Entrepreneurship in Tourism

Andreas Walmsley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351690546
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

The development of tourism has historically been characterised by enterprising individuals. Small businesses are the backbone of the tourism and hospitality industry. However, entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial process have long been marginal topics within tourism scholarship.

This is a critical, yet accessible, introduction to the subject. Structured into twelve chapters, this book takes an intuitive step-by-step progression through entrepreneurship in tourism: context, theoretical perspectives and definitions; the entrepreneurial process from concept to reality to growth, policy context and future directions.

Featuring learning outcomes, 'reflective practice' activities and a range of international case studies that encourage critical thinking and practical applications, this is essential reading for anyone studying tourism degree programmes at undergraduate and graduate level.

Chapter 1
Entrepreneurship in tourism

An introduction

The innovation, flair and vision of entrepreneurs. . . shaped modern tourism.

(Russell, 2006:105)

Entrepreneurship and pornography have a lot in common: they are both hard to define.

(Mitton, 1989:9).

On opening an introductory tourism textbook, one of the first chapters will invariably contain an explanation of terms such as tourist and visitor. . . What is most interesting when perusing these texts is that the definitions listed are dissimilar. This variation is also seen in tourism research reports, articles, monographs, serials, and proceedings.

(Masberg, 1998:67)

Introduction

This chapter provides an introduction to the book suggesting why a preoccupation with entrepreneurship in tourism is timely. It draws attention to the emergence of both tourism and entrepreneurship as areas of academic study and wider societal interest. It reviews the policy context for tourism and entrepreneurship, explaining how both continue to be encouraged by those interested in economic growth and regeneration. It discusses similarities between the two concepts, how they relate to each other, clarifying also the relationship between tourism SMEs and entrepreneurship.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this chapter the reader should be able to:

• • Explain policy-makers’ interest in tourism and entrepreneurship as tools to promote economic development.
• • Describe the similarities in the development of tourism and entrepreneurship as concepts.
• • Review different approaches to defining entrepreneurship.
• • Critically evaluate the connection between small firms in tourism and entrepreneurship.

Both entrepreneurship and tourism are phenomena that are witnessing increased interest from policy-makers and academics alike. From a policy-maker’s perspective, entrepreneurship is frequently held up as the driver for economic development, and with it development more broadly understood, i.e., to include social and environmental dimensions. This holds for both advanced economies and developing countries, and for emerging economies and economies in transition.

Tourism likewise is frequently regarded as a tool to stimulate economic development, albeit often in countries or regions that are suffering a decline in traditional industries, or where the scope for alternative forms of economic development are limited. Tourism is sometimes regarded as a refuge sector (Vaugeois and Rollins, 2007); for some countries and regions it is their economic and social lifeline. This is true, for example, for many small island states.

Indeed, if we regard entrepreneurship as the driving force behind economic growth and diversification, and tourism as a sector of choice for under-performing regions, urban regeneration, and countries seeking to diversify their economic base, particularly a move away from a sole reliance on agriculture, then the combination of entrepreneurship and tourism presents policy-makers with a powerful means to address economic development, and with it broader societal issues such as social mobility and cohesion, employment of marginalised groups, protection of cultural heritage and the safeguarding of the natural environment.

Furthermore, both entrepreneurship and tourism share a focus on small firms. Because of their sheer numeric dominance, small firms are frequently regarded as the lifeblood of tourism (Cooper et al., 2005; Thomas et al., 2011). While it is too simplistic to equate small businesses with enterprise, tourism is unquestionably characterised by the creation of small, often lifestyle businesses (Page et al., 1999; Shaw and Williams, 2004; Getz et al., 2004) and lends itself therefore to the study of many aspects of entrepreneurship.

Moreover, the numeric dominance of small firms is added to by so-called sideline businesses. These are ventures that offer the entrepreneur an additional income next to a main job. Hatten (2016) cites figures from the USA which suggest of the 27.9 million businesses identified by the Small Business Administration, 9 million were this kind of side-line business. Tourism itself is characterised by many of these side-line businesses. In mature, emerging and developing economies alike, tourism provides additional income for farmers in rural communities, for example. Zhao et al. (2011) have described these side-line businesses in a Chinese context, offering a less glamorous view in that necessity is frequently a driver of their creation, primarily given seasonality. In these circumstances, tourism entrepreneurship offers a lifeline.

Despite their importance, research on small tourism firms has not seen anything like the attention afforded small firms within the mainstream business and management literature (Page et al., 1999; Thomas et al., 2011). Likewise, research on entrepreneurship and innovation in tourism is also regarded by some as quite limited (Li, 2008; Thomas et al., 2011; Yang and Wall, 2008). In 2009 Ateljevic and Li (2009) asked how far entrepreneurship research in tourism had come. They offered an answer to this question following a systematic review of the literature in major hospitality and tourism journals between 1986 and 2006. Of the 4,917 articles published in the seven selected journals, approximately 2% addressed entrepreneurship. An upward trend in entrepreneurship journals published in the timeframe of the review was not discernible.

