This paper develops eight propositions regarding internationalization processes for small and medium-sized tourism firms (SMTFs). A SMTF is defined here as a company that produces a tourist attraction locally, its product based on local resources. This means that SMTFs rely on customers seeking them on the firms' home market. This has implications for the SMTF's expansion into new markets and, consequently, its internationalization process. In a study based on the propositions, the internationalization processes of ten Swedish SMTFs were investigated. It was found that some SMTFs internationalized slowly; initially displayed a reactive and emergent approach, and entered markets that were culturally and geographically close. Born global SMTFs, however, searched more actively for opportunities, also in more remote markets. Intermediaries were the dominant mode throughout the process for all firms. Over time, most of the SMTFs developed a more strategic and deliberate approach in their selection of counterparts and new markets. The support of a destination management organization was important initially for some of the firms.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework of specified buyer and supplier abilities which may be apparent in processes when firms wish to develop products where other features than function are important.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through personal interviews with managers at eight major Swedish retail chains. The framework has been developed from an analysis of the data. Three of the cases are presented to illustrate how the framework may be applied.
Findings
The framework contains the concepts specification ability and description ability, which define and specify the demand abilities of the buyer, and the concepts translation ability, interpretation ability and implementation ability, which define and specify the problem-solving abilities of the supplier.
Originality/value
The framework presented here contributes to the business relationship and network literature on product development processes by highlighting and conceptualizing the process between buying firms who have different abilities or even inabilities to specify and explain desired product qualities, and the suppliers who should interpret the demands of these buyers.
This article focuses on product development in interaction. Two types of product development projects demanded by a lead-user type of customer are discussed, as well as the consequences these projects have for the supplier regarding change in production processes, market risk and relationship dependencies. The discussion is illustrated by two cases. Six propositions are developed and further research suggested.
In the contemporary competition state, many peripheral regions are in decline. Tourism is increasingly considered as a savior for regions lagging behind. The EU has launched several programs with the ambition to stimulate growth and employment in peripheral areas which are used in tourism development projects. In this paper a longitudinal analysis of changes in Swedish tourism guest nights with an attempt to assess the spatial changes that have taken place in the light of this new regional tourism policy are carried out. The aim is to investigate if tourism and tourism policy contributes to level out disparities between regions. The analysis is based on statistics on Swedish guest nights, on employees in the accommodation sector and on EU funds. Although there are exceptions, the main findings indicate that the potential for creating sustainable rural tourism growth through tourism policy seems to be much less than the popular discourse suggests.
Tourism growth on the national level in Sweden is being concentrated to the three main urban centres. The question is if the same trend is discernible within Swedish regions. If so, tourism as a tool in regional transformation and for alleviating spatial disparities has a weak basis. The strategy to strengthen the competitiveness of each region/local community based on the Tourism Led Growth Hypothesis but is questioned. Urban hierarchy and centrifugal forces are often overlooked. Data on overnight stays between 2008 and 2016 are analysed for four regions in central Sweden: Dalarna, Värmland, Gävleborg, and Jämtland. Results indicate that there is an ongoing concentration to regional urban centres and that destination competitiveness is directly linked to an urban supremacy. Thus, tourism growth is primarily a concern for urban areas and, which contradicts the traditional notions of tourism policy in Sweden, where tourism is regarded as a remedy for declining regions.
In this article, the development and changes in Swedish public policy relating to tourism from the 1930s to 2010 is described and interpreted from a political economy perspective. A case study, compiled from mainly secondary sources, is analyzed from a theoretical framework based on regulation theory. The purpose with this study is to increase the understanding of how the macro political economy context has influenced the policy-making in tourism in Sweden, but also to make a contribution to an area which seems to be quite neglected when it comes to research. The changes are analyzed according to the three periods denoted as pre-Fordism (mid-19th century-1930s), Fordism (1930s-1970s) and post-Fordism (1970s to present). It is observed how the general changes between these periods regarding aspects such as regulation and deregulation, and the degree of state involvement, have affected tourism policy making. The tourism policy making has changed from being insignificant, to a high degree of state involvement including planning, control and supervision, to a situation where the market rather than government regulation is considered as state of the art.
