Knowledge Applications for Competitive Destinations: a visitor Experience Value Chain Approach1

Knowledge Applications for Competitive Destinations: A Visitor Experience Value Chain Approach¹

Abstract

The value chain approach described in this paper holds promise for involving key stakeholders in collaborative planning and execution activities designed to enhance a tourism destination’s competitiveness through effective knowledge management.

A tourism value chain is simply defined as a system which describes how private sector firms in collaboration with government and civil society receive or access resources as inputs, add value through various processes (planning, development, financing, marketing, distribution, pricing, positioning, among others) and sell the resulting products to visitors. The value chain describes the full range of activities that are required to facilitate visitor experiences from conception to actualization and beyond. The value chain should be driven by the passion, pride and confidence of key stakeholders that visitors will experience the best that a destination can offer.

This paper describes the visitor experience value chain approach, cites how it was applied in the case of Jordan and concludes with an identification of knowledge management research issues which need to be addressed in the future.

The Tourism Value Chain

A tourism value chain should be driven by the passion, pride and confidence of key stakeholders that visitors will experience the best that a destination can offer. A tourism value chain is simply defined as a system which describes how private sector firms in collaboration with government and civil society receive or access resources as inputs, add value through various processes (planning, development, financing, marketing, distribution, pricing, positioning, among others) and sell the resulting products to customers. The value chain describes the full range of activities that are required to bring a product from its conception to its end use and beyond.
Assumptions

• 
  The first consumer travel decision focuses on where to go not which product is desired.
  

• 
  Low-cost web-enabled technology tools are reducing the dependence on antiquated mainframe computer systems and traditional distribution channels.
  

• 
  In this very fragmented and complex industry, the single universal commonality shared among all public and private stakeholders is the traveller who seeks to navigate seamlessly around the globe from destination to destination, supplier to supplier, and complete multiple transactions in a trustworthy environment.
  

• 
  Customer partnership means finding mutually satisfactory solutions to shared problems and a dedication to excellence in every sale or service encounter. It also requires commitment to forging long-term relationships that create synergies of knowledge, security, and adaptability for both parties.
  

• 
  A travel supplier’s inventory is a perishable product. A supplier cannot go backwards and sell yesterday’s unsold hotel room, attraction ticket, or air seat. A supplier’s bottom-line is dependent on distributing this perishable inventory at the lowest possible distribution cost, at the right time.
  

Transition to knowledge-based economies make establishment of effective employee empowerment mechanisms within companies crucial to their competitiveness. For a tourism value delivery chain to be effective it is essential to:

1. 
   Make it easy for the consumer to purchase travel to the destination by strengthening the usability of distribution systems worldwide.
   

2. 
   Maximize the use of continuously evolving information and communications technologies.
   

3. 
   Unite the industry’s public and private sector around the common customer by focusing constantly improving the quality of tourism products and services.
   

4. 
   Reduce the cost of distribution for suppliers.
   

5. 
   Make tourism measurable on an on going basis.
   

6. 
   Provide cooperative funding from the public and private sector to reduce the affects of destination-adverse threat—both real and perceived.
   

7. 
   Reduce the effects of destination-adverse threats—both real and perceived.
   

A tourism value chain focuses on the customer experience