Year 10, No. 1, June 2017, issn 2335-4194 Academica Turistica Tourism & Innovation Journal – Revija za turizem in inovativnost Year 10, No. 1, June 2017, issn 2335-4194 https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10(1) 3 The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building: Pro-Poor Tourism Perspective Hiroaki Saito 19 Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Boštjan Brumen, Marjetka Rangus, Maja Turnšek Hančič, Tanja Lešnik Štuhec, and Mitja Gorenak 27 A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance in the Hospitality Industry Shogo Mlozi 43 The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement in Strategic Development of Destination Management: The Case of the Mirna Valley Destination Maja Žibert, Marko Koščak, and Boris Prevolšek 57 Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services Mladen Mitrović 69 Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo 83 Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy on Visitors at Tourism Fairs Dejan Galovski 91 Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth in Botswana? A Vector Auto Regression Approach Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro 103 Abstracts in Slovene – Povzetki v slovenščini 109 Instructions for Authors university of primorska press Executive Editor Janez Mekinc Editor-in-Chief Gorazd Sedmak Associate Editors Aleksandra Brezovec, Mitja Gorenak, and Dejan Križaj Technical Editors Peter Kopić and Tomi Špindler Production Editor Alen Ježovnik Editorial Board Tanja Armenski, University of Novi Sad, Serbia Rodolfo Baggio, University di Bocconi, Italy Štefan Bojnec, University of Primorska, Slovenia Dimitrios Buhalis, Bournemouth University, uk Alan Clarke, Pannonian University, Hungary Frederic Dimanche, Ryerson University, Canada Jesse Dixon, San Diego State University, usa Johan Edelheim, University of Stavanger, Norway Felicite Fairer-Wessels, University of Pretoria, South Africa Doris Gomezelj Omerzel, University of Primorska, Slovenia Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis, Ball State University, usa Jafar Jafari, University of Wisconsin-Stout, usa, University of Algarve, Portugal Sandra Jankovič, University of Rijeka, Croatia Anna Karlsdóttir,University of Iceland, Iceland Maja Konečnik Ruzzier, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Sonja Sibila Lebe, Univesity of Maribor, Slovenia Mara Manente, Cà Foscari University of Venice, Italy Yoel Mansfeld, University of Haifa, Israel Tanja Mihalič, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Matjaž Mulej, Univesity of Maribor, Slovenia Milena Peršič, University of Rijeka, Croatia Jasna Potočnik Topler, Univesity of Maribor, Slovenia Caroline Ritchie, University of Welsh Institute, uk Vinod Sasidharan, San Diego State University, usa Regina Schlüter, National University of Quilmes, Argentina Marianna Sigala, University of the Aegean, Greece Cristina Roxana Tănăsescu, Lucian Blaga University, Romania Andreja Trdina, Univesity of Maribor, Slovenia John K. 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Copy Editors Shelagh Hedges and Terry Troy Jackson Cover Design Mateja Oblak Cover Photo Iztok Bončina Printed in Slovenia by Birografika Bori, Ljubljana Print Run 100 copies Academica Turistica – Revija za turizem in ino- vativnost je znanstvena revija, namenjena med- narodni znanstveni in strokovni javnosti; izhaja v angleščini s povzetki v slovenščini. Izid publikacije je finančno podprla Agencija za raziskovalno de- javnost Republike Slovenije iz sredstev državnega proračuna iz naslova razpisa za sofinanciranje do- mačih znanstvenih periodičnih publikacij. issn 1855-3303 (printed) issn 2335-4194 (online) 2 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building: Pro-Poor Tourism Perspective Hiroaki Saito Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan hiroaki.saito@uqconnect.edu.au A growing recognition that tourism is a feasible strategy for poverty alleviation ex- plains why pro-poor tourism (ppt) has gained increased attention. While many de- veloping nations have benefited from the positive effects that ppt brings to their local economies, many communities are left behind due to their lack of capacity to conduct tourism activities. To develop local communities and introduce ppt, top- down (td) and bottom-up (bu) approaches have often been adopted; however, these approaches cannot yield expected outcomes without strong stakeholder intermedi- aries who play a crucial role in overcoming key challenges inherited in community capacity building. This study examines the roles of four types of stakeholder interme- diaries commonly discussed in community capacity building. Based on their roles and limitations, the study presents a framework that proposes a context in which each type of stakeholder intermediary contributes prominently to successful com- munity capacity building. The study provides valuable insights into how scholars and practitioners can consider the selection and application of different types of stake- holder intermediaries in community capacity building for the successful adaptation of ppt. Keywords: stakeholder intermediary, capacity building, local community, pro-poor tourism https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.3-17 Introduction In recent decades, the tourism industry has shown dramatic growth around the world. With the grow- ing recognition of the positive effects that tourism brings to national economies,many nations have com- menced introducing tourism activities into their na- tional plans for economic development. As tourism contributes to the growth of gdp in most nations, its positive impacts, created in developing nations and particularly their local communities, are substantial. The idea of ‘tourism as a strategy for poverty allevi- ation’ has become widespread and pro-poor tourism (ppt), defined as tourism that generates net benefits for the poor by using the advantages that tourism of- fers to developing nations (Roe, 2001), and ppt has become a buzzword for many practitioners and aca- demics. Indeed, published books, organizational re- ports, and academic journal articles acknowledge sev- eral benefits that ppt brings to local communities in developing nations. These benefits include increased employment opportunities for local people (Pro-Poor Tourism Partnership, 2004); development of extensive linkages and wider participation of the informal sec- tor, which generates positive multiplier effects on eco- nomically disadvantaged groups (African Pro-Poor Tourism Development Centre, 2006); and other in- direct benefits, such as government support for new infrastructure or community welfare services, which improves the lives of local people (Goodwin, 2008). While ppt seems to be a panacea for poverty alle- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 3 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building viation in developing nations, its introduction often faces many challenges. Among them, one of the most widely publicized issues is a lack of community ca- pacity to adopt tourism business in local communities (Chok, Macbeth, &Warren, 2007; Spenceley & Good- win, 2007). To build community capacity for adopting ppt, many developing nations have employed various strat- egies. Among them, top-down (td) and bottom-up (bu) approaches are the most commonly used. How- ever, it has been argued that these approaches will not yield expected outcomes without strong stake- holder intermediaries who coordinate the multiple stakeholders and effectively foster community capac- ity building (Aref, Redzuan, Emby, & Gill, 2009). While previous research identified various terms to conceptualize different types of stakeholder interme- diaries, there has been a lack of consensus in under- standing their roles and limitations in community capacity building. More specifically, researchers and practitioners have very limited understanding of what each stakeholder intermediary term refers to, what their roles and limitations are, and in which context each type of stakeholder intermediary yields better success in community capacity building. This lack of understanding does not only deter effective stake- holder collaborations but also makes the instillation of ppt in local communities more challenging. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the roles of different types of stakeholder interme- diaries in community capacity building and provide a framework to depict in which context each stake- holder intermediary can achieve the best possible out- comes in community capacity building. The study contributes to the present body of knowledge in stake- holder intermediaries in community capacity building and offers a pathway for future researchers and prac- titioners to employ appropriate types of stakeholder intermediaries for the successful adaptation of ppt. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the literature on community capacity building is provided. Different types of stakeholder in- termediaries commonly discussed in previous studies are identified. Their definitions, roles, and limitations in community capacity building are discussed along with relevant examples. Based on the analysis of each stakeholder’s intermediary characteristics, the study then proposes the specific contexts where each stake- holder intermediary can provide a more prominent contribution to successful community capacity build- ing. Finally, a framework that depicts these proposi- tions is presented, and theoretical and practical im- plications, limitations, and future studies are also dis- cussed. Community Capacity Building Community capacity is defined as ‘the interaction of human capital, organizational resources, and social capital existing within a given community, that can be leveraged to solve collective problems and improve or maintain the wellbeing of that community’ (Chaskin, Brown, Venkatesh, & Vidal, 2001, p. 7). Community capacity considered adequate to conduct tourismbusi- ness is the prerequisite for adopting ppt; however, many local communities in developing nations do not possess these capacities. They often do not have the in- frastructure system and facilities that are able to bring tourists to their areas (e.g. road, transportation, sewer- age, electricity and telecommunication systems); local people in these communities often do not have busi- ness management skills (lack of commercial viability and capability); and their economy significantly relies on foreign investment of finance and human capital (Zhao & Ritchie, 2007). To overcome these issues and increase their capability to adopt tourism activities, local communities, with support from various orga- nizations (e.g. ngos, government organizations, and private sectors), undertake community capacity build- ing. Community capacity building is the practice ‘by which individuals, organizations, institutions, and so- cieties develop abilities to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives’ (United Na- tions, 2006, p. 7). In relation to community capacity building, Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) of- fer a useful framework that suggests five key stages local communities experience during their commu- nity development and the tasks required in each stage to effectively build community capacity. Accordingly, Stage 1 refers to the community sit- 4 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building uation in which a loose network of people or groups exists around the local community but they are not coordinated well, and their common issues and needs are not identified clearly. Thus, the main tasks in this stage are defining the domain of interests and identi- fying stakeholders that can contribute to the collabo- rative actions for community capacity building. Stage 2 is a state in which stakeholders who engage in the project come together from different areas and develop more specific plans and actions with the lo- cal community. The key issue in this stage is to create synergy and collaboration among the involved parties. Tasks in this stage, therefore, include promoting the value of sharing knowledge and building trust among the involved stakeholder groups. Stage 3 is the state in which local communities start forming their own identities and take charge of their practice and growth. In this stage, commu- nities often experience strong tension with other in- volved stakeholders. The tension is particularly strong if new stakeholders join the process, often disrupting the pattern of interactions among existing stakeholder groups. Thus, tasks in this stage involve clearly defin- ing, or redefining, the roles of the local community and involved stakeholders and managing the boundaries of the strategic focus of stakeholder collaboration. Stage 4 refers to the situation in which the com- munity has gained enough skills and knowledge and has started acting as a strategic steward of its domain. The tasks in this stage include sustaining energy, set- ting standards, educating novices, and establishing le- gitimacy. Lastly, Stage 5 is the state in which the local com- munity has fulfilled their potential, and then subdi- vides and mainstreams. The tasks in this stage in- volve celebrating accomplishments, generating new initiatives or institutionalizing roles and practices. While the situations of local communities consider- ably vary from one place to another, Wenger et al.’s (2002) framework is useful in understanding how communities go through their development stages and what tasks are required for effective community capac- ity building. To effectively build community capacity and move to the next stage of community development, local communities and stakeholders must utilize various strategies. While a number of different strategies have been adopted, they are generally categorized into two types: top-down (td) and bottom-up (bu) approaches (Fraser, Dougill, Mabee, Reed, & McAlpine, 2006). Top-Down Approach The top-down (td) approach facilitates community capacity building in a trickle-down manner (Wang & Wall, 2007). The approach is often used to develop the macro-level economy of the community or region (Ashley & Elliott, 2003). Its main characteristic is a dominant form of policy planning and implementa- tion initiated by government bodies (Bond, 2006). The td approach is often used when government authori- ties traditionally hold strong power over local commu- nities and in which a hierarchical structure is cultur- ally embraced in the society (e.g. high power distance) (Wang &Wall, 2007). The approach is also used when governments identify potential economic benefits in local communities (e.g. unique landscape or animals, heritage, indigenous culture to attract tourists) (Gi- anna, 2011). Through rigidly organized procedures, professional networks and extensive investment of government resources, the td approach brings about a number of benefits to local communities and con- tributes to community capacity building (Theerapap- pisit, 2009). In fact, an improvement of infrastructure systems through the td approach often increases ac- cessibility of tourists to the local areas; enhances the quality of life of local people; and attracts other indus- tries to work together with local communities, which all contributes to economic development in such com- munities. The td approach was the most dominant strategy until two global phenomena occurred in the 1980s: the shift of the role of state government, and economic globalization (Shatkin, 2004). First, as the national governments in many parts of the world shifted their roles and scaled back their assistance to local govern- ments, they redefined their relationships with local authorities through decentralization (Shatkin, 2004). As a result, power was transferred from national gov- ernments to local authorities (Geddes, 2005). Second, economic globalization fostered local authorities to Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 5 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building pursue economic growth and social equity in rural ar- eas (Shatkin, 2004), and this led to the simultaneous localization of economic activities and inter-firm link- ages (Swyngedouw, 2004). Furthermore, international agencies began to impose pressure on local authorities to implement more participatory governance (Ged- des, 2005). As a result, the social equity development and the establishment of partnerships in the decision- making process became the centre of attention (Leach &Wilson, 2002). The abovementioned phenomena have made the issues of the td approach salient.With that approach, tourism policies and plans are often less reflective of a community’s social, cultural, and environmental con- cerns and their voices are often unheard (Chok et al., 2007). Therefore, conflicts between local commu- nity and developers (e.g. government bodies) often occur, which makes local development unsustainable (Moscardo, 2008). Furthermore, a strong emphasis on macro-economic benefits sometimes displaces exist- ing