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As destinations emerge from the crisis, a sustainability-focused recovery approach is necessary; thus, there is need to design action plans that are capable of managing the environmental impacts caused by cruise tourism and identify citical issues and priorities for sustainable tourism management in the post-COVID-19 era. This article presents a detailed overview of key issues facing cruise tourism in Mahahual – Costa Maya, the second most important port of entry/cruise destination in Mexico and areas of opportunity to cope with or manage change, both positive and negative. Areas of discussion include: local attitudes towards cruise tourism, government policies currently in place or in consideration that may impact cruise tourism, social or environmental projects that cruise companies should support in or around the host destination to foster sustainability after the pandemic. The analysis is based on desk-research, local stakeholder feedback/input, site visits and an evaluation of the destination's policies and practices against a selected number of indicators from Global Sustainable Tourism Council – GSTC's Criteria for Destinations (GSTC-D). Issues identified include: fear of rapid and uncontrolled growth of tourism before the pandemic (both cruise tourism and stay-over tourism), pollution and the loss of ecosystems/environmental degradation, disappointment due to low economic spill – lack of benefits from cruise tourism and limited public services and infrastructure (water and electricity, sewage treatment, garbage etc.). The researcher recommends regular and timely collection, recording, monitoring and public reporting of data about residents' aspirations, issues and satisfaction with destination management.

Utilizing data drawn from 18 in-depth case studies the authors explore in detail the factors shaping employment in a diverse range of Irish small- and medium-sized enterprises. Existing theory in HRM is deemed inadequate in capturing the complexity of HRM in SMEs especially as it treats organizations as hermetically sealed entities. In an effort to animate the criticism directed at normative models of HRM the authors use a conceptual framework with an emergent, open systems theoretical proposition to examine the parameters, dynamics and determining factors of HRM at each of the case study companies. The results show that the notion of a normative HRM model was not coherent in terms of actual practices but rather reactive, and emergent HRM-related processes were often imposed to meet legislative requirements or to reinforce owner–manager legitimacy and control. The authors conclude that an appreciation of the interaction between structural factors both inside and outside the immediate work milieu is crucial if the heterogeneity of HRM in SMEs is to be adequately accommodated and understood.

Introduction: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the economic development of economies by generating job opportunities. Considering their significance, understanding the challenges and skills required in these enterprises becomes essential and timely.

Purpose: This study aims to discuss the limitations and skill gaps faced by SMEs in emerging economies, such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Ghana, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, UAE, Iran, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, Zambia, Romania, and Vietnam.

Methodology: The study adopts a systematic review and meta-synthesis approach, utilising a literature review to comprehensively analyse, synthesise, and map the existing literature by identifying overarching themes.

Findings: The study examines the challenges SMEs encounter in emerging economies, including resource scarcity, limited access to credit, inadequate infrastructure, low technology adoption, restricted global market access, and ineffective marketing strategies. There is a notable shortage of skilled labour and development initiatives within SMEs in India even though the country has a sizeable pool of qualified workers. There is a pressing need for additional technical and managerial skills to remain competitive in the market. The findings of this study will assist HR managers in addressing skill shortages among employees in SMEs operating within emerging economies

Kenyan Small and Medium-sized Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs) have been highly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the tourism workforce had to face lockdowns and travel restrictions. In order to maintain business and operational continuity, the tourism workforce had to leverage on internet technologies and digitalisation as a means of enabling business continuity and providing value addition in their supply chains. This study sought to investigate on the extent to which digital skills aid in the tourism recovery process as well as improve the employees' well-being amid the COVID-19 pandemic among SMTEs in Nairobi City County.

The study took a qualitative approach based on constructivist grounded methodological approaches that emphasised specifically on the discovery of emerging trends and patterns in behaviour as well as development of new theory. The aim was to understand the tourism workforce recovery process using digital skills. The process involved data gathering from interview participants, qualitative emic and etic coding, analytical memo writing, theoretical sampling and reconstructing theory.

The findings of the study showed that due to losses attributed to the lockdowns and travel restrictions, prospective digital business models have been formulated for tourism stakeholders during the lockdown period. The changing technological landscape globally showed that digital skills will continue to be in great demand to meet the needs of the marketplace. Further, the use of social digital tools to build a mental health response to COVID-19 was instrumental to the recovery process. Technological resilience is a key factor that will play a role in reviving the sector.

A structured vision, roadmap and tourism strategy for mainstreaming digital skills and developing technological resilience within the tourism and hospitality sector is important towards coping and adaptive strategies for the SMTEs in the Kenyan context.

