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This research aimed to examine the role of cloud infrastructure capabilities of tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism supply chain, increasing the online consumption value of tourists.

This study uses stratified random sampling. A value model was formulated, and the study distributed 2,000 surveys; 412 valid responses were received and analyzed using the structural equation modeling approach.

The cloud-based architecture provides tourism SMEs a competitive advantage in the dynamic tourism market and the ability to develop next-generation system capabilities while providing tourism SMEs with a new application foundation to adapt to the ever-changing tourism market.

For tourism SEMs, the cloud allows adjusting strategies and procedures for tourism supply chain management; this agility enables tourism SMEs to anticipate changes in the travel market and respond to changing consumer demands in the tourism industry.

This study aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on tourism and hospitality small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in an emerging country located in Latin America and identifies service innovation strategies adopted by these firms to survive a prolonged crisis.

A qualitative investigation was conducted drawing on a framework of imposed service innovation. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews with owners/managers of 20 SMEs in the hospitality and tourism sector in Chile.

Findings show that the effect of COVID-19 on SMEs includes a decline in demand due to lockdowns and restrictions, with minimal government support. Tourism and hospitality SMEs developed different service innovation strategies to confront the crisis, and several businesses were even able to exploit new opportunities for future growth.

The effect of COVID-19 and SMEs' service innovation strategies to confront a prolonged crisis is a topic that is largely unexplored, particularly in the tourism and hospitality sector. The findings contribute to the literature on emerging markets, crisis management and SME innovation in tourism and hospitality. The findings provide managerial implications for SME managers, governments and policymakers.

The main aim of this study was to examine the effect of the components of intellectual capital on the organizational performance of SMEs operating in tourism sector at Azad Jammu and Kashmir Pakistan.

In this empirical study, survey approach was used and primary data were collected through structured questionnaire. A total of 300 structured questionnaire survey forms were distributed through purposive sampling technique. Two hundred and twenty usable questionnaire survey forms were returned. Six research hypotheses were constructed to achieve the objective of this study. Smart Partial Least Square (PLS) 3 was used to test the proposed research hypotheses.

The findings showed that two out of six hypotheses were supported. Precisely, customer capital has appeared as one of the most important components of intellectual capital in model. The results showed that the overall intellectual capital has effect on the organizational performance of SMEs. Results shed more light on the effects that the components of intellectual capital have on organizational performance of SMEs, particularly in the context of Pakistan.

This research is limited to SMEs in tourism sector in Pakistan and the data were gathered through questionnaire which used mostly subjective measures. Subsequently, findings may not be applicable to other industries. The research contributes to the development of intellectual capital literature focused on the organizational performance in the perspective of SMEs in emerging economies. Future research needs to reach beyond the boundaries and understand the effect of intellectual capital on the performance of organizations.

This study extended the knowledge about the prominence of intellectual capital and its effect on the organizational performance of SMEs. Moreover, this study identified the level of existence and measurement of the six components of intellectual capital in SMEs which enables practitioners to develop adequate strategies to better manage it. To author's best knowledge, this study can be the first empirical study which investigates the impact of intellectual capital on the organizational performance of SMEs operating in tourism sector in Pakistan.

The characteristics of millions of SMEs, the way they operate, the growing employment they sustain, their collective influence over the quality of tourism products and destinations, and how to influence their development is arguably the most important issue for European tourism as we approach the millennium. This paper is based on a three‐day conference, Agenda 2010, convened by the Wales Tourist Board (WTB) and held at Llandudno in May 1998 during the UK Presidency of the EU. The meeting, supported by DGXXIII and the Welsh Office, was designed to highlight the contribution of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to European tourism and make recommendations for facilitating and supporting their activities in the future. SMEs are defined by the EC as businesses employing less than 250 employees although the great majority in tourism employ less than 10. Most readers will know that DGXXIII has separate responsibilities within the EC for SMEs and for tourism.

Human Sigma is an emerging topic among many academics and practitioners. At present, limited studies have been reported about the successful applications of Human Sigma in small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper therefore is to provide an analysis of contemporary business improvement tool implementation in UK tourism SMEs.

This paper presents an exploratory study of the Human Sigma approach to business improvement. Particularly, the research offers an overview of approaches to business improvement, whilst also presenting a framework for the implementation of Human Sigma. Adopting a case study of tourism SMEs, the paper examines attitudes to service quality management in terms of the implementation of business improvement tools.