In the contemporary so-called ‘competition state era’, many rural and peripheral regions are in decline. Tourism is increasingly viewed as being able to alleviate and rejuvenate regions that are facing economic difficulties. The European Union has launched several programmes with the goal of stimulating growth and employment in peripheral areas. These programmes are often used to support tourism development projects. In this paper, a longitudinal analysis of spatial changes in Swedish tourism is conducted. The analysis is based on statistics regarding overnight stays in Swedish commercial accommodation facilities. The aim is to investigate if tourism and tourism policy contribute to the reduction in disparities between regions. Although there are exceptions, the main findings indicate that the potential for creating sustainable rural tourism growth through tourism policy seems to be much less than the popular discourse suggests. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Abstract
The tourism sector is growing in importance for the Swedish economy. However this growth is not uniformly distributed within the country and this in turn leads to an uneven distribution of tourism activity between regions as well as between rural and urban areas. In a previous study it is concluded that the growth of bed nights between 2000 and 2010 is concentrated to the three larger urban regions in Sweden. The substantial growth of tourism in Sweden is therefore mainly a big city phenomenon, which is in sharp contrast to the picture entertained by policy makers and government officials. Tourism is regarded and promoted as a universally applicable tool when it comes to develop rural areas or regions in need for alternative job opportunities when traditional occupations are phased out.
This study addresses the question of redistribution within the regions. The question in focus is if the tendency of concentration of bed nights follows the same pattern within the regions as on the national level, i.e. if concentration increases over time. It is also of interest to identify those destinations, which deviate from the main pattern and to scrutinize the how they, achieve sustainable or at least long term competitiveness.
An analysis is based on data collected by statistics Sweden and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. Data on overnight stays in commercial establishments were derived on local level between 2008 and 2016 for four regions in central Sweden; Dalarna, Värmland, Gävleborg and Jämtland. This data set makes it possible to make a longitudinal (annual) analysis of the redistribution of bed nights in detail. The concentration was analysed based on a calculation of the locational quotient and the corresponding locational coefficient, which relates concentration of tourism to that of the population on municipal level.
A preliminary analysis of the data indicates a similar pattern as on the national level; i.e. there is a strong on-going concentration to regional urban centres indicating the presence of an urban supremacy. In other words, tourism growth is primarily a concern for urban areas rather than it being beneficial to rural development. This result contradicts the traditional notions in Sweden where tourism is regarded as a saviour for declining regions.
Studien föranleds av den nya konkurrenslagstiftningen som påverkar gränsdragningen mellan privat och offentligt engagemang inom turismen. I studien görs ett försök att förstå den historiska utvecklingen utifrån institutionell teori. Att över tid följa hur turismen från att ha legat utanför samhällets intressesfär till att i allt högre grad inkluderas i och bli föremål för samhällsåtaganden till att i betydande utsträckning åter överflyttas till den privata sfären blir enligt författarnas mening begripligare om förändringsförloppet förstås i den referensram som den institutionella teorin erbjuder. Den pendelrörelse som på detta sätt kan urskiljas beträffande gränsdragningen mellan privat och offentligt är också en del i hur man skall förstå hur synen på konkurrensbetingelser inte är statisk utan i hög grad konstruerad och framförhandlad från tid till annan. Men det som gälller tid tycks också ha en geografisk dimension där vad som anses tillåtet i en del av landet inte uppfattas så på ett annat ställe. Det som uppfattas som ett juridiskt spörsmål i förstone vilar i realiteten i en komplex kontext med ingredienser av historia, ekonomi och geografi.
