Managing Tourism in a Changing World. Issues and Cases

Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in today’s economic and social world. Among the very few activities with a consistent positive growth pattern, it is estimated to involve more that 1.5 billion people in 2020 by the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s long-term forecast. This implies that the potential impact of tourism on individual economies of the countries able to properly manage their destinations might be even more crucial in the near future. A number of factors, ranging from the development of mass transportation and motorization to the introduction and implementation of ICT applications in the tourism sector to the rhythm of increase of world GDP (and the increase in income to be allocated to travels) to the improvement of security and rights for tourists and the process of globalization, have significantly contributed to expand the market for tourism activities. These factors are significantly contributing to shaping a different institutional landscape and economic environment for a number of economic players such as Destination Management Companies, Airlines,Hotels, Conference Venues,Congress,Convention and Exhibition Centres, Convention Bureaus, and Professional Conference Organizers. Moreover, companies in the tourism sector are confronted with increasing managerial challenges and have to deal with a turbulent and fast-changing environment. The growing importance of tourism as a socioeconomic phenomenon, together with the understanding that even a destination endowed originally with the best assets (natural and cultural) could not survive the increasing international competition without good managerial practices, has provided significant momentum for the development of the disciplinary field of tourism management in the last two decades. While drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives and adopting different epistemological paradigms and research methodologies or techniques, we attempt to answer a wide range of research questions related to the relevant themes in destination management (destination branding for Slovenia is investigated by Maja Konecnik Ruzzier and Nusa Petek while importance– performance analysis for Australian destinations is examined by Tony Griffin and Deborah Edwards), hospitality management (heterogeneity in hotel production processes is analysed by Cristina Bernini and Andrea Guizzardi), inter-organizational dynamics in the tourism industry (coopetitive strategies among theme parks are scrutinized by Mika Kylanen and Marcello M. Mariani while franchising in the tourism sector is explored by Wojchech Czakon), corporate social responsibility (assessment systems for responsible tourism products and practices in tourism enterprises are discussed by Mara Manente, Valeria Minghetti, and Erica Mingotto), knowledge management (knowledge transfer among clustered tourism firms in Southern Brazil is illustrated by Ariani R. Stacke, Vladimir E. Hoffmann, and Helena A. Costa), and measurement of tourism flows (tourism flows from Russia to the European Union are probed by Kirill Furmanov, Olga Balaeva, and Marina Predvoditeleva)