Tourism Value Chain Activities Model for Competitive Advantage Measurement

Abstract

Tourism characterized as an industry with a strong competition. Therefore, it is crucial to create a competitive advantage in order to stay in the market. In the case of the tourism industry, creating competitive advantage could be done by providing an extraordinary experience which is the ultimate goal for travel leading to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. This paper aims at exploring and developing a model of tourism value chain activities experience by tourist for competitive advantage creation. Tourism value chain activities model consists of three stages whereby each stage has its own type of measurement. The first stage covers the pre-trip experience, in this stage, the detailed information prior to departure will be discussed. Next stage is the trip experience, which are the tourism activities involved during the visit and experienced during the trip. Lastly the post-trip experience, whereby on this stage the output of the tourism value chain activities will be measured. The proposed measurement for this stage will be an evaluation of tourist satisfaction and tourist loyalty in order to create a competitive advantage. Future studies are expected in implementing these tourism value chain activities in specific tourism destinations (country) to measure the tourism experience. Keywords—tourism, competitive advantage, travel experience, tourism value chain activities