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 research aims to find out the phenomenon of webinar competition from the viewpoint of the audience. Covid-19 pandemic makes webinars a means for knowledge dissemination. Many events offered turned out to be a tight competition among organizers and caused a different response for the audience. Academics participants' responses had never been known in depth so that they could be the basis for determining the strategy for the organizers. Using quantitative data through online surveys to further interpreted with the help of previous literature. The independent variables gender, age, frequency, cost, and place are used to determine their effect on loyalty, which is represented by the length of duration in participating in each webinar. The effectiveness of webinars as a means of disseminating ideas in the pandemic era still faces various challenges. Among academics, the loyalty at the webinar event is influenced by gender and age. It is important for organizers to effectively communicate to webinar participants so that they get the message they want to convey.