Tourism is regarded as one of the top five employers world-wide, supporting a broad scope of tourism businesses and service providers across a number of industry sectors. In Australia, more than 90% of tourism businesses are small to medium enterprises (SMTEs); that is they have less than 100 staff. Tourism businesses, no matter what size, face a wide range of challenges in developing, operating, managing and growing their business in what is a highly competitive, rapidly changing and volatile environment.
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Introduction
Tourism is regarded as one of the top five employers world-wide, supporting a broad scope of tourism businesses and service providers across a number of industry sectors. In Australia, more than 90% of tourism businesses are small to medium enterprises (SMTEs); that is they have less than 100 staff. Tourism businesses, no matter what size, face a wide range of challenges in developing, operating, managing and growing their business in what is a highly competitive, rapidly changing and volatile environment.
Research undertaken by APEC in 2004 showed that the following factors are significant inhibitors to tourism business operation and development:
- A lack of trained and professional workforce
- A lack of entrepreneurial skills among operators
- Low entry barriers – impacting on service quality, growth and business viability
- Lending arrangement and taxation regimes not conducive to SMTEs
- Conforming to (and supporting) sustainable regional infrastructure requirements
- Inconsistent bureaucratic local authorities
- A lack of government recognition of the value of tourism
- A failure to recognise the potential benefits of industry clusters and collaboration
- Industry fragmentation and a proliferation of membership organisations
- A lack of technology and eCommerce skills
- Relatively poor eReadiness and eCommerce uptake
- Scattered, poorly-integrated and difficult to locate business research information
The Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre (STCRC) has invested over $260 million into sustainable tourism research over the last 12 years. One of the key themes of this research was to understand the factors that influence the ‘success’ of tourism businesses and to identify strategies for tourism businesses to address industry challenges and develop sustainable operations.
How to use Sustainable Tourism Online
Sustainable Tourism Online provides information and resources to assist tourism businesses in taking a sustainable approach to tourism. Drawing on the extensive research of the STCRC and other international partners, this section on Business Operations is presented in five modules:
- Planning;
- Product Development;
- Marketing;
- Business Operation and Development; and
- Monitoring and Performance
Within each section you will find a summary of the research to date, specific research and resources on subject areas relating to sustainable business operation and links to case studies, reports and tools. These resources are provided to assist:
- Tourism Businesses;
- Tourism Professional Support providers;
- Destination Management Organisations and other agencies supporting business development;
- Academics, Researchers and Students; and
- Media Agencies
Please use the links and search functions to navigate through the Business Operations content and resources. You can also download a ‘Site-Map’ to view the structure of the topics and content in this section, as well as a downloadable PDF version of the entire ‘Sustainable Tourism - Business Operations’.
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