Networking within the Tourism Industry E-Book

Michael Schumacher

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Tourism - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,8, (International University of Applied Sciences), language: English, abstract: As research around the impacts of Mega Sport Events on host cities and regions reached is peaking in the aftermath of the FIFA World Cup 2006, the UEFA European Football Championship 2008 and the Beijing Summer Games 2008 the topic of cooperation and networking has been widely neglected in regard to MSEs. With the focus on the tourism industry of hosting regions, this work tries to start to change this, as an exploratory approach towards finding out more about the interrelationship of those two topics in tourism. As both, MSEs and cooperation are gaining more and more interest within tourism research this should also be seen as an approach to combine both to motivate further research. Methodologically this is realized by conducting expert interview with five industry experts with valuable experience in preparing, hosting and also benefiting from a Mega Sport Event. The expert interview, as the primary research part of this work is based on the cooperation concept of Axelrod’s game theory. This basis was used to design, conduct and analyze the primary research part of this thesis. Essentially, the thesis should be interpreted as a scientific approach to present the combination of the topics of Mega Sport Events and cooperation in tourism.

Leseprobe

Table of Content

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. PROBLEM DEFINITION

1.2. KEY OBJECTIVES

1.3. STRUCTURE OF THIS WORK

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. IMPACTS OF MEGA SPORT EVENTS ON TOURISM

2.1.1. Economic Impacts of Mega Sport Events

2.1.3. Ecological Impacts of Mega Sport Events

2.1.4. Political Impacts of Mega Sport Events

2.1.5. Impacts of Mega Sport Events on Cooperation and Networking

2.2. COOPERATION AND NETWORKING IN THEORY

2.2.1. Definition of Cooperation

2.2.2. Definition of networks

2.2.3. Cooperation Theories

2.2.3.3. The Game Theory

2.2.3.4. Resource Dependence Approach

2.2.3.5. Combinations

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

3.2. QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

3.3. RESEARCH DESIGN

3.3.1. Explorative Research

3.3.2. Descriptive Research

3.3.3. Causal Research

3.3.4. The Research Design applied in this thesis

3.4. RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

3.4.1. Focus Groups

3.4.3. Depth Interviews

3.4.4. The Research Technique applied in this thesis

3.5. MAIL VS. PHONE VS. PERSONAL VS. WEB

3.6. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

3.6.1. Target Respondents

3.6.2. Typology of the Questionnaire

3.6.3. Questionnaire Sections

3.6.4. Question Formulation

3.7. THE INTERVIEWEES

3.8. REALIZATION OF THE INTERVIEWS

4. PRIMARY RESEARCH RESULTS

4.1. QUESTION 1

4.2. QUESTION 2

4.3. QUESTION 3

4.4. QUESTION 4

4.5. QUESTION 5

4.6. QUESTION 6

4.7. QUESTION 7

4.8. QUESTION 8

4.9. QUESTION 9

4.10. QUESTION 10

5. DISCUSSION

5.1. IMPLICATIONS OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

5.2. INTERPRETATION OF PRIMARY RESEARCH

5.2.2. General influence of the MSE on cooperation and networking

5.2.3. Specific influence of the MSE on main characteristics of cooperation

5.2.4. Efficiency of the use of the MSEs potential

5.2.5. Ideas to improve this efficiency

5.2.6. Importance of Cooperation and Networking

5.3. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

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I. Abstract

As research around the impacts of Mega Sport Events on host cities and regions reached is peaking in the aftermath of the FIFA World Cup 2006, the UEFA European Football Championship 2008 and the Beijing Summer Games 2008 the topic of cooperation and networking has been widely neglected in regard to MSEs. With the focus on the tourism industry of hosting regions, this work tries to start to change this, as an exploratory approach towards finding out more about the interrelationship of those two topics in tourism. As both, MSEs and cooperation are gaining more and more interest within tourism research this should also be seen as an approach to combine both to motivate further research. Methodologically this is realized by conducting expert interview with five industry experts with valuable experience in preparing, hosting and also benefiting from a Mega Sport Event. The expert interview, as the primary research part of this work is based on the cooperation concept of Axelrod’s game theory. This basis was used to design, conduct and analyze the primary research part of this thesis. Essentially, the thesis should be interpreted as a scientific approach to present the combination of the topics of Mega Sport Events and cooperation in tourism.

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II. Acknowledgments

First of all I would like to thank Dr. Krebs and Mr. Legrand for their support with my thesis. With my topic up in the air and not much more than a very nice, but very theoretical idea, they still decided to join me in my quest to explore a relatively new topic. Additionally they accepted my working style without any complaints, which might have been more difficult than expected. Thank you two very much for your support.