communities to ‘somewhere else,’ which also be- comes another cause of disputes between local resi- dents and developers (Wang & Wall, 2007). Another key issue associated with the td approach is a lack of partnerships among stakeholders. Since the td ap- proach is undertaken in a rather vertical manner, only a few inter-sectional linkages are created; when the implementation of community capacity building is not undertaken in a holistic manner; this also makes community development unsustainable (Wenger et al., 2002). These issues related to the td approach are adverse to social equity development and the philoso- phy of sustainable development, which are the recent focus of any tourism destination development (Liburd & Edwards, 2010). Bottom-Up Approach The bu approach begins from ‘what is there already,’ such as the local human capital, their needs, aspira- tions, and the natural resources in the community (Al- tieri & Masera, 1993, p. 106). This approach is often used in the community situation in which no partic- ular dominant legislation is imposed by governments and each stakeholder pursues its own interests without any coordination (Sabatier, 1986). The bu approach is also useful in the situation in which local communi- ties already have some degree of available resources, ideas and, most importantly, willingness to develop their own plans and solutions for community prob- lems, but still lack the skills and knowledge to do so (Manyara & Jones, 2007). In the bu approach, two key practices are often emphasized: community empowerment and the par- ticipation of local people in the decision-making pro- cess. Community empowerment refers to a transfer of power to local people and increases their autonomy to manage their local business (e.g. tourist companies, event companies, or accommodation providers) with- out relying on external parties (e.g. public agencies) (Mahony & Zyl, 2001). One of the ultimate objectives of capacity building is to create an autonomous en- vironment in local communities whereby empower- ment is a critical component of this approach (Har- rison & Schipani, 2007). Community empowerment practice often involves skill training or development seminars offered by a variety of external stakeholders such as ngos and aid agencies (Ashley, Brine, Lehr, & Wilde, 2007). Second, in contrast to the td ap- proach, the bu approach has a strong emphasis on the involvement of local people in the decision-making process, irrespective of the different geographic, social and political contexts (Selman, 2004). By facilitating the local people to be involved in the decision-making process and encouraging them to decide their own future, the bu approach urges local people to trans- form from passive listeners to proactive members to develop their community (Finn & Checkoway, 1998). While the bu approach certainly contributes to community capacity building, it also has various is- sues. The approach often has potential to create con- flicts among stakeholders involved in community ca- pacity building. As opposed to the td approach, the bu approach encourages various stakeholders to par- ticipate in policy development and the decision-mak- ing process. When these stakeholders are involved in a decision-making process, their competing in- terests, contracting viewpoints, complex power rela- tionships, and interdependencies can make it difficult for them to reach consensus (Sabatier, 1986). Thus, it often becomes the case that ‘decision making at 6 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building community-levelmay fall into the hands of a small and self-perpetuating clique, which may act in its own in- terests with disregard for thewider community’ (Botes & Rensburg, 2000, p. 49). Similarly, poor communi- cation between stakeholders and local communities in the bu approach is often reported (Tosun, 2006). To summarize, while both the td and bu appro- aches have been traditionally adopted for fostering successful community capacity building, they com- monly face two key issues: conflicts, and lack of link- ages between local communities and stakeholders. Since these issues significantly hinder effective com- munity capacity building andmake it difficult to adopt ppt in local communities, solutions need to be iden- tified. While extant studies provide various sugges- tions to address these issues, previous studies highlight the crucial role that stakeholder intermediaries play in overcoming these challenges and fostering successful community capacity building (Wenger et al., 2002). Stakeholder Intermediaries Stakeholder intermediaries are individuals or inde- pendent third parties ‘who play an integral part in col- laborative activities supporting any aspect of the inno- vation process’ for the mutual benefit of two or more groups (Howard Partners, 2007, p. iii). In a community capacity-building process, stakeholder intermediaries often seek a way to effectively coordinate involved ac- tors by understanding their interests, power relation- ships, and available resources (Wearing & McDonald, 2002). While previous research presents several terms to conceptualize different types of stakeholder inter- mediaries, there has been a lack of consensus in un- derstanding their roles and limitations in community capacity building. Specifically, we have a very limited understanding of what each stakeholder intermedi- ary term refers to, what their roles and limitations are, and in which context each type of stakeholder inter- mediary can better contribute to successful commu- nity capacity building. Without a clear understand- ing of their roles, limitations and better applications, it would be difficult for local communities and in- volved stakeholders to successfully collaborate and effectively undertake community capacity building. The following sections provide a review of four types of stakeholder intermediaries commonly discussed in the literature. Their definitions, roles, and limita- tions in community capacity building are discussed along with relevant examples. Based on the review of the characteristics of stakeholder intermediaries, this study develops propositions to illustrate the context (i.e. td and bu approaches and community develop- ment stage (Wenger et al., 2002)) where each type of stakeholder intermediary offers the most prominent contribution to community capacity building. Mediators The term ‘mediation’ is defined as a form of dispute resolution that aims to assist two or more disputants in reaching mutual understandings and agreement (hg.org Legal Resources, 2011). In line with this thou- ght, a mediator is defined as an independent third party or group who assists two or more parties to reachmutual understandings and agreement and solve conflicts between them (Howard Partners, 2007). As such, the main role of mediators is to intervene be- tween conflicting stakeholders, mediate their relation- ship, and settle conflicts by finding appropriate solu- tions (Zorn & Farthing, 2007). As community capac- ity building involves various stakeholders who em- brace different views and competing interests, con- flicts among these stakeholders are inevitable (Jamal & Stronza, 2009). For instance, governments often at- tempt to maximize macro-economic benefits for the region while local communities or civil societies em- phasize socio-cultural aspects of community develop- ment, such as better health and improved wellbeing of the local people (Shikida, Yoda, Kino, & Morishige, 2010). Similarly, interests of policy makers or develop- ers in community projects differ from those of envi- ronmental practitioners or local residents. Such situa- tions often create conflicts, which leads to a turbulent environment in the local area and an undermining of the efforts of community capacity building (Jamal & Stronza, 2009). At this point, the mediators’ skill of bringing competing parties together and finding a way to settle the disputes becomes crucial (Zorn & Farthing, 2007). When conflicts occur during community capac- ity building, mediators first seek to examine if there Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 7 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building are any existing guidelines or policies to mitigate the disputes. If not, they create a platform for collabo- rative policy making by bringing competing parties together (often local people and developers) (Shikida et al., 2010). For this purpose, mediators locate a se- ries ofmeetings with either one-to-one (e.g. mediators and local people) or group meetings (Warner, 2000). In a conflict mediating process, mediators empha- size developing economic, political and social linkages between competing stakeholders (Bierschenk, Chau- veau, & Sardan, 2002). For the successful management of conflict settle- ment, mediators must have skills to effectively com- municate with different types of stakeholders; a wide networkwith business and research organizations; and trust from both local communities and other stake- holders (Howard, 2005). Through the utilization of these skills, mediators help to mitigate the disputes and facilitate effective collaboration for community capacity building (Ansell & Gash, 2007). While me- diators play an important role in community capacity building, their role, by definition, is limited inmitigat- ing and mediating conflicts when they occur or when they are likely to occur because they are considered to be more reactive stakeholder intermediaries rather than proactive intermediaries. Furthermore, their pri- mary concern is to settle disputes; thus, they do not engage in network development. Given the nature of their role, mediators are of- ten ngos, civil society and community representa- tives (e.g. Liegeois, 2013; United Nations Development Programme, 2014). Murphy, Neheta-Manungo, and Mwilima (2007) conducted research in a small ru- ral community called Sikanjabuka in north-eastern Namibia. The local community had significant dis- putes with the other stakeholders including the public sector, nature conservation agencies, and neighbour- ing communities. In this situation, an ngo called In- tegratedRuralDevelopment andNature Conservation (irdnc), played the role of mediator. By monitoring and analysing the situation, irdnc found firstly that the conflicts were caused by a lack of effective pol- icy, which led to overlapping or competing roles of the conservancies and tribal authorities. To emphasize the importance of conflict resolution for further con- sensual negotiations, irdnc set up a series of meet- ings with competing parties. As a result, conflicts were moderated. From this case study, the authors suggest that it is not always possible to solve the entire con- flict, particularly when involving social tensions and traditional structures; however, the breakdown of the main conflict into controllable pieces facilitated by the mediator provided the entry point to mitigate deeply rooted social tensions. While mediators are important in both the td and bu approaches, the current study suggests that they play a more pivotal role in the td approach, which is often adopted in situations in which local author- ities or government bodies traditionally hold strong power (Wang & Wall, 2007). Government bodies of- ten develop policies for local development without sufficient consultation with the local people. Further- more, they are able to utilize their coercive or polit- ical power to influence local communities (Wang & Wall, 2007). Thus, the likelihood of conflicts between governments and local communities is high, and the nature of conflicts is often severe. In this regard,medi- ators can play an important role in mitigating poten- tial conflicts by bringing the two parties together and creating a platform for discussion. Furthermore, in re- lation to the community development stage (Wenger et al., 2002), mediators may contribute better in Stage 3. In this stage, local communities start forming their own identity and taking charge of their activities; it is in this environment that strong tension between local communities and other stakeholders (e.g. government bodies) is likely to occur (Wenger et al., 2002). This is exactly the situation in which mediators are required to play a critical role. p1 Mediators offer a prominent contribution to the td approach, and Stage 3 in the community de- velopment stage, through their conflict media- tion skills. Cultural Brokers The second type of stakeholder intermediary is a cul- tural broker, which can be defined as an independent third party or a group who facilitates ‘border crossing’ between two parties coming from different cultural 8 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building backgrounds (Michie, 2003). In contrast to media- tors, cultural brokers primarily engage in mitigating ‘culture-related’ conflicts by interpreting the values, norms, and beliefs of two (or more) cultures. Com- munity capacity building often involves a number of socio-cultural interactions among various stakehold- ers (Sarkar & George, 2010). As each stakeholder pos- sesses their own cultural values and beliefs (Zeppel, 2009), the way they see the world varies considerably (Shimakawa, 2008). For instance, when developers are from Japan and engage in community capacity build- ing in South Africa, their values and beliefs towards the projects are very different from those of the locals. Even within the same country, national government bodies located in the centre of downtown have differ- ent cultural values from those of stakeholders living in suburbs or rural areas. When stakeholders come from different cultural backgrounds and are working together for community capacity building, it is likely that culture-related conflicts arise (Nash, 1981). In such situations, cultural brokers play an important role. The main role of cultural brokers is the prevention andmediation of cultural conflicts between local com- munities and external stakeholders such as developers, governments or organizations coming from ‘outside’ the community (Michie, 2003). By providing outsiders with the flow of information about the livelihoods, rit- uals, norms, and social organization of the local com- munity, cultural brokers translate the ‘strangeness’ of the local culture into another cultural idiom famil- iar to the external stakeholders (Cole, 2007). Thus, cultural brokers act as an interpreter of local values to outsiders with different cultural backgrounds (Shi- makawa, 2008). When culture-related disputes occur or are likely to occur between involved stakehold- ers, cultural brokers bring them together and create a platform to discuss the differences in the cultures of the conflicting stakeholders (Robins, 2001). Such cultural awareness activities help local communities and stakeholders to have a better understanding of each other and lead to effective collaboration for com- munity capacity building. While cultural brokers sig- nificantly contribute to community capacity building, their role is limited. For instance, their primary con- cern is to mitigate potential or existing conflicts ris- ing from cultural differences between stakeholders. Therefore, dealing with other types of conflicts (e.g. non-cultural conflicts) or network development is be- yond their roles. To successfully undertake cultural brokering, cul- tural brokers must have a superior understanding of both the worldviews outside the community and the cultural values, norms and practices of the local com- munity; thus, either consultants who are familiar with the local environment or local elites/representatives often become the cultural brokers (James Cook Uni- versity, 2011). The work of cultural brokers in commu- nity capacity building can be seen in Dunn’s (2007) study in Thailand. During her research, she employed a local elite with a deeper understanding of the com- munity who acted as a cultural broker between Dunn, external stakeholders and the local community. Fa- cilitated by Dunn, the cultural broker set up several meetings with a variety of stakeholders in the com- munity including other community members in the same project, government officials (for gaining the insights of political issues), teachers (for integrating education as a part of community capacity building) and others. The cultural broker opened the dialogue to discuss cultural awareness for community capacity building. Because of these meetings to share different knowledge, perspectives and cultural values, the cul- tural broker prevented potential cultural conflicts and facilitated better collaboration for community capac- ity building. Given their roles of cultural interpretation and cul- tural conflict mediation, this study proposes that cul- tural brokers are needed in both the td and the bu approaches. As mentioned earlier, the td approach often involves conflicts between government bodies and local communities due to the government’s lack of understanding of the local communities (Wang & Wall, 2007). It is likely that this ‘lack of understand- ing’ not only refers to the needs of