The results of the study reveal that many of the SMEs are not aware of the Human Sigma approach to business improvement and while there is a range of tools, techniques and approaches available, they perceive several key barriers to prevent them from fully engaging. The research highlights the critical success factors for successful implementation are often related to customers and not employees. The perceived benefits from the usage of these tools are also displayed.

The limitations of this research are recognised, in particular the relatively small number of SMEs in a geographically confined area. Nevertheless, the research is intended primarily as an exploratory study designed to identify themes and issues as a basis for further research. Consequently, the study offers a number of significant findings that contribute more broadly to the Human Sigma literature.

This paper presents an initial study on the status of Human Sigma implementation in UK tourism SMEs. The service sector is dominated by a large number of SMEs and despite escalating attention paid within the literature to issues related to quality management, limited research has been undertaken into the utilisation and contribution of contemporary business improvements tools. A framework for the implementation of the Human Sigma approach to business improvement is illustrated. This paper will yield value to academics, consultants, researchers and practitioners.

This research aims to adopt competitiveness theory to analyse the effects of leadership competencies on the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism sector.

This research collected data from 200 participants, who are in management positions of tourism SMEs in Vietnam. Structural equation modelling was applied.

The results indicate satisfactory reliability and validity of the constructs and support for two models within a structural equation modelling to evaluate the influence of leadership competencies on the competitiveness of SMEs. The data from both customers and competitors show that the competitiveness and the performance of the enterprise are affected by hands-on experience; relationships building competencies; strategic vision; operations management competencies. Furthermore, customers also value professional knowledge of the enterprises' leaders.

The study suggests that the government agencies and tourism SMEs themselves should focus more on leadership. Training courses, exchange programs, seminars and workshops should be provided for SMEs leaders to improve their leadership competencies.

The research findings provide a more comprehensive view of internal and external factors affecting the competitiveness of SMEs in the tourism sector in Vietnam. This also contributes to competitiveness and leadership research by presenting the positive linkage between leadership competencies and the competitiveness of SMEs.

This research aims to analyze the relations between coopetition and innovation, by comparing two coopetitive tourism SMEs networks in Brazil.

The first network comprises 23 SMEs in Honey Island, a natural reserve, and the second network comprises 21 out of 25 SMEs in the Campos Gerais region, recognized by its strong agribusiness. Innovativeness variables included innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs; and four types of relations that foster innovation were considered, namely, commercial, informational, knowledge, and partnerships. Social network analysis was employed as well as statistical analyses such as Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney, Spearman correlation and Fischer's Z transformation.

Results show that coopetition is related to SMEs innovativeness. Commercial relations centralities correlated with many innovation outputs, information and knowledge centralities with some innovation inputs and outputs, and partnerships also with capabilities.

Besides contributing to the literature of innovation in tourism, this paper also contributes to the literature on coopetition and innovation by investigating how different types of coopetition relationships foster innovation inputs, capabilities, and outputs.

Managers may benefit from these findings by fostering specific innovation inputs, capabilities, or outputs by means of different coopetition relations. Similarly, regional tourism policy planners may also improve the innovativeness of tourism small businesses by fostering coopetition networks.

This paper not only compares the innovativeness of two small business coopetition networks in the tourism industry but also analyses quantitively in detail how different types of coopetition relations are related to different innovativeness variables.

This study aims to identify the structural relationship among social capital, knowledge sharing, innovation and performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a tourism cluster.

A total of 199 valid questionnaires are collected from SMEs in the Bomun tourism cluster in South Korea. A structural equation modeling approach is used to test the research hypotheses.

The findings suggest that social capital constructs, including network density of structural capital, relational capital and cognitive capital, all positively influence knowledge sharing among SMEs in the cluster. This implies that creating social capital is critical to enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs. This study confirms that knowledge sharing positively affects SME performance through innovation.

This study suggests that social capital, consisting of structural, cognitive and relational capital, facilitates increased knowledge sharing and innovation in a tourism cluster, which in turn enhances SME business performance.

This study suggests that tourism cluster policies should focus on how to create a friendly operational climate to build social capital and support SME innovation.

This study contributes to the literature on social capital and innovation as well as the discourse on tourism clusters by addressing knowledge sharing among SMEs in a tourism cluster. It also expands the knowledge sharing and innovation literature by focusing on inter-organizational social networking among SMEs.

By highlighting the important role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in readdressing the competitive balance between tourism small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger firms, this paper serves as a call to action to governments, regional tourism organisations and other policy-level stakeholders to facilitate more rapid diffusion of the developing smart tourism concept, helping to support tourism agenda 2030 and multiple UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Reviewing the literature on ICT use in tourism, this paper builds a case for deploying smart tourism to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs.

