Abstract
This chapter analyzes the role of local area resources in the global hospitality market as a way for small and medium enterprises to create a portfolio of distinctive resources to reach a sustainable competitive advantage position in the international markets. After a brief introduction on the tourism industry and its main change factors the chapter adopts a resource base and market-driven approach in order to identify resources role in shaping competitive advantages. The chapter discuss a case-study on a successful example of diffused hotel in Abruzzo, Italy, identifying the core resources and those needed to support them in creating a successful tourism product.
TopBackground
This chapter theoretical background starts with the tourism and later focuses on strategic management literature.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Overlapping Logic: The process of designing tourist products starting from the perspective of the tourist trying to defining it as a system and not as a simple bundle of services.
Knowledge Generativity: Knowledge resources capability to increase their value the more they are combined with more other resources.
Barriers to Substitution: The limits to competitors capability of substituting part of the resources used in a given tourist product without compromising their products competitively.
Sustainable Development Process: A process of development aimed to help current generations to satisfy their needs without compromising the future generations ones.
Tourist Destinations: A location that is able to generate tourist inflows by itself, thanks to some local tourism attractions helped by local area services and accommodations.
Diffused Hotel: A single hotel which rooms are located in separated, but near, buildings as a way to restore and valorize towns and villages lacking bigger structures.
Cultural identity: The common cultural characteristics defining the people living in a given area as a community.