local communi- ties but also encompasses socio-cultural values, norms and beliefs of local people. Thus, in the td approach, cultural brokers can bring two parties together and facilitate cultural awareness and understanding be- tween them. In contrast, in the bu approach, cultural brokers can perform cultural brokering between lo- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 9 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building cal communities and other stakeholders coming from different cultural backgrounds, such as other commu- nities, private organizations, ngos and npos. In re- lation to the community development stage (Wenger et al., 2002), cultural brokers can contribute better to Stage 2. In Stage 2, various stakeholders come together from different cultural backgrounds and start build- ing specific plans and actions (Wenger et al., 2002). To increase synergy for the local community and other stakeholders to collaborate, having a mutual under- standing of values, beliefs and norms is crucial. There- fore, cultural brokers play a pivotal role in facilitating such cultural awareness in such situations. p2 Cultural brokers offer a prominent contribution to both the td and the bu approaches, and Stage 2 in the community development stage, through their skills formitigating culture-related disputes. Facilitators The term ‘facilitation’ refers to a practice of enabling groups towork cooperatively and effectively, especially when the work involves interactions and interdepen- dencies among various stakeholders (United Nations Environment Programme, 2009). Thus, ‘facilitator’ is defined as ‘an individual [or groups] who enables groups and organizations to work more effectively; to collaborate and achieve synergy’ (Kaner, Lind, Toldi, Fisk, & Berger, 2007, p. xv). Compared to the previ- ous two types of stakeholder intermediaries, facilita- torsmainly assist in developing collaborative networks among stakeholders. A strong and sustainable network is fundamental for local communities and stakehold- ers to access the necessary resources to achieve com- munity objectives (Ford,Wang, &Vestal, 2012). In this regard, facilitators act as a catalyst to initiate the con- tacts and bridge between stakeholders based on the aims and objectives of the community capacity build- ing (Bjork & Virtanen, 2005). In community capacity building, the process of network development is to look first at the existing linkages in the local community. Once facilitators ex- amine the ‘current situation’ of the existing network, they bring the key stakeholders together. Here, facil- itators become intermediaries who identify the op- portunities and dilemmas of all involved stakeholders towards community development (Kaner et al., 2007). To establish a well-organized network and ensure the involvement of local people in the development pro- cess, facilitators also seek out ‘who the key stakehold- ers are’ (Franch, Martini, & Buffa, 2010). After clar- ifying the strengths and needs of local communities and extant stakeholders and establishing the shared vi- sions and objectives, facilitators seek additional stake- holders who are likely to contribute further to the ef- fective development of the communities (The World Bank, 2002). Throughout these processes, facilita- tors organize a series of regular meetings, interviews, and workshops (Wenger et al., 2002). Once linkages and partnerships are developed, facilitators monitor and maintain these relationships (Monypenny, 2008). Through adopting various tactics and being an advo- cate for network development, facilitators play a cru- cial role in community capacity building. However, just as other types of stakeholder intermediaries, fa- cilitators also have limitations in their roles. For in- stance, their primary focus is to develop stakeholder linkages and partnerships. Therefore, mediating con- flicts among stakeholders is outside their scope. Fur- thermore, while facilitators play a pivotal role in the early stage of community capacity building in which a linkage among stakeholders is not yet developed, their roles become less important once a comprehensive network has been developed. To effectively facilitate network development, fa- cilitators must possess not only strong technical and analytical skills to examine interrelationships among stakeholders but also abilities to facilitate the decision- making process and build trust among stakeholders (Inter American Development Bank, 2010). Thus, it is necessary for them to have skills such as listening, managing debates and identifying ways to move the discussion forward, and even charisma (King, Smith, & Frank, 2000). Facilitation roles are often played by individuals or agencies both internal or external to the community such as ngos (Kaplan, 2000) and public and private organizations in the local area (Atkinson & Willis, n.d.). As an example, the Overseas Devel- opment Institute (odi) (2004) played a facilitator role in developing collaborative linkages for the ppt pilot 10 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building project inKwaZulu-Natal in SouthAfrica. Their initial step was to have a meeting with key stakeholders and discuss what they could achieve through community capacity building. After the initial meeting, the odi found existing and potential ppt linkages for fur- ther development. In the process of creating linkages among stakeholders, they focused onmaking business sense to the operators; creating a positive impact on a significant number of poor people; and ensuring the feasibility of implementing further development. Af- ter a series of meetings organized by the odi, local communities and stakeholders came up with shared visions and missions toward ppt development. Built on these visions and missions, they were able to ex- pand their network further for subsequent projects. Given the roles facilitators play in community ca- pacity building, this study proposes that they can con- tribute prominently to the communities using a bu approach. The bu approach is often adopted in the situation where a number of groups exist around the community but are not coordinated well and are pur- suing their own interests (Sabatier, 1986). In other words, it is a situation where stakeholders are ‘out there,’ but they do not know with whom and how they ought to collaborate. Here, facilitators play a crucial role in developing a stakeholder network which will contribute to the community capacity building. In re- lation to the community development stage (Wenger et al., 2002), facilitators play a more important role in Stage 1. This stage involves the situation in which a loose network of people or groups exists around the community but are not coordinated well and their common issues and needs are not clearly identified (Wenger et al., 2002). In such a situation, facilitators bring relevant stakeholders together, define the shared goal, and identify other potential stakeholders to con- tribute to community capacity building. p3 Facilitators offer a prominent contribution to the bu approach, and Stage 1 in the commu- nity development stage, through their network development skills. Honest Brokers Although the discussion of honest brokers remains limited in literature, this type of stakeholder interme- diary seems to have great potential to address two key issues associated with community capacity building whereby they may contribute to community develop- ment in a more effective manner. The term, honest brokers, is defined as an individual or third party who pulls stakeholders together both internally and exter- nally and encourages them to discuss common issues to achieve shared objectives (Williams, 2002). Honest brokers, compared to the three other types of stake- holder intermediaries, play a multi-dimensional role. One of the key roles they play is preventing or medi- ating conflicts among stakeholders (Brown, Keen, & Dyball, 2005). When conflicts are anticipated between parties, or occur in the process of community capac- ity building, honest brokers become the middlemen and act as informal consultants. They first examine the nature of the conflicts, then, seek to identify the key issues, immediate concerns, potential impacts and underlying needs of relevant stakeholders (Brown et al., 2005). For this purpose, honest brokers often lo- cate a series of interview sessions with each relevant stakeholder. These sessions also help them to identify appropriate solutions to unblock commercial, social, and environmental constraints (Williams, 2002). Another key role of honest brokers is to facilitate network development among stakeholders (Wescott, 2002). On a wider scale, honest brokers bring vari- ous stakeholders together (i.e. both national and in- ternational organizations with diverse skills and ca- pabilities) to form strategic alliances, collaborations and joint ventures for the projects associated with community capacity building (Wescott, 2002). On a narrower scale, honest brokers encourage creating horizontal linkages between communities and pri- vate sectors (Paarlberg & Varda, 2009). By playing various roles, honest brokers contribute to overcom- ing key challenges associated with td and bu ap- proaches and fostering effective community capacity building. However, to play such multiple roles, hon- est brokers require several skills and extensive knowl- edge. For instance, they must have strong networking skills, knowledge of the relevant industry; a high level of communication skills, negotiation, and leadership skills, and the ability to see the big picture and oppor- tunities (Brown et al., 2005; Wescott, 2002; Williams, Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 11 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building 2002). Therefore, a challenge associated with honest brokers is to locate those who possess such multiple skills in community capacity building. Often, large international organizations or skilful outsiders from external agencies, such as ngos and npos, play the role of honest broker (Mitchell, Keane, & Laidlaw, 2009; Bourguignon, Elkana, & Pleskovic, 2007). Warner (2000) observed the dispute settle- ment facilitated by the honest broker, Foundation for People and Community Development (fpcd), in Lakekamu Basin in Papua New Guinea. fpcd ini- tially used office-based analytical tools which clearly mapped the causes of the disputes. Then, they identi- fied each stakeholder’s immediate concerns and their underlying motivations. Following a series of focus group discussions and consultations, fpcd held in- terviews with all key stakeholders to negotiate the manner of dispute settlement. fpcd made it clear to the local community and stakeholders about their en- titlement to participate in the decision-making pro- cess, an appropriate style for discourse and the decision- making procedure all stakeholders had to follow. As a result, fpcd resolved the conflicts. In terms of honest brokers’ network development roles, the Asian Devel- opment Bank (adb) in the Great Mekong Subregion program (AsianDevelopment Bank, 2007) established the linkages between local communities and govern- ment bodies and also with officials from other coun- tries to undertake the project for community capacity building. Because of partnership development, adb successfully secured substantial funds for the infras- tructure projects as well as technical support for hu- man resource development in the local area. As honest brokers play multiple roles, this study proposes that they can contribute to both the td and the bu approaches as well as to Stage 1 to 3 of com- munity development (Wenger et al., 2002). The td approach and Stage 3 often involves conflicts between policy makers and local communities. In such situa- tion, honest brokers can play the role of conflict me- diator by providing a platform for both parties to dis- cuss objectives, concerns and potential impacts that community capacity building activities bring to lo- cal communities. In contrast, the bu approach often involves various stakeholders coming from different backgrounds and holding different interests in com- munity development, which somewhat also reflects Stages 1 and 2 in the community development stage. In such a situation, honest brokers can perform facil- itator roles to bring stakeholders together to discuss shared visions and the goals of projects, and develop networks. Furthermore, they may engage in cultural broking to interpret the values, beliefs and norms of different parties so that they can work together collab- oratively without cultural misunderstanding. p4 Honest brokers offer a prominent contribution to both the td and bu approach, and Stage 1– 3 in the community development stage, through their skills for conflict mitigation and network development. Figure 1 summarizes the four propositions devel- oped in this study, and suggests the context where each type of stakeholder intermediary offers a promi- nent contribution to successful community capacity building. Although the four key stakeholder interme- diaries may contribute to successful community ca- pacity building in general, the current study suggests that their involvement ismore critical in the early stage of community development (Stage 1 to 3) in which the network is limited, and the local community needs to develop partnerships for better collaboration, and in addition, in the situation where the local community is likely to experience conflicts with involved stake- holders. Discussions and Conclusions The purpose of this paper was to critically exam- ine the roles and characteristics of different types of stakeholder intermediaries and provide a framework to illustrate in which context each stakeholder inter- mediary can offer a more prominent contribution to successful community capacity building. The study first reviewed the literature on community capacity building and identified two critical issues inherited in the td and the bu approaches: conflicts and lack of linkages between local communities and stakeholders. Four types of stakeholder intermediaries who could contribute to resolving these two issues were identi- fied from the literature; namely, mediators, cultural 12 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building Facilitators Cultural brokers Mediators P3 P2 P1 Honest brokers P4 Bo tt om -u p To p -d ow n 1 2 3 4 5 Development stage Figure 1 A Proposed Framework of Stakeholder Intermediary Contribution in Community Capacity Building brokers, facilitators and honest brokers. Their defi- nitions, roles, and limitations in community capacity building were discussed along with relevant examples. Based on the analysis of these stakeholder interme- diaries, the study developed a series of propositions and a framework that illustrates the specific contexts (i.e. td and bu approaches and community develop- ment stage (Wenger et al., 2002)) in which each type of stakeholder intermediary can better contribute to successful community capacity building. The current study proposes that mediators contribute better to the td approach and Stage 3 by utilizing their conflict res- olution skills. Cultural brokers play an important role in both td and bu approaches, and Stage 2, by re- solving culture-related conflicts between stakeholders from different backgrounds. Facilitators are better uti- lized in the bu approach, and Stage 1, in which the situation requires development of partnerships and networks to shape shared goals and initiate better col- laborative works. Lastly, honest brokers play multi- ple roles whereby they can offer broader contributions in both td and bu approaches as well as in various stages of community capacity building (Stage 1–3). Theoretical and Practical Implications While this study offers a number of theoretical and practical implications, one of themost important con- tributions is the clarification of the roles and character- istics of various stakeholder intermediaries in commu- nity capacity building. Previously, many practitioners and researchers used different terms to refer to vari- ous types of stakeholder intermediaries and there has been very limited understanding of what each stake- holder intermediary term refers to, as well as what their roles and limitations are. Clarification of their definitions, roles and limitations enables future re- searchers to adopt appropriate terminology and type of intermediaries and critically examine their func- tions in each community capacity building context. Another important contribution is that this study pro- vides a framework that proposes the specific contexts (i.e. td/bu approach and community development stages) in which each type of stakeholder intermediary can offer a more prominent contribution to commu- nity capacity building. The framework suggests how each type of stake- holder intermediary confronts the issues commonly confronted in community capacity building, and fos- ters successful community development. Such a frame- work can be used as a basis for future studies to criti- cally evaluate the