Without a collaborative approach, tourism SMEs are unlikely to use emerging technologies effectively to compete against larger peers and online platforms. By adopting a smart tourism approach, network effects between stakeholders can trump scale, allowing SMEs to compete more effectively and destinations to promote inclusivity and sustainable economic growth.

Highlighting the pivotal role that ICTs in general and Smart Tourism in particular can play in addressing the competitive imbalance between SMEs and larger players, this paper serves as a call for action for governments’ regional tourism organisations and other policy-level stakeholders to hasten their adoption of smart tourism principles as a means of supporting tourism agenda 2030 and furthering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

文章综述了旅游中ICT使用的文献, 构建了一个使用智慧旅游提高中小企业竞争力的案例。

文章强调了信息和通信技术 (ICTs) 在重新调整旅游业中小企业和大型企业之间的竞争平衡方面的重要作用, 呼吁政府、区域旅游组织和其他政策层面的利益相关者采取行动, 促进发展中的智慧旅游概念的更快传播, 帮助支持 2030 年旅游议程和联合国的多项可持续发展目标。

中小型旅游企业没有协作方法则无法有效使用新兴技术与大型企业和同类型平台竞争。采用智慧旅游方法, 利益相关者之间的网络效应可以战胜规模, 使中小型企业可以更有效竞争, 促进目的地包容性和可持续经济增长。

强调在大众和尤其是智慧旅游中, ICTs 扮演者解决中小型企业和大企业不平衡竞争力的关键角色, 呼吁政府、区域旅游组织和其他政策层面的利益相关者加快对智慧旅游准则的适应, 以支持 2030 年旅游议程和进一步的联合国可持续发展目标

Revisando la literatura sobre el uso de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) en turismo, este artículo desarrolla un caso de la implantación del Turismo Inteligente en la mejora de la competitividad de las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas (PYMES).

Al destacar el importante papel de las TIC en el reequilibrio competitivo entre las PYMES turísticas y las grandes empresas, este artículo sirve de llamada a la acción a los gobiernos, las organizaciones regionales de turismo y otras partes interesadas a nivel político para facilitar una difusión más ágil del turismo inteligente, contribuyendo a apoyar la agenda turística 2030 y los múltiples Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de la ONU.

Sin un enfoque colaborativo, es improbable que las PYMES turísticas utilicen eficazmente las tecnologías emergentes para competir con sus homólogas más grandes y las plataformas en línea. Si se adopta un enfoque de turismo inteligente, los efectos de red entre las partes interesadas pueden ganar terreno, lo que permite a las PYMES competir con mayor eficacia y a los destinos promover la inclusividad y el crecimiento económico sostenible.

Al destacar el papel fundamental que pueden desempeñar las TIC en general y el turismo inteligente en particular a la hora de abordar el desequilibrio competitivo entre las PYME y las grandes empresas, este trabajo sirve de llamamiento a la acción para que los gobiernos, las organizaciones regionales de turismo y otras partes interesadas a nivel político aceleren la adopción de los principios del turismo inteligente como medio de apoyar la Agenda de Turismo 2030 y promover los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible de las Naciones Unidas.

This paper aims to examine how organisational values affect diversity in terms of different competencies in rural family Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Recruiting a diverse workforce in rural family SMEs can be particularly difficult due to the prevalence of internal family values and the lack of available local specialised competencies. A deficiency of diversity in employment and competence acquisition and development can create problems, as it often prevents rural family SMEs from recruiting employees with a wide variety of qualifications and skills.

The study takes on a multi-case method of Swedish rural family SMEs, applying a qualitative content analysis approach. In total, 20 in-depth structured interviews are conducted with rural family SME owners and 2 industries were investigated and compared – the tourism and the manufacturing industries.

Rural family SMEs lack long-term employment strategies, and competence diversity does not appear to be a priority for rural family SMEs, as they often have prematurely decided who they will hire rather than what competencies are needed for their long-term business development. It is more important to keep the team of employees tight and the family spirit present than to include competence diversity and mixed qualifications in the employment acquisition and development.

Contrary to prior research, our findings indicate that rural family SMEs apply short-term competence diversity strategies rather than long-term prospects regarding competence acquisition and management, due to their family values and rural setting, which strictly narrows the selection of employees and competencies. Also, a general reluctance towards competence diversity is identified, which originates from the very same family values and rural context.