This study examines how digital skills are vital for tourism recovery especially for the SMTEs within the developing countries context.

Following increasing competition on the international tourism market, a great number of Swiss hotels which are generally family businesses with small structures and aging infrastructures, find themselves in a critical financial situation. Thus, many hotels having exhausted their economic potential, cannot adequately upgrade their performance. For this reason they are forced to respond to the requirements of potential investors by presenting the progress of their activities through models of cooperation with other hotel establishments and/or other actors. In view of the significance of this issue, the present article proposes to study the effect of collaboration intensity and the type of management on the performance of Swiss collaborating hotels. By adopting a global approach to performance, it appears that hotel performance is influenced by the intensity of collaboration. Regarding the effect of the type of management the results are more questionable.

This chapter aims to discuss the key issues of green entrepreneurship in tourism (GEiT), paying special attention to the environmental performance of green entrepreneurs and its relationship with strategy, brand reputation and long-term business growth.

Literature review is conducted on conceptual issues and several hotels first-hand experiences that were categorised to provide readers with business-world examples.

This chapter highlights how small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs are the agents who started green innovation initiatives and how larger corporations tested and validated them. A myriad of small green interventions awaits to be undercovered and implemented. Most of them can bring financial improvements to the entrepreneurs as the required initial investments are not necessarily high.

This chapter is explorative in nature, based on a literature review and interviews-based analysis of consolidated green initiatives, most of them being successful ones.

The forces driving green initiatives are identified and classified. Most important categories of green entrepreneurs are described and emphasis was placed on the managerial and marketing benefits linked to green initiatives and action plans.

This chapter presents models and concepts in an integrated way, facilitating a useful knowledge for prospective entrepreneurs wishing to acquire a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to eco-friendly business.

The internationalization process in recent decades has been discussed from different approaches. In this chapter, we study the evolution of selected Latin American and Spanish companies that have experienced a growing evolution from small or medium-sized enterprises to large corporations with participation in global markets and a strategic role played by the family organizations and small business groups. It is a study of multiple cases scope focused on two main lines of discussion. In one hand, the trajectories of internationalization and, and the other, the family firm organization and structure, correspondingly to sectorial aspects and the global situations that have encouraged the expansion of markets, the acquisitions of assets outside the countries of origin, and the outsourcing system. The group of companies selected to discuss the heterogeneity of the internationalization processes is based in case studies: Lojas Amerianas-Brazil, Crystal Lagoons-Chile, Despegar.com-Argentina, Sol-Meliá, Spain, Ferrovial, Spain, Talgo, Spain. Among the findings of this comparative study, the following stand out: (1) debates about the family business are alive, (2) multidimensional perspectives between countries are needed to understand not only internationalization but also the relevance of competitive learning, entrepreneurial vision evolution, and diversity of trajectories between sectors and companies, and finally (3) the importance of culture and immigration in business and family development from Small and Medium Enterprises (hereafter SME) to large businesses.

Crisis management has developed as an established field of scholarly research in tourism over the last three decades. More recently, the concept of resilience has emerged within this body of literature as a longer-term planning process. However, important knowledge gaps remain, especially with regards to the strategic responses of small tourism businesses in destinations prone to repeated crises.

This chapter reviews the literature related to crisis management and resilience in tourism.

Key knowledge gaps are outlined and discussed in the context of tourism research related to crisis management and resilience, with a specific emphasis on research related to small tourism businesses.

Although crisis management and resilience are fields of research that continue to generate a considerable amount of scholarly enquiry in tourism, particularly with studies related to the impacts of terrorism on tourism destinations and, more recently, the short- and longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism, there is very little research related to the role of small tourism businesses in this context, in spite of their key role in the tourism system of destinations around the world.

This chapter conceptually addresses outward internationalisation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the emerging markets (EMs) by focussing on the role of prior contract manufacturing relationships with a developed market multinational enterprise (DMNE). The internationalisation of SMEs originating from EMs is a rather under-researched area and the role of prior contract manufacturing experience specifically has not been addressed in prior studies. Based on a literature review, the authors identified four capabilities developed by EM SMEs during their contract manufacturing relationships with DMNE(s) that potentially help in later outward internationalisation. The authors incorporate some insights from dynamic capabilities theory, and develop propositions addressing the role of relational capital, human capital, manufacturing productivity capabilities and product innovation capabilities in this specific context. Despite being conceptual in nature, this chapter is one of the first to explicitly highlight the role of these specific capabilities developed during contract manufacturing relationship for outward internationalisation, setting bases for future studies to further empirically investigate them in different contexts.