application of different stakeholder intermediaries in each context. Accumulation of these studies from different contexts would help to identify the success rate and success contexts of different des- tinations with different types of stakeholder interme- diaries. The framework would also be useful for prac- titioners who are interested in community capacity building or those who are already engaging in com- munity development practices. It will help them to choose the right type of stakeholder intermediary to contact andwhat outcomes they can expect from these intermediaries. Limitations and Future Study As with any research, the current study has several limitations. Firstly, the types of stakeholder interme- diary discussed in this study are limited in number. The study focused on only four types of stakeholder intermediaries. Although these stakeholder interme- diaries are commonly discussed in previous studies, it is possible that there could be other types of inter- mediaries who could play an important role in com- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 13 Hiroaki Saito The Role of Intermediaries in Community Capacity Building munity capacity building. To gain a more holistic un- derstanding of various types of intermediaries, future study should examine other types of stakeholder in- termediaries, particularly their roles and limitations in community capacity building. Such study would fur- ther improve our understanding of stakeholder inter- mediaries and foster successful community capacity building. Another limitation of this study, and critical, is a lack of any empirical test of the developed framework. Built from the extant literature, the current study de- veloped a framework that proposes the specific con- text in which each type of stakeholder intermediary can better contribute to successful community ca- pacity building. However, empirical validation of the propositions has yet to bemade. Thus, any future study should empirically test the propositions and validate the model. While there would be various ways to empiri- cally test and validate the model, any future study should first examine the ‘current situation’ of the local community. This examination may include assessing whether the td or the bu approach is being used; in which community development stage they are; and who the middlemen or stakeholder intermediaries are. Once the community situation is examined, con- ducting a series of semi-structured interviews with stakeholder intermediaries would be useful to clarify their roles, functions and the limitations in the project. These interview sessions would provide researchers with clear ideas about which type of stakeholder in- termediaries the individual or group represents. Con- ducting the focus group interviews with local com- munities and other stakeholders could verify the roles and functions of stakeholder intermediaries. A lon- gitudinal study would also be useful to critically ex- amine the intermediaries’ functions and evaluate their performance in a long-term perspective. For example, longitudinal studies can examine how each type of intermediary contributes to resolving issues and fos- tering effective collaboration not only at the decisive time but also when new conflicts occur or when new partnerships are required along the way. Furthermore, it is possible that the same individuals or organizations will shift their roles from one type of stakeholder in- termediary (e.g. facilitator) to another (e.g. cultural broker) as the community development stage moves to the next level. As such, a longitudinal study using a combination of other qualitative techniques would be useful to empirically test the model and to investi- gate role shifts or to evaluate the boundary conditions within which each type of stakeholder intermediary may successfully perform their roles in community capacity building. While tourism brings several benefits to develop- ing nations, a lack of community capacity often hin- ders local communities in such nations from adopting ppt. Given that stakeholder intermediaries play a crit- ical role in community capacity building, the current study investigated the roles and applications of vari- ous stakeholder intermediaries. Clarification of their roles, characteristics and limitations, as well as a de- veloped framework, provide valuable insight into how scholars and practitioners should consider the selec- tion and application of the appropriate type of stake- holder intermediary in each context. The author an- ticipates that the improved understanding of different types of stakeholder intermediary and their applica- tion for community capacity building practices will open avenues for future research, particularly in ppt or broader community-based tourism. 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Communitarian tourism hosts andmediators in Peru.Annals of TourismResearch, 34(3), 673–689. This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 17 Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Boštjan Brumen University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia bostjan.brumen@uni-mb.si Marjetka Rangus University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia marjetka.rangus@um.si Maja Turnšek Hančič University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia maja.turnsek@um.si Tanja Lešnik Štuhec University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia tanja.lesnik@um.si Mitja Gorenak University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia mitja.gorenak@um.si The immersive power of Internet and the ability to conduct on-line business marks a line between failure and success. The objective of this paper is to determine whether there are any factors that can be related to the web presence of entities active in Slovenian tourism. Such factors would help to identify the key issues for improving the web presence of Slovenian tourism entities. A list of 2181 entities representing the population of active business units in the Slovenian tourism industry was ob- tained from Telecom Slovenia’s on-line service www.bizi.si. The units were consid- ered to be active in the tourism sector if their primary code belonged to the following group: i 55.10, i 55.20, i 55.30, i 56.10, n 79.11, h 49.39, n 77.34, or r 93.292. Each en- tity’s presence on the Internet bymeans of aweb page addresswas checked. Statistical analyses (associations, simple logistic regression, decision trees) were performed to verify associations or relations between web presence and other data on companies. Of the 2181 entities, only 655 are present on the Internet by means of a web page. As expected, companies with more employees are more web-present than those with fewer; with two or more employees, the web presence exceeds 60. Small firms, newly established ones, or those with few employees tend not to have web pages; the worrying fact is that there is a considerable number of companies still without a web page despite having an adequate annual income. The analysis has exposed the as- tonishing fact that many Slovenian companies in the tourism sector are not present on the Internet. Even some larger firms do not have a web page. This fact shows that Slovenian tourism entities are lagging behind global trends and that significant efforts need to be put into ict and the e-enabling of Slovenian tourism sector. Keywords: ict in tourism, web presence, tourism industry, technologies https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.19-26 Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 19 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Introduction The development of information and communication technologies (ict) has changed business practices to such an extent that the Information Era has emerged. This is even more so for the Internet as the infras- tructure and the World Wide Web as the service run- ning on it. The tourism sector is not exempt from such change. A tourist product exists only as information at the point of sale, and cannot be sampled before the purchase decision is made (World Tourism Organi- zation, 1999). With ict tools, customers empowered to identify their travel needs, pursue their travel mo- tivations, explore possibilities, make purchasing de- cisions, and share their experiences. In contrast, the industry is becoming globalized by using the tools to develop, manage, and distribute their services on the global scale (Buhalis, 1998). Using or not using ict technology nowadays marks a line between fail- ure and success. Communicating with potential con- sumers on-line is amust. Searching for travel informa- tion available on-line is the prevailing mode of using the Internet for tourism. Fesenmaier, Cook, Zach, Gretzel, and Stienmetz (2010) estimate that nearly 79 percent of the 135 mil- lion online travelers in 2008, or 105 million adults, used the web to facilitate their travel. In 2011, 93 of adults that use the Internet took at least one trip of 50 miles of more away from home or a trip that included an overnight stay, which represents almost 170 mil- lion on-line tourists in the us (Fesenmaier, Sheatsley, & Stienmetz, 2012). There was an almost 25 increase of adults using online services for travel in three years (2009–2012) in the us. Internet search is the first information source for families in the us when it comes to the planning of holidays (eMarketer, 2008). Search engines are the pri- mary source generating upstream traffic to the web- sites of tourism services providers (Hopkins, 2008). Thus, they are the intermediary between the cus- tomers and suppler. They relay tourism-related infor- mation and serve as an essential marketing tool. Using the potential of search engines, the suppliers can reach out to potential customers and persuade them to pur- chase the services, either a priori on-line or later on the site of the tourism facility (Xiang, Wöber, & Fe- senmaier, 2008). Second to search engines in terms of most visited pages are social media sites (Hitwise, 2013). The importance of social media integration into websites leads to an even more enhanced web experi- ence for both sides. This paper only deals with presence of tourism entities via webpages. However, the ict landscape is changing rapidly. The reader is advised to take into the account that several other platforms are complement- ing and sometimes even supplementingwebpage pres- ence. Social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) are becoming increasingly important in international tourists’ decision-making processes (Schroeder&Pen- nington-Gray, 2015). Online tourist agencies (i.e. verti- cal sales channels) have a significant market share but not as high as expected (Stangl, Inversini, & Schegg, 2016). The importance of Internet for business in general, and for tourism in particular, has undoubtedly been outlined by numerous researchers and proven in prac- tice. How this general observation is reflected in prac- tice in Slovenia has yet to be shown; in Slovenia, the web is increasingly used for travel-related information, as one in every ten Internet user searches for such in- formation at least once a week (Cvetović, 2013). As Chiu, Hsieh, Roan, Tseng, and Hsieh (2011) ob- serve, consumers in multichannel environments can move easily among different channels. They engage in a so-called ‘cross-channel free-riding’ when they use one retailer’s channel to obtain information or evaluate products and then switch to another retailer’s channel to complete the purchase. Thus, having a web page is a starting point in making use of any of the available contemporary ict-based distribution channels. The objective of this paper is to describe how the Slovenian entities active in the tourism industry are using the Internet as a business tool, and which pa- rameters indicate their web presence. We present the underlying and related work in the second section. In the third section, we outline the re- search method, including data acquisition and data processing. In the fourth section, we evaluated the web presence of Slovenian tourism companies, and we identify the key problems. We conclude the paper with final remarks and comments in the fifth section. 20 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled RelatedWork Tourism destinations and enterprises both increas- ingly need to adopt innovative methods and to en- hance their competitiveness (Uran Maravić, Križaj, & Lesjak, 2015); the fusion of information and com- munication technologies enables the creation of new services, restructures existing models of service pro- vision, and radically changes the competition of com- panies, regions, and destinations (Buhalis, 1998). On the demand side, the new, sophisticated, and demand- ing consumer increasingly becomes familiar with the emergent technologies and requires flexible, special- ized, accessible, interactive products and communi- cation with principals; in the middle point, icts link consumers and suppliers, thus adding value to firms’ products. Interestingly, icts change(d) the supply and demand interaction for all types of industry, re- gardless of the size and location (Buhalis, 1998). The cost-effectiveness of Internet tools enables companies to reach customers around the world and to interact directly with customers (Buhalis, 1998, 2003). It has assisted tourism service providers to use many activities in addition to, if not instead of, of- fline promotions. This is important as the Internet is thought of as amulti-promotion tool, and importantly, as a distribution channel (Gretzel, Mitsche, Hwang, & Fesenmaier, 2004). Web promotion is, therefore, be- coming the primary promotional channel (Buhalis, 2003). Through the Internet, companies have a possibility of addressing each targetmarket differently, and create services through the destination to satisfy the needs of many market segments. A customer has become a dynamic target towhompersonalizedmessages can be addressed (Buhalis & Law, 2008). In terms of website presence, it was shown that this is a must for tourist destinations and the evaluation of their competitiveness (Mazanec, Wöber, & Zins, 2007, Uran Maravić, Gračan, & Zadel, 2015). Impor- tantly, these websites need to be regularly updated not only regarding their content, but also regarding the technologies and appliances they support (Antonioli Corigliano & Baggio, 2006). Many websites have been reviewed and assessed; a review of these works was compiled in (Law, Qi, & Buhalis, 2010). The studies of travel-related or tourist-relatedweb- sites can be roughly divided into horizontal (sector- wide) and vertical (region-wide), e.g.: • cross-national levels (So & Morrison, 2004), • national level (Doolin, Burgess, & Cooper, 2002; Zafiropoulos & Vrana, 2006), • regional level (Lu, Guo, & Bai, 2004), • sector-specific level (Arno, Karl, Ouml, Ber, & Christian 2003;O’Connor&Frew, 2000, 2004; So &Morrison, 2004; Zafiropoulos & Vrana, 2006). In 2010, there were seventy-five website studies in the relevant tourism-related journals (Law et al., 2010). However, to the best of our knowledge, no enu- meration and consequently no evaluation of Slovenian tourism websites has ever been conducted. Further- more, no analysis of tourism entities being present on- line was performed at the national level; the research by (Brumen, Gorenak, Rosi, & Rangus, 2016) has es- tablished the association between the tourist arrivals in an area with increased web presence. The reasons for a company to maintain a web page (or not) can extend beyond purely economic and fi- nancial ones. For example, a companymight maintain a social network presence combined with coopera- tion with an online travel agency or an online mar- keter/sales channel (e.g. booking.com), and such a presence is considered adequate. Method The aim of this study is to describe the web presence of the Slovenian tourist industry. For this purpose, we first collected the data from our data source. Next, we use descriptive statistics to describe the nature of com- panies being present or not on the Internet. To deter- mine which factors contribute to the web presence we use appropriate statistical methods. Data Collection The data source for our study was Telecom Slovenia’s on-line service www.bizi.si, which is connected to the Slovenian Court Registrar on a daily basis. Each busi- ness unit (company) is registered at the court with a single primary Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (nace v2) Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 21 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Table 1 Web Presence of Entities by nace Activity Code Activity No. of entities No. of web present Percentage i 55.10 Hotels and similar accommodation 520 236 45.4 r 93.29 Other amusement and recreation activities 26 11 42.3 h 49.39 Other passenger land transport 15 6 40.0 n 79.11 Travel agency and tour operator activities 364 136 37.3 i 55.30 Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks 45 14 31.1 i 55.20 Holiday and other short-stay accommodation 676 205 30.3 n 77.34 Renting and