Li (2008), who also investigated the publication of entrepreneurship research in tourism and hospitality journals, comes to quite a damning verdict arguing that the issue is under-researched, theoretically weak and lacking methodological sophistication. Whether the same verdict can be reached today, ten years after Li’s 2008 publication, is not clear, although there are some signs that interest is growing. As this book will demonstrate, the past ten to fifteen years have witnessed a growth in entrepreneurship-related studies in tourism. The trend appears to be upwards, even if explicit studies of entrepreneurship in tourism are relatively low in number compared to other major themes within the body of tourism knowledge such as consumer behaviour and economic or environmental impacts. It is also worth noting that even though, compared to other aspects of tourism, research in the area of tourism entrepreneurship is limited, the topic itself can hardly be described as new. Yang and Wall (2008) refer to Kibedi’s (1979) work, which explores the training and development of tourism entrepreneurs in Canada, for example.

One of the key challenges for tourism scholars is the looseness of the concept of tourism itself. This makes it extremely difficult to say anything definitive about tourism, and tourists for that matter. Even what should, one imagines, be relatively straightforward issues, such as providing figures of those employed in the sector, or assessing its economic contribution, present numerous challenges the starting point of which is defining tourism itself. The same can be said of entrepreneurship, where numerous definitions abound. Rather than detract from their study, the fluid and situated nature of both tourism and entrepreneurship make them more appealing, from an academic perspective at least. The remainder of this chapter will explore the above issues in more detail. It thereby serves as a context for the remainder of the book.

Entrepreneurship

According to Shane and Venkataraman (2000:217), ‘entrepreneurship has become a broad label under which a hodgepodge of research is housed’. As with all complex concepts, entrepreneurship (and by implication associated terms: enterprise, entrepreneurialism) lacks a single, universally accepted definition. Ateljevic and Li (2009:22) recognise this in their chapter on concepts and issues in tourism entrepreneurship: ‘Due to its complexity, the concept of entrepreneurship is almost impossible to accommodate in one single definition.’ Although Ateljevic and Li (2009) review research in the area of tourism entrepreneurship, a definition of tourism entrepreneurship is not provided. This is understandable as tourism largely presents a context within which entrepreneurship takes place and in which it can be explored (although certain characteristics of tourism make this exploration particularly interesting as we shall see throughout the book).

The focus of entrepreneurship has in similar fashion been defined by its locus, where it is believed to occur, in other words by its own context, specifically the context of small, young or owner-managed businesses. Arguably, this context approach to defining entrepreneurship can be criticised because it avoids the phenomenon itself, but suggests what happens within a specific context is entrepreneurship. Wiklund et al. (2011:5), for example, support such a critique as well as adding that the focus on commercial enterprises is wrong. The phenomenon of entrepreneurship, ‘the emergence of new economic activity’, does not need to be solely commercially driven (see Chapter 9).

Complexity of the phenomenon aside, a further reason why there is no universal definition of entrepreneurship is because different definitions will suit different purposes; the search for a universal definition may itself then be regarded as a misguided undertaking from the outset. It is important to stress, however, that this does not mean that in common parlance entrepreneurship is bereft of meaning or a shared understanding. As Mitton (1989:9) claims about entrepreneurship, ‘I can’t define it to everyone else’s satisfaction – but I know it when I see it’.

Most commonly, entrepreneurship has been, and still is, associated with business start-up, the creation of a commercial venture. This is reflected in many widely cited definitions of entrepreneurship, such as that provided by Timmons (1989:1) where entrepreneurship is claimed to be

the ability to create and build something from practically nothing. It is initiating, doing, achieving, and building an enterprise or organisation, rather than just watching, analysing or describing one. It is the knack for sensing an opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction and confusion.

Or in definitions of the entrepreneur such as that given by Bygrave and Hofer 1991:14): ‘An Entrepreneur is someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it.’

There is much of interest in this definition that we will discuss later in the book, from opportunity recognition to the role of resources in the entrepreneurial process, but it is the notion here that entrepreneurship is necessarily about business start-up that can be queried. It can even be argued that business start-up is neither a sufficient not a necessary condition for entrepreneurship. If an assumption underpinning entrepreneurship is the existence of innovation (see also next chapter) then setting up a business along the lines of a tried and tested business model, such as a bed and breakfast or beach café, is not entrepreneurship. Thus, while entrepreneurship has commonly been conceptualised as the creation of a business (see Shane, 2003; Gartner, 1988) this conceptualisation does not capture the full scope of entrepreneurship. This idea is now widely supported and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of case studies
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Entrepreneurship in tourism: an introduction
• 2 Conceptual foundations of entrepreneurship
• 3 Innovation
• 4 Initial steps: the role of the business plan
• 5 Marketing
• 6 From birth to growth
• 7 Entrepreneurship and employment
• 8 Strategy and entrepreneurship
• 9 Social entrepreneurship in tourism
• 10 Public policy and entrepreneur ship in tourism
• 11 Contemporary issues in entrepreneurship research
• 12 Conclusion
• Index