This chapter takes the form of a narrative, because its subject matter, the development of tourism in a rural area in central Sweden, is inseparable from the entrepreneurial activity of one individual. The story is about how one man, over a period of 25 years, worked to develop tourism in A ¨ lvdalen, a small and relatively unknown area of Sweden. It begins in the 1960s and finishes when the supply-side of A ¨ lvdalen’s tourism industry was restructured at the end of the 1980s. The research undertaken to produce the chapter includes the use of written records that the man left behind after his death in the early 1990s, articles in newspapers, and interviews with people who worked closely with him, and also with other associates, one of whom is the author of this chapter.
Vi lever i ett marknadssamhälle. En stor del av våra liv kretsar kring marknadsutbyten. Vi får tillgång till varor och tjänster vi har behov av och eftertraktar på olika marknader. Vi söker och byter jobb på arbetsmarknaden, boende på bostadsmarknaden samt finansierar våra större inköp genom kapital från finansmarknaden. Det system av marknader som möjliggör fördelningen av resurser i samhället utgör en sådan naturlig del av våra liv att vi tar detta system för givet. Men marknadsekonomi har inte alltid varit det dominerande resursfördelningssystemet. Marknadssamhället har vuxit fram som en effekt av händelser och utvecklingslinjer i historien. Det har påverkats av idéer och kunskap som utvecklats om detta system, liksom idéerna har påverkats av dessa historiska händelser och utvecklingslinjer.
I boken beskrivs och analyseras den historiska utvecklingen av marknadsekonomin från antiken fram till dagens globala marknadssamhälle. Parallellt med den historiska redogörelsen ges introduktioner till hur idéer, kunskap och perspektiv på marknadsekonomi, företag och marknadsföring utvecklats och förändrats under historiens gång. En ambition med boken är att sätta marknadsekonomin och teorierna och modellerna om denna i en samhällsvetenskaplig kontext. Boken är en utmärkt introduktion för studenter som studerar företagsekonomi eller andra ekonomivetenskaper, men den är även intressant för den som är mer allmänt intresserad av att lära mer om ekonomi och samhälle.
Marginal resources are important for organizers of public events. In the present context, marginal resources are defined as resources that providers can offer to events in periods when these resources cannot be put to productive use in their regular operations. Such marginal resources are often mobilized through networks of social relationships when the resource providers regard a connection to the public event as being valuable. The mobilization of marginal resources is analyzed using a network approach and by analyzing the motives of the participating resource providers. Cases involving two public events are presented in order to illustrate the mobilization and the development of patterns and routines over time. The cases indicate that resources are mainly mobilized through networking. Building and using the legitimacy of the event are important factors in this process. The actors providing resources are motivated by a mix of interests, but most of them have an idealistic interest in the event. The mobilized resources are combined in ways that create economy of scope and scale for the organizer. Over time, a recurring event benefits from experience and learned behavior among the actors involved. It seems to be easier to mobilize resources in a community where the actors, and clusters of actors, are well connected with each other. Copyright © 2007 Cognizant Comm. Corp.
Organizations need to gain legitimacy from their stakeholders in order to be able to attract resources. This is of particular importance for organizations that are highly dependent on other actors in their environment. This holds especially true for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) since DMOs are dependent on a number of different stakeholders in order to be able to carry out their tasks. Legitimacy may therefore be seen as the most critical asset for this kind of organization. It is argued in this paper that gaining legitimacy through the use of rhetoric is a useful strategic approach that a DMO may adopt in order to mobilize support and resources from its stakeholders. To gain legitimacy by using rhetoric - to be able to conform to, adapt to, convince and even manipulate the institutional logic of important stakeholders - becomes an essential strategic approach. An analytical model on legitimation strategies by the use of rhetoric for DMOs has been developed. The model is illustrated by means of a case study of a regional destination development project in central Sweden.
