Developing regional tourism: business networks for competitive advantage

Abstract

Tourism is regarded as one means of fostering regional economic development and ameliorating these inequalities. Many destinations possess natural advantages that could form the basis for regional competitive advantage through local and global networking, but have experienced difficulty in drawing both domestic and international visitors away from the popular destinations. The development of local and global networking for tourism firms is a way of fostering competitive advantage in regional Sri Lanka. Tourism sector requires network linkages due to having strong complementarities due to the characteristics it include. This paper considers the potential for activating regional tourism networks and gaining competitive advantage over other regions in the country. This is especially relevant with recent development initiatives in the eastern province. There is much work to be done at a micro-business level in fostering network development between tourism institutions such as hotels, travel agencies, tour operators, airlines, tourism associations, and supportive tourism activities. It was proposed that activating business networking is a suitable means of fostering a structure within which related and supporting industries can interact. Through business network initiatives local communities can be enabled to contribute to their own development. A more self-sufficient ‗bottom-up‘ approach to regional development with horizontal linkages incorporating private/public sector partnerships and partnerships between international, national and locally owned businesses seems desirable in developing regional tourism. The activation of business networks could support linkages between related and supporting industries in gaining competitive advantages. In recommending networking strategies the attitudes towards competitive advantage, competitive behavior and intention of networking between tourism firms were measured among the main and supportive actors of tourism in the region. Therefore, the successful tourism firms are the one which have strong innovative local and global networks.