Small Businesses in Tourism

The book argues that the relatinship between tourism and small business remains terra incognita because much of the existing research is published in diverse sources and fails to explicitly contribute to methodological development in this area. Tourism boards around the globe are recognizing that there needs to be quality standards in place for tourism businesses and they are starting to develop best practices programs for their stakeholders. Successful business performance is affected by a number of firm-specific factors including human and social capital. Athough, small and medium firms comprise the vast majority of the tourism production system, research on small business performance in tourism is rather limited. Drawing on recent advances and empirical evidence from enterperneuship and small business literature we control first, for the role of human and social capital and second, for the role of owners’/managers’ perceptions of place attractiveness over small business performance, The book is designed to provide stifents, researchers, pracitioners, individuals and organisations, a broad overview of planning and development issues in hospitality and tourism industry.