Sustainability is a concept that has been dominating developmental and political debates during at least the last two decades. It is a contested concept, flexible enough to match diverse or even conflicting viewpoints and interests. In tourism, this vagueness is related to the value-based character of the sustainable tourism concept. The concept is often related to broad and sweeping ethical and ideological considerations and to a simplified and harmonic view on sustainable development where inescapable conflict of interests between social, cultural, economic and environmental issues are neglected. The aim of this research is to critically discuss discourses of sustainability of a disputed tourist project in rural Sweden as communicated in mass media. More specifically, the research is examining the case of Sälen mountain resort and look on how the development process of a new international airport, inaugurated in 2020, was presented and debated in newspapers. The project was considered controversial with many proponents as well as opponents raising conflicting interests and points of view. We have analysed material in newspapers for the period 2011-2019. Preliminary findings indicate that the project of the development of an international airport is presented as hopeful and good with indications of intrinsic though utilitarian values. Pro-growth discourses around increasing numbers of international tourists and job generation, or even of positive environmental impacts are evident in the media. Opposition on the other hand, comes as debate articles and develops around tax-payers money, responsibility to future generations and environmental concerns. Discourses of weak and strong approaches and pro-growth vs degrowth become part of the discussion of the results to inform the theoretical framework of analysis. As this transportation project and the discourses around it analysed rely a lot on the premise of growth and international tourism, aspects of circularity become also part of the discussion. The role of an international airport as a transportation mega-project to compensate for rurality and peripherality as well as social sustainability is evident also in the discourses. Aspects of locality and proximity are ignored in these discourses and pinpoint its relevance to circularity paradigm and its contribution in advancing sustainability discourses.
Purpose – This paper explores a type of organizing that can be found in tourist destinations that areadministratively bound to a specific geographic area in the intersection of public and private context.The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the organizing of activities withindestinations and also to contribute theoretically and conceptually to how place dependency and public/private can be understood from an industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) network perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – The research approach has its origin in an ongoing multi-disciplinaryand longitudinal case study.Findings – By applying a network approach to the organizing of destinations, where interaction ofrelationships, resources, actors and activities play an essential role, a number of propositions have been putforth so as to provide for a better understanding of place-specific organizing, in the intersection betweenpublic and private interests.
Research limitations/implications – The paper is conceptual and more empirical studies are needed totest the findings. One implication to consider in future empirical studies is the tensions between created andorganic networks that exist in public and private place partnerships.
Practical implications – The paper provides insights into factors affecting destination management.Social implications – With an emphasis on a socio-political context, the opportunities and limitations thatexist between public and private sectors are discussed.
Originality/value – The paper sheds light on a neglected aspect of a contemporary phenomenon where theIMP network approach could contribute to the understanding of destination marketing or managementorganization that are bound to a specific place in the intersection between the public and private context.The area of public-private organizing is a topic that may also add new aspects to the IMP community.
A main function of destination-management organisations (DMOs) is that of being responsible for marketing their destinations. Many destinations involve stakeholders of different kinds. DMOs often have modest resources, and this creates a challenge: how should the DMO manage their marketing activities and achieve an outcome that benefits both the individual stakeholder and the destination? This study describes how DMOs can mobilise resources among the stakeholders and identifies the processes leading to integrated destination marketing. Basing our conclusions on a case study, we find that DMOs need to develop both pragmatic and moral legitimacy in order to develop integrated destination marketing.
Ekonomutbildningar finns idag vid i stort sett samtliga svenska universitet och högskolor och företagsekonomi är det enskilt största ämnet sett till antal studenter i landet. Innehållet i utbildningarna är i stor utsträckning normativt och likriktningen när det gäller struktur och innehåll är påfallande. Företagsekonomens arbete består i att ta fram beslutsunderlag och fatta rationella beslut i frågor som rör nyttjandet av begränsade resurser i företag och organisationer. Tillämpningen av kalkylmetoder och rationella beslutsmodeller spelar en central roll. Studenterna ska genom högre utbildning förvisso lära sig att bli yrkesmänniskor, men de måste även ges möjlighet att utveckla sitt omdöme och kunna se konsekvenser av sitt handlande bortom systematiska metoder och modeller. För utveckling av det egna omdömet måste utbildning också ge möjlighet till bildning. Baserat på erfarenheter både som lärare på högskolan och från andra yrkesroller med ekonomianknytning, menar vi att vi inom ämnet företagsekonomi inte bara har ett utbildningsansvar, utan även ett ansvar för att ge studenterna en bra grund för deras bildningsprocess. Studenterna bör få en utbildning som även ger dem en grundläggande förståelse för andra ämnesområden som bidrar till att kunna sätta in frågor av ekonomisk karaktär i en vidare kontext. Med detta menar vi att utbildningen bör ge studenten förutsättningar för att kritiskt kunna reflektera över sin framtida roll i olika positioner i företag och organisationer i en snabbt föränderlig omvärld där utmaningarna är stora. Texten reflekterar kring varför bildning bör ges ett större utrymme och ger förslag på hur bildningsperspektivet kan integreras och implementeras i företagsekonomutbildningen.
