Purpose of This Book
The growing importance of tourism as a socioeconomic phenomenon, together with the understanding that even apparently profitable tourism firms and destinations endowed originally with the best natural and cultural assets cannot survive the escalating international competition without good managerial practices (Crouch, 2011), has provided a significant momentum for the development of tourism management as a discipline over the last thirty-five years.
I n order to enrich the ongoing debate, the European Institute of Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM) organized the EIASM International Conference in Tourism Management and Tourism Related Issues. The first four editions of the conference proved very successful, with more than 250 papers submitted. After an accurate double-blind reviewing process, a very limited number of articles were accepted for presentation at the conference.
This book provides an overview of state-of-the-art research in tourism management, by including 12 chapters from a diverse group of international academics, namely some of the best papers that have been presented at the aforementioned conference (in particular the second and third editions). More specifically, the volume displays three key distinctive features.
First, it recognizes the relevance of tourism as a major economic driver, especially during periods of economic crisis.
Second, it contributes to the advancement of managerial knowledge and practice in the fast-growing tourism sector, by addressing a wide range of research questions with a specific focus on the role of performance and strategies at the destination and company level, and sustainability.
Third and last, the volume is the outcome of the collective intellectual efforts of a number of international scholars, with dissimilar geographical roots and backgrounds. They cultivate original research on tourism management from a variety of theoretical perspectives, by adopting different epistemological paradigms and research methodologies or techniques, and multiple methods (theory building, experimental, and inductive case-based inquiries).