leasing of water transport equipment 54 7 12.9 i 56.10 Tourist farms without accommodation 481 50 10.3 Total 2181 665 30.5 code (ec, 2006); each company can have several sec- ondary nace codes. We have limited the search on nace codes directly related to the tourism indus- try: i 55.10, i 55.20, i 55.30, i 56.10, n 79.11, h 49.39, n 77.34, or r 93.292; see Table 1. For each business company, we checked whether bizi.si holds a url (uniform resource locator) for a company’swebsite. The results in Table 1 show the total number of companies for each nace group, the num- ber of those that have a url, and the percentage ofweb presence. Additionally, we recorded a company’s geo- graphic location (based on the postal code of its ad- dress), number of employees, income (in €) and profits (in €). Hypothesis Based on the theoretical background and the stated research question, we state the following hypothesis: there is a set of variables describing companies that are not present on-line. Statistical Analysis We verified whether the web presence of a company has any correlation, association or connection in a company’s data. We considered differences to be sig- nificant at the α < 0.05 level. spss version 21 was used for analysis. Limitations The study is focused on the use of web pages as the pri- mary Internet communication tool. It does not, how- ever, cover the use of othermeans for presenting offers on-line, such as social media services (e.g. Facebook) or other intermediary services (e.g. booking.com) or similar. Results and Discussion In the first part, we describe the web presence of com- panies in terms of their nace activity. Table 1 lists the activities with numbers and percentage of companies being web-present in each category. Next, we categorize the companies based on the number of employees and, for each category, we check their web presence. The results are given in Table 2. Table 2 shows that the web presence increases with the number of employees, as expected. The association is strongly positive (Sommer’s dmeasure is 0.909, p < 0.000). Next, the data on web presence are presented with respect to the annual income. Here, too, it is expected that companies with higher annual income will be present on the Internet by means of a web page, and more so than those with lower income. Figure 1 shows the relation between the percent- ages of web-present companies with respect to their yearly income. Here too, the lower income denotes that the web presence is lower. Binary logistic regres- sion suggests that income is a statistically significant predictor of web presence, Wald = 28.942, p < 0.000. To determine which of the factors (i.e. income or number of employees) best describes the interaction 22 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Table 2 Web Presence by Number of Employees No. of employees Web present Not present Total Present () 0 154 512 666 23.1 1 73 85 158 46.2 2 63 29 92 68.5 3–4 45 26 71 63.3 5–9 55 24 79 69.6 10–19 30 12 42 71.4 20–49 25 5 30 83.3 50–99 21 1 22 95.5 100–199 6 1 7 85.7 200–249 4 0 4 100 250–499 5 0 5 100 500–999 2 0 2 100 >1000 1 0 1 100 n/a 180 815 995 18.1 n/a 19.7 0–5000 7.2 5001–10000 20.6 10001–20000 20.7 20001–40000 31.7 40001–60000 46.1 60001–80000 45.1 80001–100000 61.5 100001–150000 56.3 150001–200000 68.9 200001–300000 61.7 300001–400000 68.9 400001–500000 75.0 500001–1000000 78.2 >1000000 81.7 Figure 1 Web Presence by wrt income (€) with the web presence of a company, a decision tree was created using a Chi-squared Automatic Interac- tion detection (chaid) technique. This technique is used for prediction (similar to regression analysis), classification, and for detection of interaction between variables (Kass, 1980). In addition to the mentioned (expected) predictors, the geographic location of a company (its postal code), tourism activity area (nace classification), and company’s net profits/loss were in- cluded. The decision tree is shown in Figure 2. The prevailing parameter that predicts the com- pany’s web presence is, based on the decision tree, the company’s income. This is, as mentioned earlier, not a surprise. However, the detailed analysis of the deci- sion tree shows that most companies not present on the Internet are those whose income is below €22,722 or is not known; in this node only 18.3 companies are present, yet this represents 70.5 of the sample. With increased income (€22,722–€37,600 range), the presence increases to 31.5 in Node 2, to 50.8 in Node 3 (€37,600–€114,859 range), to 63.9 in Node 4 (€114,859–€400,125 range) and to almost 80 in Node 5 (income > €400,125). To summarize, most companies not present on the Internet have low annual income, or the data on their income is not known. The latter can be due to the company just recently being incorporated, or it is not required to report income because the taxes are be- ing paid at a flat rate. Based on Slovenian legislation, companies not exceeding €50,000 in annual income are exempt from publicly reporting it. Also notewor- thy is that companies with two employees or more are prevalently present on-line (more than two thirds are present). It is more than obvious that small firms ei- ther do not invest in on-line presence or consider it to be not important. The most interesting group in this sense is the one without employees (e.g. owners only). These compa- nies are not present on-line in more than 75 of cases. The reasons can only be speculated upon without a detailed analysis using interviews or surveys. Never- theless, the reasons might be in the fact that owners of these companies have very specific business; they know their customers in person, their customer base is non-changing and they have a limited capacity in providing the services to the customers. Thus, they (think they) have no need to increase their visibility beyond the existing customer base to avoid reaching their capacity limit. They may be reluctant (or unable) to increase their servicing capacity by employing ad- ditional workforce. The results of our study aremore or less in line with research conducted by the Slovenian Statistical Office in 2016 for activities in 2015 regarding on-line sales and advertising on the internet (Zupan, 2016). Their Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 23 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled Node 0 Category  n No 69.5 1510 Yes 30.5 664 Total 100 21 Node 1 Category  n No 81.7 1253 Yes 18.3 280 Total 70.5 1533 Node 2 Category  n No 68.5 63 Yes 21.5 29 Total 4.2 92 Node 3 Category  n No 49.2 90 Yes 50.8 93 Total 8.4 183 Node 4 Category  n No 36.1 66 Yes 63.9 118 Total 8.4 183 Node 5 Category  n No 20.8 38 Yes 79.2 145 Total 8.4 183 ≤ 22,722 or not known > 400,12522,722–37,600 114,859–400,125 Income (adj. p-value = 0.000, χ2 = 445, 151, df = 4) 37,600–114,859 Figure 2 Decision Tree study was focused on companies with 10 or more em- ployees in all sectors; thus, it is not directly compara- ble to the current one. Nevertheless, they determined that 17 of these companies received orders or on- line reservations. On-line sales contributed to 2.2 of the total income; most of the income represented the sales to other companies or public institutions (77), only 23were sales to end consumers. In the hotel and similar accommodations sub-sector, these sales repre- sented 14.7 of income, and 84 used the Internet as a sales channel. In the current study, 83.2 of compa- nies with 10 or more employees are present on-line, so the numbers (almost) perfectly match. Such a match leads little room for the premise that companies that do not have a web page because they supplement the web presence with other internet- enabled services, e.g. social network presence com- bined with on-line sales through an intermediary. In the current study, 84 of companies do have a web page, and in the Statistical Office study, 83.1 of those companies use the Internet as a sales channel. This simply means that if a company is using an internet sales channel, it is using its own web page, and is pos- sibly combining and supplementing it with additional channels. It is highly unlikely that web pages are being replaced by supplements; it is much more likely that theweb page is being supplemented by other channels. The fact that one third of companies with rela- tively adequate annual income (more than €115k), but are still not present on-line requires further research. While that fact that small firms, newly established ones, or those with few employees do not have a web page can be explained, the fact that bigger companies do not have a web page is rather worrying. Conclusion Numerous studies, including in the tourism sector, have shown that web presence is of increasing impor- tance and may mark the critical line between failure and success. Almost 20 years ago, Haynes, Becherer, andHelms (1998) observed that there was a huge unre- alized potential in using Internet for conducting busi- ness. Today, we still observe that many tourism enti- ties in Slovenia are not using the Internet; only 30.5 of companies are present on the Internet by means of a web page. The present study has shown that companies with fewer than two employees prevailingly do not have a web page, while the penetration is below 80 for companies up to 20 employees. In contrast, the web presence of a company mostly depends on its annual income. The tipping point is at about €37,000 per an- num, at which point 50 of companies start having a web page. Of great concern is the fact that rela- tively large companies with adequate annual income ( €115.000 or more) do not have a web page. 24 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Boštjan Brumen et al. Slovenian Tourism Industry: E-Disabled One important finding of the present work is the fact that the same percentage of companies that are us- ing the Internet as a sales channel are present on-line bymeans of their ownweb page. Thismeans that other Internet sales channels, such as on-line travel agencies, vertically or horizontally oriented intermediaries, or social network media, are supplementing rather than replacing web pages. The global trend in tourism is the ‘new commu- nications paradigm’ (Mangold & Faulds, 2009), e.g. going beyond the static webpage into the world of social media (Amersdorffer, Bauhuber, & Oellrich, 2012; Lim, Chung, & Weaver, 2012; Xiang & Gretzel, 2010; Turnšek, Kurež, Brumen, Rosi, & Rangus, 2013); growth in online exposure can boost tourism incomes to rise 20 (Tourism Economics, 2013). This leaves significant upside potential for the tourism industry to more fully embrace an online presence (Rangus & Brumen, 2016). It seems that the Slovenian tourism industry has not yet caught up even with the ‘old paradigm’ of online presence via webpages. The re- sults of the study can firstly help the decision makers to embrace neworganizational values (Gorenak&Fer- jan, 2015). Based on these findings the policy decision makers should be able to understand the needs of the sector better in order to increase the number of initia- tives and the funds available to increase web visibility. Significant efforts need to be put into ict and the e- enabling of Slovenian tourism sector. Nevertheless, web presence itself is only the first step in a successful use of today’s most important dis- tribution channel. Such a presence needs to be appeal- ing, adapted to the modern mobile user and with rel- evant information. The present work opened a series of research ques- tions. One of the most important ones is the rea- son(s) behind the decision not to be present on-line with a web page, and the reasons are probably not the same for smaller and larger companies in terms of rev- enue and/or income. The extent of other internet sales channels supplementingweb pages is the second ques- tion; additionally, what is their share in induced in- come? 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A framework for the evaluation of hotel websites: The case of Greece. Infor- mation Technology & Tourism, 8, 239–254. Zupan, G. (2016). Pomen spletne prodaje in oglaševanja na internetu za podjetja [Importance of on-line sales and advertising on the Internet for companies]. Retrieved from http://www.stat.si/StatWeb/News/Index/6326 This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. 26 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance in the Hospitality Industry ShogoMlozi The Open University of Tanzania, Tanzania shogo04@gmail.com This paper focuses on issues related to learning orientation (commitment to learn- ing, shared vision, open-mindedness), its effect on innovation, and how innovation can lead to performance in the hospitality industry, particularly hotels. Purposive sampling was used to gather data. Data was gathered from employees of different hotel departments located in Unguja, Zanzibar. The structural equation modelling analysis was based on 228 responses. Three hypotheses formed from the learning ori- entation construct had a positive effect on innovation while innovation had a strong influence on business performance. Specifically, Hypothesis One (h1): commitment to learning positively (+) affects innovation (β = 0.30; p < 0.01); Hypothesis Two (h2): shared vision had a positive (+) effect on innovation (β = 0.28; p < 0.01); Hy- pothesis Three (h3): open-mindedness had a positive (+) effect on innovation (β = 0.12; p < 0.05). Finally, Hypothesis Four (h4): innovativeness had a positive (+) and strong influence on performance (β = 0.55; p < 0.001). To obtain more details on the findings presented based on the overall model, a post hoc analysis was conducted. In that analysis, two subgroups were entered in the overall model. The findings indi- cated that each subgroup had a different effect as it was entered in the overall model. The subgroups included age and experiences. These are grouped as follows: age (be- low 35 years and above 35 years), and experience (below 10 years and above 10 years). Post hoc findings were interesting and address logical contributions to the design of this study. The findings are considered to be valuable for managers in understand- ing the implications of encouraging learning as a solid foundation for forming new ideas that can be commercialized. Furthermore, managers should understand the implication of choosing learning orientation over other variables in order to engi- neer innovation and performance at the end. Keywords: learning orientation, innovation, performance, hospitality industry, Zanzibar https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.27-41 Introduction For companies to survive on the long-term and to compete in the unstable environment of the glob- alized market, hotel managers need to use different strategies. These strategies can be innovative organiza- tional learning, branding, qualified human resources, social responsibility, proactive managerial orientation towards the customer, and implementation of infor- mation and communication technology (Roxana et al., 2014). To maintain a competitive advantage, hospital- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 27 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance ity businesses, hotels in this context, have to exploit these opportunities. This paper focuses on innovation which is always risky, and its implementation never guarantees expected and successful results. Innovation is defined as the process of develop- ing a new product or the adoption of a new product, which also can be investigated at various levels, such as industry, the project, region (Christensen, 1997) or societal (Miller & O’Leary, 1987). Innovation can be defined as ‘the successful implementation of creative ideas’ (Amabile, 1996), which can result in solutions for problems, which can have a potential influence on the effectiveness of an industry, revenues of a firm and the prosperity of nations (Harrison&Huntington, 2000). Innovation has been viewed as vital in ensuring competitive advantage by organization and long-term loyalty. Without innovation, organizations are unable to cope with stiff competition, but the need for change and the need for well-organized processes, built upon years of practice should be balanced. Innovation en- hances the organization’s ability to face the uncertainty that characterizes the current competing fields (Leal- Rodríguez & Albort-Morant, 2016). In the hospitality industry, this practice means understanding and ad- dressing customer needs as well as providing a unique ‘innovative’ experience (Chen, 2011). Innovation in this context allows hotel managers to introduce new services that improve quality. Doing so, they will meet the changing requirements of potential customers and increase their sale, market share, and profits (Chen, Shih, & Yang, 2009). Little knowledge exists regarding the effect of learn- ing orientation on innovation to companies that pro- vide services to the customer (Tajeddini & Trueman, 2012) such as hotels. Due to constant change and in- creasing competitive pressures on today’s hotel indus- try, hotel managers struggle to maximize business re- sults through growth and increased profit margins. As a result, they face more demanding customers, new regulations, globalization, and the destabilizing effects of technological advancement. All these essential fac- tors change the hotel setting drastically and introduce new challenges and requirements for managers to per- form. Thus, companies need to be innovative and de- velop a highly learning-oriented service for their em- ployees in order to improve and extend their skills and knowledge. Specifically, the focus of this paper is on learning orientation (commitment to learning, open-minded- ness, shared vision), its effect on innovation and, fur- ther, how these affect performance. Over time, desti- nations and organizations have failed to succeed due to non-competitive environments. This is true particu- larly for developing countries such as Zanzibar, where many destinations and organizations are still in their infancy, thus lacking the ability to exploit technolo- gies, competencies, knowledge and skills. Innovation is a risky task, andmany innovations fail at a high cost. More knowledge on innovations and tasks associated with innovation will make it more likely that activities are developed successfully. Therefore, this study looks at innovations as a focal construct. Its effect preceded by learning orientation and how these affect perfor- mance is also studied. To give more insights on the proposed model a post-hoc analysis is conducted that focusses on the age of employees and experiences in which these two variables are deemed meaningful in determining innovation projects. The research ques- tion is, therefore: how and under what conditions does learning orientation affect performance through inno- vation? The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, the theoretical background and hypothe- sis development is presented. Later, research methods including questionnaire development, measurements, and data collection techniques are presented. Results from structural equation modelling are then reported followed by discussion and implications. Finally, the conclusions including limitations of the study and rec- ommendations for future research are presented. Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis Development Figure 1 provides the conceptual framework for this work and shows the empirical links between differ- ent constructs as proposed in the hospitality industry. Scholars (Huber, 1991; Kandemir & Hult, 2005; Slater & Narver, 1995) argue that it is possible to develop in- sights that are likely to influence its behaviour and de- velop an innovation culture in service development 28 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Commit- ment to learning Shared vision Open mindness Innovation Performance H1 H2 H3 H4 Figure 1 A Proposed Model of the Study such as hospitality industry. Based on the theoretical background, this study proposes and tests a model of how learning orientation concepts affect innovation and later affect performance in the hotel sector. Learning Orientation and Innovation Learning orientation is defined as the development of new knowledge or insights that have the potential to influence behaviour through its values and beliefs within the culture of an organization (Huber, 1991). Baker and Sinkula (1999) define learning orientation as one of the organizational dimensions that influ- ences the organization’s propensity to value generative and double-loop learning, and encourages its mem- bers to think outside a metaphorical box. Calantone, Cavusgil, and Zhao (2002) define learning orienta- tion as the activities of the organization to add and use knowledge to enhance competitiveness. Nyback, Crespell, Hansen, and Lunnan (2009) define learning orientation as activities of creating and using knowl- edge to enhance competitive advantage. This study adapts the definition by Hennig-Thurau (2004) that learning orientation in the service industry is seen in an employee’s continual desire to improve and ex- tend his or her skills and knowledge. This learning orientation is echoed in increased employee efforts to aggressively expand their existing range of techni- cal and social skills, and thus learn new and better ways of interacting with customers aiming to improve performance in hotels. Boulding, Staelin, Ehret, and Johnston (2005) argue that learning orientation en- hances relationships with customers as it helps orga- nizations in establishing good information process- ing processes and capabilities that are needed to un- derstand customer needs. As a result, it’s argued that learning orientation is one of the most valuable re- sources, allowing hotels to address issues of global- ization and economic uncertainty. This study adopts studies by Sinkula, Baker, and Noordewier (1997) and Nasution,Mavondo,Matanda, andNdubisi (2011) that conceptualize and operationalize learning orientation as consisting of a commitment to learning, a shared vision, and open-mindedness. Literature shows that learning produces newknowl- edge, which is used by employees on the development of innovations, and that, if it is promoted within the organization, high levels of innovation will be devel- oped Martínez et al., 2016. In fact, many studies indi- cate that there is a strong relationship between learn- ing orientation and innovation (Alegre & Chiva, 2008; Calantone et al., 2002; Chenuos & Maru, 2015; Esh- laghy & Maatofi, 2011; Hult, Hurley & Knight, 2004; Jimenéz-Jimenéz,Martínez-Costa, & Sanz-Valle, 2014; Martínez, Vega, & Vega, 2016). As a result, this article proposes that learning orientation through its compo- nents has effect on innovation and these are discussed below. Commitment to Learning and Innovation Commitment to learning refers to the organization’s devotion to acquire new knowledge through its em- ployees. It shows the degree to which an organization values and promotes learning (Sinkula et al., 1997) that is related to a long-term strategic orientation, where short-term investments will yield long-term gains (Calantone et al., 2002). According to Shaw and Perkins (1991) commitment to learning shows how a company promotes their learning culture and makes the company reflective to the necessary changes. For instance, employees in committed organizations are expected to utilize company time to pursue knowledge outside the immediate scope of their work (Calantone et al., 2002). Commitment to learning improves the ef- fectiveness of managers’ innovation. Companies that are service oriented such as the hotel industry perceive their environment as constant changing thus tend to pursue continuous service innovations. Not only can Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 29 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance innovation be difficult, time consuming and expen- sive (Arnold & Artz, 2015), it can also result in failure. Therefore, managers require building commitment to learning in order to cope with environmental changes as a result of successful innovations. If an organization does not encourage the development of knowledge, employees will not be motivated to pursue learning activities (Calantone et al., 2002) and will perceive innovation as a difficult activity. The more an orga- nization values learning, the more likely learning will occur (Sinkula et al., 1997), and attempts to innovate will increase. Several authors (i.e. Eshlaghy &Maatofi, 2011; Hult et al., 2004; Tajeddini, 2009) have confirmed the rela- tionship between commitment to learning and inno- vation. Based on the literature above, this article pro- poses the following hypothesis in the hospitality in- dustry. h1 Commitment to learning of the employees in the hotel sector has effect on innovation. Shared Vision and Innovation A shared vision involves an organization-wide focus on learning (Sinkula et al., 1997); it is all about what the company’s expectations are in this learning process. Verona (1999) emphasizes that without a shared vi- sion, learning by members of an organization is likely not meaningful. At times, even if employees are mo- tivated to learn, it is difficult to know what to learn (Calantone et al., 2002). A common problem in orga- nizations is that many creative ideas are never imple- mented for lack of a common direction (Calantone et al., 2002). Great ideas fail to be translated into action because of diverse interests in the organization (Calan- tone et al., 2002). With a common vision in the orga- nization, learning becomes meaningful, which affect innovation processes. In addition, even though indi- viduals are stimulated for learning, their problem is that they do not know what to learn unless they have a shared vision (Eshlaghy & Maatofi, 2011). Every orga- nization learns and has a set of leading ideas. The ideas may be more or less intentionally created and more or less visible, andmay symbolize good or bad interpreta- tions of what has led to success or failure, but they are always there. Hence, a positive learning environment necessitates an organizational focus when new knowl- edge is implemented. A clear direction for learning is likely to form an organizational strength or even a core competence (Calantone et al., 2002). A number of authors (i.e. Eshlaghy&Maatofi, 2011; Chenuos & Maru, 2015; Tajeddini, 2009; Liao, Chang, Hu, & Yueh, 2012) have confirmed the existence of the connection between commitment to learning and in- novation. Therefore, the following hypothesis is pro- posed in the hospitality industry. h2 Shared vision of the employees in the hotel sector affects innovation. Open-Mindedness and Innovation Open-mindedness is the capability of analysing out- of-date processes, questioning them, and making the necessary corrections (Day, 1994). Open-mindedness is the willingness to critically evaluate the organi- zation’s operational routine and to accept new ideas (Sinkula et al., 1997). It is also associated with the con- tinuous proactive questioning of the firm’s long-held routines, assumptions, and beliefs (Sinkula, 1994). Pa- paroidamis (2005) argues that at the heart of organi- zational change, firms unlearn long-held beliefs and routines associated with operational practices, pro- vided that managers are sufficiently open-minded to question them. Firms must have the ability to cope with fast changing technology and turbulent markets, all of which require an ability to manage change. Fur- thermore, the rate of knowledge obsolescence is high in most sectors, so that lessons learned in the past may be informative if the organization has the open- mindedness to question them (Sinkula, 1994). In other words, it is a process through which an organization starts deleting the existing knowledge or the repetitive assumptions and habits (Eshlaghy & Maatofi, 2011). Many researchers (i.e. Chenuos &Maru, 2015; Esh- laghy & Maatofi, 2011; Lin, McDonough, Lin, & Lin, 2013) have confirmed the link between open-minded- ness and innovation. Based on the literature above, the following hypothesis is proposed in the hospitality in- dustry. h3 Open-mindedness of the employees in hotel sec- tor influence innovation. 30 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Innovation and Performance Performance in any organization can be defined as the organization’s ability to achieve its goals by us- ing resources in an efficient and effective manner (Daft, 2000). Ricardo and Wade (2001) define perfor- mance in an organization as the organization’s ability to achieve its goals and objectives. Performance can be reviewed based on information obtaining through primary or secondary resources. Generally, perfor- mancemeasures can be grouped into two fundamental types (Gunasekaran, Williams, & McGaughey, 2005). These include performance related to results (outputs or outcomes such as competitiveness or financial per- formance) and those related to determinants of the results (inputs such as quality, flexibility, resource uti- lization, and innovation). In this study, the focus on performance measurement is built around the con- cepts of results and determinants. Many scholars confirmed the existing relation be- tween innovation and performance to be a signifi- cant one (Rosenbusch, Brinckmann, & Bausch, 2011; Stock & Zacharias, 2011; Rubera & Kirca, 2012; Leal- Rodríguez & Albort-Morant, 2016, Martínez et al., 2016). In the hospitality industry, and particularly in the hotel sector, research on studied variables is limited. The increasing popularity concerning ideas and strategies of innovativeness in different hotels can be explained by the fact that managers seek ways of improving performance, especially in the long run. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: h4 Innovation in the hotel sector influences perfor- mance. Methods This study employed a self-administered question- naire method of data collection. This process involved respondents filling in the interview form by them- selves. The data for this study was gathered from dif- ferent tourist hotels located in Unguja, Zanzibar. The target population was employees from different de- partments in different tourist hotels. The data collec- tion process took 40 working days. Of 300 distributed questionnaires, 228 responses were used for analy- sis, which is a 76 response rate. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data. Purposive sam- pling was used in this study. This sampling was se- lected from different departments including House- keeping, Food and Beverages, Accounting, Engineer- ing, and Sales and Marketing. Study Area This study was conducted from hotels located in Un- guja, Zanzibar. Unguja is the island of the Zanzibar Archipelago that has the most developed tourism in- dustry. This accounts for a substantial part of Unguja’s economy. It has a rich history, it is the capital of Zanz- ibar, with many crystalline sandy beaches, and it is close to themainland of Tanzania and easily accessible by both sea and air. It houses the seat of the govern- ment and the narrow vivid streets of the picturesque Stone Town boost the lively history of Zanzibar. All this explains why Unguja attracts thousands of visi- tors every year. Agriculture (including the production of spices, such as cloves) and fishing are other relevant activities. All along the east coast, most villages also rely on seaweed farming. Unguja Island is surrounded by more than 20 is- lands, most of them uninhabited and located on the western side within the Zanzibar Channel. The study areawas selected because of the importance of tourism industry in the country. Thus, tourists service expec- tation, especially from the hotel sector, need to be met so that the destination remains competitive. Questionnaire Development The focus of this paper is on learning orientation (commitment to learning, open-mindedness, shared vision), its effect on innovation and further, how these affect performance. The five constructs in the pro- posed model are latent variables that cannot be ob- served directly. Therefore, a questionnaire was de- veloped as a survey instrument. It had four sections which included learning orientation (commitment to learning, open-mindedness, shared vision), innova- tion, performance and biographical background in- formation. The first three sections included major constructs of the study, which had closed questions. Respondents were asked to select the response to each question or statement that best agrees with their own Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 31 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance opinion. The scale ranges from 1 = Strongly agree to 5 = Strongly disagree. Measurement of Commitment to Learning The scales were adopted from the work of Sinkula et al. (1997). Three dimensions included commitment to learning, shared vision, and open-mindedness. Operationalization of Learning Orientation Reflecting upon commitment to learning, I would say most employees agree that our hotel/company . . . • offers adequate learning to perform what is re- quired on one’s workplace, • has potential to learnwhich is fundamental to the hotel’s/company’s competitive advantage, • learning is a part of the company’s basic values, • learning is seen as a key to improvement, • learning is seen as an investment, • learning is seen as being necessary to guarantee the hotel’s survival. Operationalization of Shared Vision Reflecting upon shared vision, I would say all employ- ees . . . • share the vision as one of the key purposes of the hotel, • demonstrate a total agreement on the hotel’s/com- pany’s vision, • demonstrate commitment to the goals of the ho- tel in your work, • view themselves as partner in steering the direc- tion of the company’s future. Operationalization of Open-Mindedness Reflecting upon open-mindedness, I would say all em- ployees . . . • are confident to reflect objectively based on the shared assumption about our customers, • realize that our perception of the market place must be continually reviewed, • collectively review the opinions we have about the way we view customer information. Measurement of