Tourism SMEs, Service Quality and Destination Competitiveness

By: Eleri Jones and Claire Haven-Tang

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Synopsis: The tourism and hospitality industry in most destinations is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including small hotels, guesthouses, cafes and restaurants. While a destination may be seen by potential customers as a coordinated set of "places to say and things to do," therein lies a dilemma -- destinations may be much less coordinated than desirable, which may strongly influence a customer's image of a destination. The heterogeneity of tourism SME business motivation poses enormous challenges to developing a coherent destination, enhancing destination service quality and standards and sustaining destination competitiveness. This book is based on an edited collection of papers drawn from academic and practitioner research presented at a tourism research conference held in Cardiff. These papers explore SMEs in Australia, Austria, Canada, Central Florida, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, Libya, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland and Wales. This book will be of significant interest to researchers in tourism and hospitality and industry practitioners.