The global liberalisation of national regulated financial services' sectors has opened up a wave of international mergers and acquisitions processes. To succeed with such processes, a positive relationship needs to be developed between involved parties. But actors within and outside involved companies in international mergers and acquisitions may have conflicting interests, not least because of national resistance to changes in domestic financial sectors. In order to study the discourse among such actors, this paper presents a theoretical view based on business relationships, highlighting the concept of legitimacy. The aim is to analyse how different actors communicate in and through the media, in order to legitimise their own actions or to delegitimise the actions of their opponents in the relationship development process. The empirical investigation is a longitudinal study of an acquisition process between two insurance companies from Sweden and South Africa. A discourse analysis shows that the relationship development process is not only a matter of rational arguments. It is rather a struggle between actors drawing on discourses that change over time, as a means to affect perceptions of legitimate behaviours to reach the preferred outcome.
This paper explores the concept of the experience economy as a basis for management and marketing strategies in regions which are heavily dependent on visitors. These regions face challenges from the trend towards ‘recommoditisation’ of services, where consumers make decisions solely on price and availability. With the rapid adoption of the internet among other factors, potential tourists can compare on-line prices to find bargains in services such as transportation, accommodation, and entertainment. The result has been to make a much greater choice of destinations affordable and accessible to visitors, often to the detriment of established European destinations. Coastal resorts and rural recreation areas providing services aimed at people on main holidays of seven or more days have been particularly affected and, unlike other industries, are unable to relocate to reduce costs or access new markets. To survive, they therefore need to find innovative ways of exploiting the resources of their own creativity and the unique natural and culture distinctiveness of their locality. The hypothesis put forward by writers such as Pine and Gilmore (1999), King (2002) and Williams (2006) is that only by creating unique and memorable experiences for its consumers can any service organisation achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Our research programme explores the extent to which the concepts of 'the experience economy' have been understood and accepted by decision-makers in these visitor-dependent areas, and how successfully they have been implemented to date. This paper focuses on three different types of case study regions by geography and market, the rural recreation region of the Siljan Lake District in Sweden, the seaside resort of Bournemouth in the United Kingdom and the historic city of Alcala de Henares in Spain. Interviews were conducted with representatives of public sector Tourism Destination Management Organisations, private sector tourism associations and the appropriate Regional Planning body. These first explored their perceptions of the forces driving change in their markets, and the strategies and products that were being developed in response. They were then asked for their comments on a selection of statements from the ‘experience economy’ literature. Thus it was possible first to compare their unprompted perceptions of their business environment with those of the experience economy writers, and then to ask directly the extent to which they accepted the conclusions and prescriptions of those writers.
This paper explores the concept of the experience economy as a basis for management and marketing strategies in tourism destination regions. It identifies the key elements of the concept as being a view of consumer behaviour which stress the emotional, aspirational and participative over the functional and rational; an approach to services management through theatrical metaphors of staging, casting and performance; and strategies which see the delivery, or co-creation, of unique and memorable experiences as a source of competitive advantage. It investigates the extent to which these have been accepted and acted upon by destination managers, using case studies from three contrasting visitor-dependent economies.