Innovation (Prajogo & Ahmed, 2006) Operationalization of Innovation I would say the hotel I work with in Zanzibar . . . • is active in utilizing the most adequate equip- ment, • has introduced new methods and techniques of doing things, • has introduced new administrative techniques, • has introduced many new services, • has latest technological innovations, • places a strong emphasis on providing tried and proven services. Measurement of Performance (Calantone et al., 2002, Pesämaa, Shoham, Wincent, &, Ruvio 2013) Operationalization of Performance Reflecting upon performance, during the time I have been with this hotel, I would say I have more than av- erage contributed to . . . • increase sales of services and goods, • identification of potential customers, • improved quality of service (time to serve), • improved customer satisfaction, • increased amount of served clients, • improving social climate at work. Results Table 1 reports the relevant characteristics of the col- lected cross-sectional sample. The variables include gender, age, education level, department, marital sta- tus, nationality, and experience. Measurement and Construct Loading The first construct, called ‘commitment to learning’ (Table 2), is defined as the organization’s devotion to acquiring new knowledge through its employees. It shows the degree to which an organization values and promotes learning (Sinkula et al., 1997) that is related to a long-term strategic orientation, where short-term investments will yield long-term gains (Calantone et al., 2002). Hair, Black, Babin, and Anderson (2010) suggest so-called loadings to exceed 0.5. Four items 32 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Table 1 Characteristics of Respondents () Gender Male . Female . Age (years) ≤ . – . – . – . – . Education level Primary school . Secondary school . Certificate level ( year) . Diploma level ( years ) . Above diploma level (– years) . Department Housekeeping . Human Resource . Marketing & Sales . Front desk . Food and Beverage . Accounting . Engineering . Security . Experience working with this hotel (years) ≤ . – . – . – . > . Experience working in this sector (years) ≤ . – . – . – . – . – . > . Notes N = 228. (q1–q4) of the first construct commitment to learn- ing measures exceeded 0.5. Therefore, they were in- cluded in further analysis. Two items were deleted on the basis of weak loadings exploratory factor analysis (efa). The second construct, called ‘shared vision’ (Table 2), refers to an organization-wide focus on learning (Sinkula et al., 1997). Shared vision is all about what the company’s expectations are in this learning pro- cess. All four items (q5–q8) of the second construct shared vision measures exceeded 0.5. Thus, they were included in further analysis. The third tested construct is open-mindedness. Open-mindedness is the willingness to critically eval- uate the organization’s operational routine and to ac- cept new ideas (Sinkula et al., 1997). All three items (q9–q11) of the third construct open-mindedness measures exceeded 0.5. Thus, they were included in further analysis. Innovation as the fourth tested theoreticalmeasure had six variables (Questions). Innovation is a key fac- tor to improve productivity, competitive positioning and, thus, profits (Nicolau & Santa Maria, 2013). Five items (q12–q16) of the fourth construct innovation measures exceeded 0.5; as a result, they were included in further analysis. One item was deleted on the basis of weak loading efa. Finally, looking at performance, the fifth tested construct is defined as the increase in market share, profitability, and customer loyalty. Four items out of six itemswere included (q17–q20); performancemea- sures exceeded 0.5; therefore, they were included in further analysis. Two items were deleted on the basis of weak loading efa. Structural Model The reporting of reliability (Table 2) indicates howwell each theoretical measure works when the proposed model (Figure 1) is tested. The model was analysed using amos 4.0. To interpret the model, it must be ensured that the model has an adequate fit (Table 3). Based on these statistics and evaluating the model us- ing amos, we have the following findings. Table 3 indicates the goodness-of-fitmeasures. The model was tested using amos. The discussion below includes the discussion of these variables. The chi- square measure was significant, suggesting poor fit; nevertheless, large samples inflate the sensitivity of the chi-square measure, making this result insignifi- cant (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1992; Hatcher, Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 33 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Table 2 Mean, Standard deviation, Crobanch alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis Mean sd Factor/construct α cl sv om inn per q . . . q . . . q . . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . q . . . . q . . . Notes sd – standard deviation, om – open-mindedness, cl – commitment to learning, inn – innovation, sv – shared vision, per – performance, α – Crobanch alpha. 1994). This is because chi-square is directly propor- tional to sample size (N). As suggested earlier, in order to minimize the impact of sample size on the model chi-square relative/normed chi-square (χ2/df ) can be used. Although there is no agreement on the accept- able ratio for this statistic; recommendations range from a high of 5.0 (Wheaton et al., 1977) to a low of 2.0 (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). At this point, other mea- sures not sensitive to sample size were used, and these included Comparative Fit Index (cfi), Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (srmr), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (rmsea). For overall model fit, the following indices are valid: χ2 = 276.51, p < 0.000, cfi = 0.903; rmsea = 0.051, srmr = 0.048). A strong fit of the study model requires an rmsea value less than 0.05, srmr less than 0.05, and cfi higher than 0.9 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988) and less than 1.00. Additionally, rmsea values between 0.05 and 0.08 are indicative of reasonable fit (Byrne, 1998; Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2000). All measures used met the cut-off point. Thus, the overall model has a strong and acceptable model fit. To start with hypothesis 1 (h1) (Commitment to Learning→ Innovation), commitment to learning has a positive (+) effect on innovation (β = 0.30; p < 0.01), and this hypothesis is supported. The second hypothe- sis 2 (h2) (SharedVision→ Innovation), shared vision has a positive (+) effect on innovation (β = 0.28; p < 34 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Table 3 Structural Model Results Item Beta (t-value) h: cl → inn . (.)** h: sv → inn . (.) ** h: om → inn .(.) * h: inn → per . (.) *** R2 – innovation  R2 – performance  Notes Goodness-of-fit: χ2 = 276.51 (df = 100), normed χ2 = 2.103; p-value < 0.000; cfi = 0.903; rmsea = 0.051; srmr = 0.048. 0.01) and this hypothesis is also supported.Hypothesis 3 (h3) (Open-Mindedness → Innovation) states that open-mindedness has a positive (+) effect on innova- tion (β = 0.12; p < 0.05), and this is supported. Lastly, Hypothesis 4 (h4) (Innovation→ Performance) states that innovativeness has a positive (+) effect on perfor- mance (β = 0.55; p < 0.001, and this is strongly sup- ported. The model also shows that the three suggested predictors explain 62 of innovation, which also ex- plains 68 of performance. Post Hoc Analysis Literature noted the learning orientation is moder- ated by the organization’s age (Dixon, 1992; Sinkula, 1994). This paper argues it is also related to employ- ees’ age. According to Sinkula (1994), the influence of age is explained by the effective and efficient supply of market information in older organizations. Innova- tive ideas may come from within the organization or from customers, suppliers, and other firms in the rela- tionships. It takes time to establish these relationships; therefore, younger firms are at a disadvantage. Fur- thermore, older organizations aremore experienced at selecting and employing information. As a result, the experience of individuals working with a certain orga- nization alsomatters. In this study, the earlier concepts were relevant for testing the same model across differ- ent subgroups, which include age and experience. Post hoc analysis is established and suggested by Aiken and West (1991) and applied in other supplier based stud- ies (Licata, Mowen, Harris, & Brown, 2003). Two sub- groups were generated from the age of employees in Table 4 Description for Subgroups Age Experience (1a) Below 35 years of age of individuals (2a) Below 10 years of experience in working with the hotel (1b) Above 35 years of age of individuals (2b) Above 10 years of experi- ence in working with the hotel Notes N = 228. Table 5 Control Groups Group Subgroup n  Age (1a) <35 years 143 63.2 (1b) >35 years 85 36.8 Experience (2a) <10 years 98 28.9 (2b) >10 years 130 71.1 Notes N = 228. an organization and their experience working in the organization. These subsamples were held constant in order to assess or clarify the relationship between two variables. The description of how these variables were group- ed is presented in Table 4. Group 1 indicates the age of the respondents working with the organization in Un- guja, Zanzibar. This group was split into two: below 35 years and above 35. Each group indicated a differ- ent effect on the hypothesized gaps. Group 2 showed respondents’ experience in working with an organiza- tion. This group was also split into two groups, below 10 years and above 10 years. Table 5 discusses each subgroup with the corre- sponding percentages. Sixty-three percent of respon- dents were below 35 years of age while thirty-seven percent were 35 years of age above. Thus, it can be ar- gued the age of individuals in different organizations was not equally distributed. It was found that almost 29 of respondents had less than 10 years’ experience while 71 hadmore than 10 years’ experience of work- ing with the same organization. Employees tending to stay long in the same company could be due to a lack of alternative employment. Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Subgroups Table 6 indicates the goodness-of-fit measures for all four subgroups. The model for the subgroups was Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 35 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance tested using amos. The discussion below includes the discussion of these variables. For age, two subgroups are discussed: below 35 years of age and above 35 years of age. For below 35 years of age, the model fit indices are χ2/df = 1.67, p < 0.000, cfi = 0.915, srmr = 0.045, rmsea = 0.072. In contrast, the goodness-of-fit measures for above 35 years of age model fit indices are χ2/df = 2.09, p < 0.000, cfi = 0.927, srmr = 0.043, rmsea = 0.052. A strong fit of the studymodel requires an rmsea value less than 0.05, srmr less than 0.05, and cfi higher than 0.9 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988) and less than 1.00. Addi- tionally, rmsea values between 0.05 and 0.08 are in- dicative of reasonable fit (Byrne, 1998; Diamantopou- los & Siguaw, 2000). All measures usedmet the cut-off point. Thus, the overall model across below 35 years of age and above 35 years of age measures indicated an acceptable model fit. The research went further and added a second group called ‘experience of employees within the orga- nization.’ Two subgroups were identified: experience below ten years of and experience above 10 years. For experience below ten years, the model fit indices are χ2/df = 2.23, p < 0.000, cfi = 0.908, srmr = 0.048, rmsea = 0.069. In contrast, the goodness-of-fit mea- sures for experience above ten years, the model fit in- dices are χ2/df = 1.91, p < 0.000, cfi = 0.901, srmr = 0.047, rmsea = 0.050. According to the previous discussion on the cut-off point (criterion), some mea- sures were acceptable for experience below ten years while other measures violated the criterion. All mea- sures were acceptable for experience above ten years. Therefore, the overall model across experience below ten years indicated a less reasonable model fit while experience above ten years indicated an acceptable strong model fit. Testing of Hypotheses The following is the testing of the hypotheses across the four subgroups. Tables 5 and 6 show results for each of the subgroups and the decision to either reject or support the hypothesized gaps. Hypothesis 1 (h1) proposed that commitment to learning by employees in the hotel sector has an effect on innovation. This hy- pothesized relationship (h1) was not similar across the Table 6 Goodness of Fit Indices for Subgroups Item Subgroup (a) (b) (a) (b) χ2 . . . . df     χ2/df . . . . Probability . . . . cfi . . . . srmr . . . . rmsea . . . . Notes For description of subgroups see Table 4. subsamples (Age < 35 years: β = 0.18; p < 0.001; Age > 35 years: β = –0.135; p > 0.001; Experience < 10 years: β = 0.27; p < 0.001; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.007; p > 0.001). The h1 relationship was strong and signif- icant for two groups (Age < 35 years; Experience < 10 years) while findings for the other two groups (except Age > 35 years; Experience > 10 years) was weak and insignificant. Therefore, h1 was partially supported. Hypothesis 2 (h2) postulated that the shared vi- sion of employees in the hotel sector affects innova- tion. This hypothesized relationship was stable across all subsamples (Age < 35 years: β = 0.301; p < 0.01; Age > 35 years: β = 0.281; p < 0.01; Experience < 10 years: β = 0.458; p < 0.01; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.233; p < 0.01). The h2 relationship was significant across all subgroups; therefore, this hypothesis was fully sup- ported. Hypothesis 3 (h3) predicted that the open-mind- edness of employees in the hotel sector influences innovation. This hypothesized relationship was sup- ported in one subgroup based on the age of individ- uals working in different hotels (Age < 35 years: β = 0.113; p < 0.01). Surprisingly, there was no support for ages greater than thirty five years (Age > 35 years; β = 0.038; p > 0.01). Moreover, examining h3 and the experience of workers in different hotels, support was reported for both groups (Experience < 10 years: β = 0.130; p < 0.01; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.122; p < 0.01). The h3 relationship was relatively strong, and significant for most of the subgroups. Therefore, this hypothesis was supported for some of the subgroups. 36 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance Table 7 Test of Hypothesis, Intercorrelation and Square Multiple Correlation across Subgroups h p Subgroup (a) (b) (a) (b) h cl → inn .*** –. .*** . h sv → inn .** .** .** .** h om → inn .*** . .*** .*** h inn → per .*** .*** .*** .