Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Tourism

Eduardo

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No hay resumen

Sujets

• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation
• Tourism
• Innovación
• Turismo

Informations

• Publié par: erevistas
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English

Extrait

Vol. 7 Nº 3 págs. 355-357. 2009

www.pasosonline.org


Editoral

Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Tourism




Eduardo Parra Lopéz
Universidad de La Laguna (España)
Dimitrios Buhalis
Bournemouth University (UK)
Alan Fyall
Bournemouth University (UK)





Entrepreneurship and innovation are researched area of investigation and,
therecritical factors in tourism and are both cen- fore, new critical insights of theoretical
tral to the continued success and develop- frameworks, methodologies and
sectorment of the industry, both globally and specific studies are required if the field is
regionally. As evidenced in the text by Hall going to mature and ‘catch up’ other more
and Williams (2008), entrepreneurship and established areas of intellectual enquiry
innovation can refer to a variety of con- such as tourism planning and marketing.
cepts. For example, they can refer to the To start to redress the balance of this
changes in the organisation of work, leisure vacuum of academic material, the broad
time and absolute and relative income dis- themes above serve as a catalyst for the
tribution as can they refer to exogenous many papers in this issue with three
specifsources of innovation such as technology. ic sub-themes coming under research
scruTourism can also drive innovation, either tiny. These can be summarized as:
entrethrough the behaviour of firms or through preneurship and entrepreneurial
developdeliberate policy making and interventions ment; market segmentation; and,
innovafrom government while it can also drive tion and tourism development.
innovation through its involvement in key Under the theme of entrepreneurship
sectors such as retailing. Interestingly, and entrepreneurial development, three
however, academic articles on entrepre- papers are presented. Set in the context of
neurship and innovation in tourism are few the development of mass tourism in
Mediand far between. Although case studies on terranean Spain and the Canary Islands in
both themes appear from time to time, em- the 1960s, the first paper by Fernández
pirical studies remain limited while in explores the emergence of a new tourist
those papers that have reached publication, ‘entrepreneur class’. Developing a
historiin many, there remains a paucity of empiri- cal, political and comparative perspective of
cal rigour. As such, it is the view of the the conditions that helped to configure the
three editors that entrepreneurship and growth of the local tourist ‘entrepreneur
innovation in tourism remains an under- class’ the author uses the island of Majorca
© PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural. ISSN 1695-7121 356 Editorial: Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Tourism

as the case setting, and reflects on how the with regard to their unwillingness to invest
combination of the rapid growth in Euro- more efforts in the growth ot their firms.
pean tour operations and the Franco ad- The paper concludes that lifestyle
ministration served as the catalyst for the entrepreneurs in tourism are motivated by
development of such a phenomenon. The different factors compared to
second paper by Jonker, Saayman and De Schumpeterian entrepreneurs. Future
Klerk focuses on the Klein Karoo National policy, therefore, needs to reconsider
Arts Festival (KKNK) in Oudtshoorn, motivational measures or subsidy/grants
South Africa which is the largest festival of programmes which aim to support
its kind in the country. The purpose of this entrepreneurial ventures.
study was to determine the attributes and Two papers feature in the second theme
role of the entrepreneurs at the festival, on market segmentation. The first by
something that was achieved by means of a Ferreira Lopes, Rial Boubeta and Varela
questionnaire survey which generated 249 Mallou explores a more applied theme in
responses. After data capturing was com- illustrating the advantages of the combined
pleted, two factor analyses were conducted. use of Conjoint Analysis and Cluster
The first factor analysis revealed six factors Analysis in determining market
segmenta(entrepreneurial attributes), namely organ- tion. The authors argue that the benefits
isational skills, resourcefulness, self- are easily understandable since Conjoint
edification, explorative, acquired skill and Analysis allows researchers to understand
drive, of which resourcefulness had the the structure of the consumer’s preferences
highest mean value. The second factor while Cluster Analysis allows the grouping
analysis identified the role of entrepre- of those consumers by their individual
neurs at KKNK and revealed three primary preferences. With the considerable
diversiroles, namely festival promotion, product fication that characterizes tourism, it
promotion and income generation, of which makes little sense to segment markets with
product promotion had the highest mean a priori procedures. As such, it is preferable
value. Interestingly, this is first time that to carry out post hoc segmentation in order
the roles of entrepreneurs at festivals have to gain a more detailed and relevant
underbeen investigated in South Africa. The standing of tourist preferences; a procedure
third paper in this theme, by Peters, Fre- that will create a competitive advantage.
hse and Buhalis explores and discusses the Segmenting markets based on the
preferemergence of lifestyle entrepreneurship. ences of consumers allows researchers and
The paper addresses the question of the professionals to better evaluate genuine
relationship between the entrepreneur’s preferences (clusters) and to better develop
quality of life and the growth of the enter- marketing strategies that more effectively
prise. The central purpose of the paper is to suit the preferences of consumers. The
conceptualise this relationship and to learn theme of market segmentation continues in
more about lifestyle entrepreneurship. the second paper by Ribeiro de Almeida,
Tourism serves as an ideal case industry to Ferreira and Costa who discuss the
Iinteillustrate both relevant research in the grated Knowledge Management concept
field of lifestyle entrepreneurship and a and proposes a new matrix, namely the
conceptual framework to examine the EGIC Matrix (Integrated Knowledge
Manrelationship between entrepreneurial agement Spiral). This new concept provides
activities and perceived life quality. A a valuable contribution as a flexible
methmodel is developed and presented in the odology that can be used to analyse
differpaper which highlights the relationship ent destinations or even tourism market
between life quality and lifestyle segments.
entrepreneurship. The model fills a gap in The third theme of innovation and
tourthe research of lifestyle entrepreneurship ism development introduces an interesting
as the correlation between lifestyle mix of papers. The first by Cirer Costa
entrepreneurs’ activities and their takes an alternative direction in that it
perceived life quality remains an under- presents a historic example of the novel
investigated area. The model is able to elements that were derived from the first
explain lifestyle entrepreneurs’ behaviour grand Spanish Business Plan, which arose
PASOS. Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 7(3). 2009 ISSN 1695-7121

Eduardo Parra Lopéz; Dimitrios Buhalis and Alan Fyall 357

from the failure of a luxury hotel back in ficance and influence both in the past and
Spain in 1903, which focused on satisfying in the future of the roles of
entrepreneurthe demand for European vacation tourism. ship and innovation in tourism.
The second paper by Stilling Blichfeldt
presents a case study, of a Danish caravan
site, that demonstrates that although tour- References
ism is often said to be less innovative than
other industries with the lack of motiva- Hall, C. M. and Williams, A. M.
tion, knowledge and resources often pro- 2008 Tourism and Innovation:
Contempovided as the reasons why, innovation is rary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism
very much in evidence. This interesting and Mobility. Abingdon: Routledge
case study reveals a series of reasons why
this specific enterprise has been so innova-
tive and goes on to suggest that the find-
ings may transcend the case company and,
therefore, benefit the wider industry. Fol-
lowing papers by Hernández, Valades Sier-
ra and then Ascanio, the paper by Silva
and Neves analyses the social and economic
development of the creative industry
artisan of a citye Brazilian state of Minas
Gerais. There then follows a paper by Alves
and de Hilal who adopt a qualitative
exploratory study, undertaken by means of a
single-case study on Praia do Forte, a
tourism destination located on the Brazilian
coast. Use was made of secondary data and
in-depth interviews with local residents to
establish how the destination could first
follow a path of tourism development in a
way that differentiates it from competitors
and second, the degree to which the current
development can be viewed as sustainable.
The penultimate paper by Cavalcanti