Environment both endowed and built are essential for tourism. However tourism and environment maintains a complex relationship, where in most cases environment is at the receiving end. Many tourism development activities have adverse environmental effects, mainly emanating from construction of general infrastructure and tourism facilities. These negative impacts of tourism can lead to the destr...

Web-based tourism information systems should not only provide access to various tourism products, but should also present accompanying destination information, comprising among others information on cultural heritage. The generic platform for web-based destination information systems Tiscover tries to cope with this need. Tiscover supports three different access paradigms together with appropri...

The paper develops a model of destination competitiveness that will enable comparison between countries and between tourism sector industries. The model seeks to capture the main elements of competitiveness highlighted in the general literature, while appreciating the special issues involved in exploring the notion of destination competitiveness as emphasized by tourism researchers. Associated ...

Although information and communication technologies (ICT) were an important issue for Travel & Tourism (T&T) since the 1960s (i.e. computer reservations systems, global distribution systems; Werthner & Klein, 1999), the difference today is that ICT has become a strategic issue for every business (Buhalis, 2006). The special benefit tourism gains from ICT can be put down to the characteristics o...

This study develops propositions for a benchmarking exercise involving SME and tourism destination brands. In order to reveal the role of SMEs at destinations and their role in the destination brand, the tourism production process is analysed. It is suggested to view destinations as virtual service firms (VSF) as this highlights the interdependencies between SMEs, but also allows the descriptio...

independently produced elements which effectively constitute tourists’ total experience of the destination. However, due to their vulnerability, deficient marketing and management functions, and dependence upon distribution channel partners they also tend to jeopardise the benefits of tourism activity for destinations and host communities. Nevertheless, the prosperity of destinations and SMTEs ...

It is often observed that tourism generates a negative impact on the environment of destination places, among which the depletion of the natural capital is the most evident. To avoid this, tourism development and management should be based on the recognition of the limits characterising a destination. The indicator of Tourism Carrying Capacity (TCC) can be particularly relevant to this purpose....

Pictures and text are basically the two elements that drive marketing promotion. That notion is not new to tourism research. What is new is the study of these two elements in an online environment. Content analysis of online pictures and text can provide a clear idea of the destination images that tourism websites are projecting. In this research study the image projections of 10 European Trave...