business practices may serve as a catalyst for the creation of shared value for organizational stakeholders as enabled through economic growth, attainment of social equity and preservation of the environment.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Representing the soft and hard sides of management, ethics and quality are core aspects of an organization. Both are a philosophy as well as a process that seek to optimize behavior through clarifying the purpose and nature of work. This study examines Drucker′s treatment of these central components of management. Following a discussion of the methodology employed, each concept is analyzed. The implications of the findings are then explored.

The Korean airline industry continues to change in 20-year cycles structurally. The major changes are in their market through deregulation and liberalization resulting in adding more carriers, especially low-cost carriers (LCCs) from 2006. The authors categorize three types of LCCs in Korea: (1) independent LCCs, (2) LCCs subsidized by existing airlines as airlines-within-airlines (AwAs), and (3) LCCs supported by conglomerates and local governments. Independent LCCs have suffered financially during the research period from 2009 to 2013, especially from the impaired capital, even though these LCCs are growing rapidly and expanding their markets in domestic and international routes. AwAs’ efficiency is higher than that of independent LCCs, the roles in the market are limited because of cannibalization by their mother company.

The advent of the postpandemic era has brought renewed attention to the development of business tourism. However, the existing research on business tourism is fragmented, and there are gaps in the current understanding of the subject. This study aims to identify the intellectual structures, current hotspots and research directions in the business tourism field from 1994 to 2023.

A bibliometric visual analysis using VOSviewer was conducted to assimilate the available knowledge from 136 business tourism-related articles collected in the WoS Core Collection database between 1994 and 2023.

The results indicate that the number of business tourism-related research fluctuates, but the overall trend is gradually increasing. It synthesizes four main research themes, which are tourist behavior, destination marketing, information technology and work-family interferences of business travelers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to systematically review business tourism publications over the past 29 years. It assists scholars in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of business tourism research and informs future research directions.

后疫情时代的到来使得商务旅游的发展再次受到关注。然而, 目前的商务旅游研究是零散的, 我们对与这一主题的理解存在空白。本研究旨在确定1994至2023年商务旅游相关领域的知识结构、当前热点和研究方向。

本研究使用VOSviewer进行了文献计量学可视化分析, 以吸收从Web of Science（WOS）核心合集数据库中收集的136 篇1994年至2023年间的商务旅游相关文章中的可用知识。

结果表明, 与商务旅游相关的研究数量呈现出波动但总体逐渐增加的趋势。其中包括四个主要的研究主题, 分别是游客行为、目的地营销、信息技术和商务旅行者的工作与家庭。

本研究系统回顾了过去29年间与商务旅游相关的出版物。从而有助于学者们对商务旅游研究有更全面地了解, 并获得未来的研究方向。

El advenimiento de la era postpandemia ha renovado la atención prestada al desarrollo del turismo de negocios. Sin embargo, la investigación existente sobre el turismo de negocios está fragmentada y existen lagunas en la comprensión actual del tema. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo identificar las estructuras intelectuales, los focos actuales y las direcciones de investigación en el ámbito del turismo de negocios desde 1994 hasta 2023.

Se realizó un análisis visual bibliométrico utilizando VOSviewer para asimilar el conocimiento disponible en 136 artículos relacionados con el turismo de negocios recogidos en la base de datos WoS Core Collection entre 1994 y 2023.

Los resultados indican que el número de investigaciones relacionadas con el turismo de negocios fluctúa, pero la tendencia general es a aumentar gradualmente. Se sintetizan cuatro temas principales de investigación: el comportamiento del turista, el marketing de destinos, la tecnología de la información y las interferencias trabajo-familia de los viajeros de negocios.

Este estudio es uno de los primeros que revisa sistemáticamente las publicaciones sobre turismo de negocios de los últimos 29 años. Ayuda a los investigadores a obtener una comprensión más completa de la investigación sobre el turismo de negocios y sugiere futuras líneas de investigación.

This paper aims to provide an assessment of tourism promotion in tourist destinations and airports (TPTDs) and to organize and classify the literature on tourism promotion, with the aim of staging the importance of this topic and encouraging future research in the projection of tourism and marketing sectors.

The paper uses the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) database to analyze the bibliometric in TPTDs topic from 2000 to 2021. Additionally, the paper also uses the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software to map graphically the bibliographic material. The graphical analysis uses bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation and co-occurrence of keywords.

This study provides an amended new definition of tourism promotion, which is the efficient management of a destination’s resources and strategic plans by destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to adapt the tourism supply to market trends and will empower tourists to visit such destinations. Furthermore, results also show a new paradigm applied to TPTDs topic and classified in five first-order research streams. Digital and mobile marketing, infrastructure, branding, quality, accessibility and information factors about a specific destination which are mostly demanded by tourists are considered as an important means of promotion for the tourism industry.

The contribution of this study is important to identify new challenges and opportunities for researchers, DMOs, airport and airlines operators and stakeholders, as disentangling existing contradictions and applying new theoretical framework to make better future decisions by researchers and organizations to provide higher quality to new research in the context of the TPTDs.