Written by: Pairach Piboonrungroj
Bluebird Perspective
8 July 2009
I just came back from Nottingham attending PhD networking conference in Tourism. In the conference, there were around 30 PhD students in the UK and some from other European countries (Spain and Sweden). One of the common research topics I found is Tourism Image in terms of destination image or even brand image. There is a Thai PhD student in Nottingham Business School working on this topic as well, and then we may have another good research on the image of Thailand though.
The presentation I made in Nottingham is about the emerging of tourism supply chain management. Even though most of PhD students in the conference are doing a research on demand side, they seem to be quite interested on what I am doing ? or perhaps it?s just a British politeness to say so.
Since I have started to do a research on tourism supply chains, one of initial question and issue is the scope of tourism logistics and tourism supply chain management. What are the differences between them?
Tourism Logistics
To me, tourism logistics predominantly deal with the tourists. More precisely, making the smooth and satisfying flow of the tourist is the job of tourism logistics. Therefore, tourism logistics will concern the designing of the route and facilities in the destination. The successful tourism logistics management is to make the trip happens as promised. The customers (tourists) get what they want (value). For example, the bus arrives on the time in the schedule and can transfer them to the attraction (Night Safari for example) on time. Then, entry services in the Night Safari are ready to serve the customers. When the tourists finish their visit at the attraction, the transport is ready to bring them to their accommodation. Souvenirs or foods are also available before their departure. Hence, we may say the best tourism logistics is flawless.
Tourism Supply Chain Management
Then, how about tourism supply chain management (TSCM)?
We may go beyond the flow of the customers. TSCM, to me, has a boarder scope than tourism logistics. TSCM is about planning, designing, operating, monitoring, and evaluating the tourism activities since the preparation of the services at the upstream where raw materials are supplied to the point of service delivery where tourists consume the tourism products. Tourists will be delivered what they really want at the lowest cost of the whole tourism supply chain (TSC). This is very important, TSCM is not aim to minimise the cost of a particular firm in the tourism business but minimise the total cost of the TSC as a whole.
Example
We considering the eight-star hotel in a popular tourist destination in Asia namely ?le petit champs? (LPC hereafter). Tourism logistics manager (TLM) of LPC is working to ensure that everything is ready when the professor around the world arrive the hotel for the World Tourism Forum that they host this round.