Knowledge Intensity As a Core Attribute of Tourism

deepan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:34:36 +0000

The travel industry or tourist industry is a very heterogeneous area of service production. The first denomination is used more for business travellers, whereas the second one is used for leisure traveling. Both will be included iti the following discussions although the writer respects the great differences in the kitids of services required in each group. This is a cotnplex field with different areas of production distributed in different countries and regions. The products and the processes of operation. which are used for the achievetnent ofthe resulting services, are related to different types of industries, but they have one cointnon denominator: They are knowledge-based or knowledge-intensive service processes. The tourism system consists mainly of five areas, within which differing elements compete and co-operate with each other. These areas are (Boiincketi, 2000: 91) the Agency, the Tour Operator, the Carrier, the In-Cotning-System and the Hotel. There may be additional areas like Entertainmetit, Shopping and the like for the support of the travellers at Ihe destination. The special attributes of the travel industry as a service process, the intangibility ofthe product atid the simultaneity of production and consumption (Corsten, 1985: 173; Langeard, 1981: 233), have been discussed widely elsewhere (Bouncken, 2000: 91-93). The focus of this paper lies in the touristn service as a knowledge-based process, which is greatly influenced by the developments of information and communication technologies. Within each of the main areasof tourism, there are a large number of participants as suppliers and purchasers of services, which partly cooperate and partly compete with each other. These cooperative and competitive relations are embedded in flows of knowledge and information. The elements of these systems are contiected in various ways with others in the system, which results in quite different configurations of elements.

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Knowledge Intensity As a Core Attribute of Tourism