Competitiveness of Slovenia as a Tourist Destination

In an increasingly saturated market the fundamental task for the destination management, is understanding how tourism destination competitiveness can be enhanced and sustained. Competitiveness of a tourist destination is an important factor that positively influences the growth of the market share. Therefore tourism managers have to identify and explore competitive advantages and analyse the actual competitive position. There exist different approaches that model the competitiveness (Ritchie and Crouch 1993; Evans and Johnson 1995; Hassan 2000; Kozak 2001; De Keyser and Vanhove 1994; Dwyer, Livaic and Mellor 2003). Among all we follow the framework (Dwyer, Livaic and Mellor 2003), which was developed in a collaborative effort by researchers in Korea and Australia and presented in Sydney in 2001, and conduct an empirical analysis on Slovenia as a tourist destination. The aim of this paper is to present the model of destination competitiveness. The paper presents the results of a survey, based on indicators associated with the model, to determine the competitiveness of Slovenia as a tourist destination.previous visitation, Slovenia

The impact of entrepreneurial characteristics and organizational culture on innovativeness in tourism firms

Entrepreneurial characteristics and organisational culture have an impact on the innovative capability of a company. Therefore, our research tries to examine the influence of different individual entrepreneurial characteristics and organisational culture dimensions on corporate innovativeness and any direct subsequent company growth. This paper proposes the classification and measurement of five dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation; risk taking, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, autonomy and customer orientation and 3 dimensions of organisational culture; power distance, uncertainty/avoidance and individualism/collectivism with the objective of explaining service innovation performance. Specifically, we try to show the differences between the importance of different entrepreneurial characteristic and each organisational culture dimension on a product/service innovation. To this end, a survey was performed on a sample of tourism companies in Slovenia. The data was analysed by employing univariate and multivariate data analyses techniques. Data gathered fromthe survey suggests that entrepreneurial orientation and organisational culture dimensions positively influence innovativeness in tourism companies. Empirical evidence supports the view that a company with more developed entrepreneurial characteristics and organisational culture will be more innovative. This paper is one of the first to find empirical support for the role of entrepreneurial characteristics and organisational culture in tourism companies in Slovenia. Despite a number of limitations, it offers a picture of how these dimensions should be developed in order to enhance innovation. It also presents managerial implications, as managers are responsible for the forming of these dimensions

Stakeholders\u27 understanding of factors influencing tourism demand conditions: the case of Slovenia

The present paper aims to assess the importance of different factors influencing demand conditions for a tourist destination on the basis of individual stakeholder perceptions. The relationship between the tourist demand conditions and individual influential factors, such as inherited resources, created resources, supporting factors and resources, destination management and situational conditions is examined using regression analysis. Existing studies on tourism destination and tourism demand were reviewed and their limitations were identified. The study is limited to Slovenian as a tourist destination, but can be generalised to other regions. The study offers important contributions for research (an appropriate conceptual and measurement model of competitiveness indicators) and for practice (important information for tourism stakeholders is the obtained result about the significance of appropriate and qualified tourism managers). Mailed structured questionnaire data for this study were collected from tourism stakeholders on the supply side. The respondents were selected from tourism industry stakeholders, government officials, tourism school academics and postgraduate students on tourism courses. Out of 291 questionnaires sent, 118 or 41 % were returned. The principal components method was applied in the first phase. A new synthetic variable – a principal component for each of the six groups of variables was calculated. Before conducting a principal component analysis correlations among the variables in each of the six groups were calculated and we proceeded with Bartlett’s test of sphericity, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy. At the end, the linear regression model was applied. The first independent variable, NACURES, has a weak, positive and not statistically significant influence on DEMCON. The second independent variable, CRERES, has a positive influence on demand conditions, DEMCON, but is not of convincing statistical significance. The third independent variable, SUPFAC, negatively influences the dependent variable, but this influence is weak and not statistically significant, The fourth independent variable, MGT, has a strong and statistically significant impact. The fifth independent variable, SITCON, has a statistically significant and negative influence on the DEMCON. This study examined factors determining tourism demand for Slovenia as a tourist destination. It gives valuable information, which hopefully will help tourism stakeholders, especially tourism managers to respect more the meaning of different factors influencing tourism demand

Knowledge Resources and Competitive Advantage

The paper discusses some definitions of knowledge as a potential source of competitive advantage. It reviews the literature pertaining to the assessment of knowledge assets. According to the resource-based view, which links the competitive advantage of organizations with resources and capabilities that are firm-specific, and difficult to imitate or substitute, a firm’s competitive advantage is built on a set of strategically relevant resources (Barney 1991; Grant 1991; Peteraf 1993). When firms have access to similar resources, it is those companies that are able to maximize the utilization of those resources that attain a competitive advantage. Among various strategic resources and capabilities that help determine the extent of competitive advantages, a pivotal role is often assigned to knowledge – as both a resource in itself and an integrating factor that makes other resources and capabilities effective – especially in complex and dynamic environments.knowledge, competitiveness, firm performance, knowledge-based theory

Knowledge Management in SMEs

The attention that has lately been paid to the importance of knowledge in companies is not a recent phenomenon. Companies have always been based on knowledge. Knowledge is an important resource and undoubtedly one of the sources of sustainable competitive advantage. We tackled the doctoral dissertation from conviction that the significance of knowledge in Slovenian companies is underestimated and in the wish to prove in our research to what extent the individual component/dimensions of knowledge can influence business performance. The conception that a company is nothing but a series, i.e. a string, of different resources, is readily accepted and accordingly, by counting knowledge among the resources we agree that knowledge is a significant component of a company' performance. We were well aware of the fact that it is very difficult to define every dimension of knowledge and even harder to measure/quantify them. We have thus developed a knowledge model in entrepreneurship, tested it empirically on a sample of Slovenian small and medium-size companies and thus proved its multidimensional character. The model unites knowledge dimensions with performance ratios. For the purpose of the model design we have developed a model of the factors which constitute and measure knowledge, as well as a company's performance. In the empirical analysis wee have used structural equation models. By using the final model in our research we have proved that almost 52% of the variability in a company's performance can be accounted for with knowledge.