And second of all I would like to thank my interviewees for their participation in the expert interviews. I was honoured to be able to access such an amount of expertise from the right people in the right organizations all over the world, so thank you very much:

- Alison Connelly, Manager, Innovation and Technology Department of State and Regional Development NSW

- Michael Fox, Manager, Meeting & Convention Sales, Sport Tourism, Tourism Vancouver

- Bob Schuler, Vice President, Sales & Convention Services Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau

- Vera Schweder, Company Spokeswoman, WienTourismus - Josef Sommer, Executive Director, Kölntourismus

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IV. List of Tables

Table 1: Question 3 - Impact of a MSE on cooperation and networking 42

Table 2: Question 4 - Aspects of Cooperation 43V. List of Appendices

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VI. List of AbbreviationsACVB Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau € Euro £ English Pound BC British Columbia C$ Canadian Dollar CL Champions League DZT Deutsche Tourismus Zentral [German Tourism Board) FIFA Fédération Internationale de Football Association [International Federation of Football Associations] IOC International Olympic Committee MSE Mega Sport Event NCAA National College Association of America NFL National Football League NRW Nordrhein-Westfalen [North-Rhine-Westphalia] SNA System of national accounts SPORT Sport-economic stimulation model developed by Gerd Ahlert UEFA Union of European Football Associations US$ US Dollar VIP(s) Very Important Person(s) WTO World Tourism Organization

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1. Introduction

During the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany, people seemed to feel better, look better, earn more money, have more confidence and what not. One more point however was obvious to everyone right away: people did not mind to share all this. Even better, they did not even mind to share the work required for preparing such a massive event, the extra hours, the limitations through construction and everything else necessary to host an event of this scale. All of this also had an influence on the Germany economy, where competition seemed to be forgotten for some time, between some companies to organize World Cup parties, offer accommodation to foreigners or just watch soccer. Specifically, those phenomena were evident in tourism, where competing hotel chains cooperated to represent the nearest host city and tour operators established partnerships with tourism boards, which would have taken years to be realized without a Mega Sport Event around. Through all of this I started asking myself who really benefited from such an event in the long run, when cooperation plays such a big role. Additionally to the proven benefits of short term extra revenues and rising German GDP this question was being discussed since Germany had won the bidding on the World Cup in 2000 and cannot be answered in every detail until now. That tourism and hospitality did benefit, however can be seen as a fact. Especially tourism as an industry build on the basis of cooperation and networking nowadays looks at a renovated industry structure with efficient networks and battle-tested cooperation experience, partially because Germany hosted a big soccer event.

So regarding my bachelor thesis I thought about applying this interesting topic but could hardly find the right way to approach the benefit tourism gains through the cooperation and networking necessary to host a MSE. With some major help from Dr. Krebs and Mr. Legrand, the instructors of this Bachelor Thesis however, I found a way to scientifically build upon the question if MSEs do actually have an impact on cooperation and networking. To be able to compare different kinds of MSEs hosted regionally and nationally the limitation of a tourism region was added and then the most difficult and essential step, the search for a scientifically sound, conceptual background began. All of those issues will be discussed during this thesis along with a lot of information on MSEs, cooperation and the way to combine both.

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1.1. Problem Definition

As research on MSEs increased during the last decade one topic was left out most of the time, gaining interest only for a mentioning here and a note there. This topic has been cooperation, networking and the influence of MSEs on those phenomena.

Without a doubt cooperation can be considered a prerequisite to host MSEs, especially essential in tourism to enable host cities to offer increased supply for accommodation, transportation and other tourism related subsectors. Furthermore cooperation itself has been seen as one of the most important tools to modernize modern tourism industries to compete on a global level in a globalized world. Still, the impact of hosting a MSE on cooperation and networking has hardly been the interest of any research until now, when it comes to works specifically designed around this topic.

Consequently this thesis will be concerned with exploring the combination of Mega Sport Events and cooperation concerning a relationship, more specifically an influence of Mega Sport Events on cooperation and networking in tourism on a regional level. The thesis itself will not be able to solve any management related problems of decision makers in tourism with a need for guidance how to use MSEs efficiently and benefit from their potential in cooperation and networking. Nevertheless it should motivate further research right into this direction. A long-term aim would be to find out if MSEs can actually be seen as tool to modernize a tourism industry concerning cooperation and networking, which would essentially change how MSEs are seen today. Such a development could change the value perceived from hosting MSEs irreversibly towards a facilitator of structural modernization, and away from a costly burden.

First however, the topic has to be approached on a more general basis to gain insights, establish first theories and gain expert knowledge. This will be done through the next approximately 60 pages to build a basis for further research and to support process in this young field of tourism interest.

To ease the understanding of this thesis from the start on a definition of the main term of interest, the Mega Sport Event, is given in the following. Cooperation, however, is defined more detailed in the literature review as it is a scientific concept rather than a usual term.