ABSTRACT
Voluntourism is a unique tourism pattern which got considerable attention recently, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and the intense search to promote and revive all the possible tourist patterns in order to support the tourism industry. This paper studied and analyzed voluntourism from a business perspective by developing Business Model Canvas (BMC) to support this tourism pattern. In order to develop Business Model Canvas for Voluntourism (BMC4V), this study relied on a Delphi Technique. A total of 22 experts, academics, stakeholders and officials active in voluntourism were invited to four-round Delphi workshops to identify the main components of the voluntourism industry. The developed BMC4V is structured from nine building blocks: key partners, key activities, key resources, value propositions, customer relationships, customer segments, channels, cost structure and revenue streams. The main contribution of this study is presenting BMC4V and guidelines for the stakeholders in ethically supporting the voluntourism industry. The results revealed that voluntourism has great potential to be a promising tourism pattern if we consider it a business model and not only a leisure tourism activity. Additionally, this study presented a key guideline for the main five actors in the voluntourism industry (voluntourists, sending organizations, servicing organizations, hosting organizations and government) to set this tourism pattern on the right track. Management implications Most of the scientific literature that discussed or analyzed voluntourism indicated that there are many negative impacts of this tourism pattern because of many malpractices. Accordingly, these negative impacts were exacerbated, putting voluntourism activities in the crosshairs and criticisms. This study seeks to present a different perspective on dealing with voluntary tourism, not only as a tourism model, but also by presenting it as a business model. Applying Business Model Canvas for Voluntourism (BMC4V) opens up new strategies and policies for decision-makers to enhance this tourism pattern, reduce crises and the negative effects associated with it and optimise these activities. This leads to a reconsideration of voluntourism as one of the promising tourism patterns that have the potentials to revive the tourism industry, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and the scrambling for discovering and promoting all available and possible tourism patterns. In this context, this study presented a comprehensive business model that presented a clear and precise picture of all the actors involved in the voluntourism industry, as well as presented suggested key guidelines for the most effective voluntourism actors in order to restructure, develop, and raising the efficiency of this tourism pattern from a business perspective.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze the four core driving forces that shaped the complex picture of rural tourist businesses. These driving forces are marketability, participatory, crisis mitigation and sustainability. This study focused on the scholarly perspective to study and analyze the rural tourism businesses' literature and its link with these four driving forces. By using the bibliometric analysis technique and VosViewer as a visualization tool, the results revealed that less than 50% of rural tourism literature was concerned with local businesses. Regarding the four driving forces, sustainability was the most linked force with the rural tourism businesses' scientific production. Contrarily, a relatively small body of the rural tourism businesses' literature discussed marketability, participatory and crisis mitigation, despite their significant role in the development of these local rural businesses. In addition, the results of this study showed the interest of rural tourism articles in the crisis mitigation pillar, especially recently after the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
This study aims to assess and analyse the efficiency of the tourism centres in the Southern Red Sea region, Egypt to apply coastal tourism development through the blue economy perspective. According to this aim, the study used two efficiency methods: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH). A total of 29 tourism centres were selected to conduct the DEA and FDH methods. These efficiency methods (DEA-FDH) used inputs and outputs variables to estimate the efficiency of the tourism centres. The selected inputs were the length of the shoreline (km), area (ha), tourism investments (million EGP), quality of coral reefs, numbers of hotels, and tourism accommodation capacity. While the outputs were employees' number and tourists' number. The results indicate that, generally, the tourism centres in the Southern Red Sea region of Egypt showed high-efficiency scores, which reflects their good preparedness to implement the various coastal tourism development strategies from the blue economy perspective. The tourism centres in the Safaga-Quseir tourism sector were the most efficient ones, regardless of the efficiency models used. While the tourist centres representing the Ras Banas tourism sector were the least efficient centres in the whole sample (29 tourism centres).
Subject(s)
Coral Reefs , Tourism , Efficiency , Egypt , Humans , Indian OceanABSTRACT
This research aims to boost tourism development in natural protected areas through the classification of the tourism hiking trails based on biodiversity ecosystem services values. The Total Economic Value (TEV) approach was used as the main research method to estimate the monetary value of the various ecosystem resources in Abu Qubies Syrian protected area. Five main tourism hiking trails in Abu Qubies were identified in order to be classified based on the economic value of their ecosystem resources. The study findings highlighted the importance of protected areas in enhancing tourism activities, especially natural-based ones. Additionally, this research identified the most economically valuable tourism hiking trails in the reserve, thus providing a supporting tool for decision-makers regarding tourism development in protected areas. This study presents the importance of the conservation perspective of natural resources in protected areas without ignoring their physical monetary value that can help governments in boosting local communities as well as the national, regional and local economies.