*** R2 inn . . . . R2 per . . . . Notes h – hypothesis, p – path, *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, N = 228. For description of subgroups see Table 4. Table 8 Overall Sample Hypothesis Testing across Subgroups h p Subgroup o (a) (b) (a) (b) h cl → inn su ns su ns ps h sv → inn su su su su fs h om → inn su ns su su ps h inn → per su su su su fs Notes h – hypothesis, p – path, o – overall result, su – supported, ns – not supported, ps – partially supported, fs – fully supported, N = 228. For description of subgroups see Table 4. Discussion and Implication To start with, it was proposed that the commitment to learning on the part of employees in different hotels has an influence on innovation. The relationship be- tween these two constructs did not exist for the overall sample (N = 228). This finding is in line with a study that found no support for the relationship between commitment to learning and innovation (Kosgei & Loice, 2015). Contrary to these findings, Calantone et al. (2002) note those organizations that are committed to learning have a high level of innovativeness. Fur- thermore, Damanpour (1991) notes that firms com- mitted to learning to increase their ability to innovate as compared to competitors. Moreover, the findings of the overall model are surprising as a number of re- searchers (i.e. Eshlaghy & Maatofi, 2011; Hult et al., 2004; Tajeddini, 2009) have confirmed the relation- ship between commitment to learning and innovation. One interesting finding that the post hoc analysis revealed was that hypothesis one (h1) was not similar across the subsamples. The hypothesis was strong and significant for two groups (Age < 35 years: β = 0.18; p < 0.001; Experience < 10 years β = 0.27; p < 0.001) while findings for the other two groups (Age > 35 years; β = –0.135; p > 0.001; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.007; p > 0.001) were weak and insignificant; thus, h1 was partially supported. These findings can be explained by looking at these two different age groups and the main characteristic. Petry (2003) categorized age into young adults (18–35 years), middle-aged adults (36–55 years), and older adults (older than 55). The findings of post hoc analysis can be explained by arguing that young adults (18–35 years) are flexible in committing themselves to learning while older adults (above 35 years) do not easily commit themselves to learning. The same applied to experience; more experienced employees (experience > 10 years) feel like they have enough knowledge of what they are doing; as a result, the need to commit towards learning is low compared to employees with little experience. Secondly, hypothesis 2 (h2) postulated that the shared vision of employees in the hotel sector affects innovation. The findings from the overall model re- vealed that shared vision has a positive relationship towards innovation. This finding is in line with Esh- laghy and Maatofi (2011), Chenuos and Maru (2015), Liao et al. (2012), and Tajeddini (2009), which con- firmed a relation between the two constructs. A post hoc relationship revealed that this hypothesized re- lationship was stable across all subsamples (Age < 35 years: β = 0.301; p < 0.01; Age > 35 years: β = 0.281; p < 0.01; Experience < 10 years: β = 0.458; p < 0.01; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.233; p < 0.01). This result implies that employees in an organization need to be flexible and to embrace a participative approach, that illustrating sharing their visions with other employ- ees or even with main stakeholders is necessary to be open to new ideas that enrich innovation. This paper argues that a shared vision creates a common identity and a sense of purpose in an organization. Further- more, it encourages new ways of thinking and act- ing; and fosters risk-taking and experimentation. Hoe Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 37 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance (2007) argues that without a shared vision, time spent on stimulating creativity is pointless and meaningless. Therefore, without a shared vision, the learning orga- nization cannot exist even with young, energetic and keen-to-learn employees. Thirdly, Hypothesis 3 (h3) predicted that the open- mindedness of employees in the hotel sector influ- ences innovation. Based on the overall model, the findings indicated that appositive relationship indi- cated open-mindedness and innovation. This finding is consistentwith those of Eshlaghy andMaatofi (2011), Chenuos and Maru (2015) and Lin et al. (2013) on the existence of support between open-mindedness and innovation. A post-hoc analysis indicated this hypoth- esized relationship was found for the subgroup aged less than thirty-five years (Age < 35 years: β = 0.113; p < 0.01). There was no support for those aged greater than thirty-five years (Age > 35 years; β = 0.038; p > 0.01). Examining h3 and the experience of workers in different hotels, support was reported for both groups (Experience < 10 years: β = 0.130; p < 0.01; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.122; p < 0.01). This finding suggests that employees that are young adults are more open- minded while older adult employees are less open- minded (a willingness to consider ideas and opinions that are new or different). However, the experience one has with the job or organization does not alter the relationship between open-mindedness and inno- vation. This suggests that regardless of the experience with the organization or the specific job, employees are willing to consider ideas and opinions that are new or different as a means to engineer innovation. Hypothesis 4 (h4) proposed that innovation in the hotel sector has a positive effect on performance. Find- ings based on overall model indicated that innova- tion had a positive and strong effect on performance that can give an organization a competitive advan- tage. This finding is consistent with that of Rosen- busch et al., 2011; Stock and Zacharias, 2011; Rubera and Kirca, 2012; Leal-Rodríguez & Albort-Morant, 2016, Martínez et al., 2016 who that found innovation had a strong relationship with business performance. Today, with the increasing competition, uncertainty, and technological changes, organizational innovation is gaining greater strategic relevance for hotels. Inno- vation is a key factor to improve productivity, compet- itive positioning and, thus, profits (Nicolau & Santa Maria, 2013). This article also argues that to maintain a competitive advantage, hospitality businesses must be innovative in a strategic manner to have success- ful innovation projects. Post-hoc results revealed that the hypothesized relationship was strong and signifi- cant across all subsamples (Age < 35 years: β = 0.579; p < 0.001; Age > 35 years: β = 0.615; p < 0.001; Expe- rience < 10 years: β = 0.698; p < 0.001; Experience > 10 years: β = 0.643; p < 0.001). The findings of this research depict that innovation is crucial for business performance and the task of managersmust be to pro- pose and execute organizational culture that supports learning as a solid foundation for new ideas. The results of this study address numerous impli- cations for firms that want to be innovative. Specifi- cally, the management of different hotels must under- stand the factors that help to improve their perfor- mance directly or indirectly through mediators and moderators. This study found that innovation is the most powerful factor, having direct effects on perfor- mance, suggesting that management should not only design technical strategies to improve performance, but should also create an accepting atmosphere among employees that helps to improve innovation. This is a learning orientation that might be required from new staff during the selection of employees to create dy- namic project teams that have the potential to build successful innovative projects. With employees who have a strong, innovative attitude, the possibility of at- taining greater performance is higher. Conclusion This article argues that innovation is an important or- ganizational ability to achieve competitive advantage in the vibrant environment of the hotel sector as is the case for developing economies such as Zanzibar- Tanzania. In this study, the focus was on innovation and its effect on performance while, learning ori- entation constructs were antecedents. The research objectives were to test the effect of commitment to learning on innovation, to examine the effect of a shared vision on innovation, to assess the influence of open-mindedness on innovation, and to evaluate 38 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Shogo Mlozi A Post Hoc Analysis of Learning Orientation–Innovation–Performance the effect of innovation on performance. Our findings have a significant implication for the hotel managers in Zanzibar-Tanzania: they can increase the innova- tive capacity of their firms by giving more attention to learning-orientation concepts. These findings also imply that managers should have a practical approach towards the concepts of innovation and promote it to other employees. The employees should be aware of their role in the delivery of services and to be en- couraged to have a positive attitude in every assigned task. This study presents several specific limitations. First, the five chosen variables are important, but there are possibly more relevant variables that could con- tribute to the subject. The second limitation might be of the geographical area of the research, which was focused on hotels in Unguja, one of the islands of Zanzibar. A national study that considers all important tourist areas within Zanzibar could bring more infor- mation for practitioners or managers. The third lim- itation is that the respondents were drawn from dif- ferent populations. It can be assumed that the types of employees in five-star hotels and three-star hotels are different. The last limitation is that the study focused only on hotels located in Unguja, Zanzibar. General- izing the results to other industries and countries may not be appropriate, until an identical model is used for other service industries and for other countries. 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This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 41 The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement in Strategic Development of Destination Management: The Case of the Mirna Valley Destination Maja Žibert University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia maja.zibert@student.um.si Marko Koščak University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia marko.koscak@um.si Boris Prevolšek University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Slovenia boris.prevolsek@um.si The aim of this paper is to explain further the importance of stakeholder involve- ment in strategic development of destination management with the purpose of get- ting a deeper understanding of what different stakeholders perceive as more or less important when it comes to destination management. Key concepts of strategic and destinationmanagement are explained in the theoretical part. Based on this, we have posed ourselves the main research question: What are the desires of different stake- holders in the development of the destination in the light of strategic management? Explanations and viewpoints of other authors were summarized, and attempts were made to derive new viewpoints based on our research questions. Results confirm the findings that the life of the local population should be included and engaged actively in the development, when developing the destination and identifying the potentials. Each group of stakeholders plays a special role in the development of the destination. This paper offers an overview of the analysis challenges and trends in the develop- ment of a small tourist destination. The most reasonable and appropriate for small destinations is to undertake the management of ‘bottom-up’ and to consider a com- mon brand, whichwill provide recognition of the place and its key tourismproducts. Keywords: strategic management, destination management, stakeholders, development of destination https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.43-55 Introduction When a destination wants to be classified as a tourist destination, it should provide many activities that tourists identify as a ‘tourist’ experience (Bornhorst, Ritchie, & Sheehan, 2010). Concerning their develop- ment, the destinations defined challenges and identi- fied trends according to which they assumed a trans- parent image. The trends form a group of good exam- ples and practices that tourist destinations experience throughout their development. Ovsenik (2003) points out that it is important for the environment to identify itself with the industry in the shortest possible time Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 43 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement if they adopted a decision about destination manage- ment according to the principles of destination man- agement. Morgan, Pritchard, and Piggott (2003) have, thro- ugh their research, confirmed that, while the provi- sion of direction for development is implicit in vision- ing, what is important is the emphasis on formulat- ing the destination vision through a publicly-driven process based on stakeholder values and consensus, rather than through amore private expert-driven pro- cess based solely on market forces. The same authors further stress that stakeholders must agree that the fi- nal vision statement provides both a meaningful and an operational dream for the future of their destina- tion—one that reflects the values of destination stake- holders while not ignoring the realities and constraints of the marketplace. When conducting research about stakeholder in- volvement into strategic development of a destination Aas, Ladkin, and Fletcher (2005) identified that in- depth interviewees were the best way to understand the importance of this involvement, since they gave them what they called ‘a wealth of information on the stakeholder project and the development of tourism.’ In Australia, a research has been conducted to find out to what extent the strategic planning supports real planning in tourism. Ruhanen (2010) conducted 31 structured interviews with the representatives of five tourist destinations. She came to the conclusion that planning in tourism is focused on short terms and immediate effect, while real strategies are lacking. She also emphasizes that the policy of sustainable develop- ment has the appearance of some kind of movement, nevertheless, the concern about the financial effect is still predominant. New destinations in formation can, thus, follow those examples and conspicuous trends in their de- velopment. The Mirna Valley is a geographic entity within the broader Dolenjska tourism destination. It is located on the territory that used to be part of the Municipality of Trebnje; today, it consists of the Mu- nicipalities Mokronog-Trebelno, Mirna and Šentru- pert. It forms part of central Slovenia, particularly the South-Eastern part of central Slovenia, bordered by the nearby Municipalities: Ivančna Gorica, Šmartno pri Litiji, Litija, Sevnica, Škocjan, Šmarješke Toplice, Novo mesto, Mirna Peč and Žužemberk. While going into this research, our presumption was that the development of the region and tourism proceeds as anticipated, and in line with the develop- ment strategy conceived by the documented Strategic Action Plan for establishment of the tourist destina- tion Mirna Valley. This action plan does not discuss the meaning of the strategic management. Through this article, we will discuss the importance of the strategic management and the inclusion of various stakeholders from the public, civil and private sec- tors. It would, thus, be more than welcome if they as- sociated and cooperated in the development. During the research we wanted to verify how the individual sectors perceive and experience the development of tourism and environment in the Mirna Valley area. Theoretical Background Cooperation of Stakeholders in Strategic Management In their work, Haugland, Ness, Grønseth, and Aarstad (2011) state clearly that research on destination devel- opment is very fragmented, since some studies focus primarily on one or a few selected areas of destination development, thus paying limited attention to multi- level issues and theoretical integration, while, on the other hand, there are studies that take a more holistic, phenomena-driven view, making theoretical delimita- tion difficult. With the importance of continuous de- velopment, it is also very hard to determine when des- tination development ends and destination manage- ment begins. Based on the views of many other authors, it was Haugland et al. (2011) who claim that tourism desti- nations can be considered as complex networks that involve a large number of co-producing actors deliver- ing a variety of products and services. This complex- itymentioned by the authors can be seen as something that clearly differentiates destination development and destination management from organizational devel- opment and organizational management. As is pointed out by Dimovski and Panger (2008), the strategic management is often considered to equal executivemanagement. Brownman (1994), claims that 44 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement the key feature of the strategic management is tak- ing decisions continuously, influencing the effect of organization and implementation in practice. Belak (2002), says that the basic duty of the strategic man- agement is searching for, creating and controlling the strategic potentials of the organization. On the other hand,Uran (2006), views the role of the strategicman- agement as dealing with the understanding of the na- ture of competitive advantage and the manner of how to create and retain that advantage over the others. In the opinion of Tavčar (2008), long-term and com- prehensive control of the organization, focused on the important matters, is in question. Tavčar (2002) said: ‘The assumption that the conditions from the past will continue in the future, has become less and less proba- ble.’ In that way, she defines one of the key reasons for the appearance of long-term and, later on, strategic planning. In their paper, Mackey and Zundel (2016), show that worldwide, many classifications of the Strategic Business Management Schools are known, such as McKiernan, Mintzberg, and Whittington (Whitting- ton, 2001), divide the Strategic Business Management Schools as follows: Conventional, process, evolution- ary and system schools. The conventional school advocates the attitude that the strategy can be developed on the basis of ratio- nal system process, while the model of strategy form- ing should be simple and as little formalized as pos- sible. The process school starts from the assumption that differences occur between the planned and real- ized strategy, while, during the implementation pro- cess, the in-process strategy still appears. The evolu- tionary school denies that the business managers are qualified enough to form strategy. That implies that the profitmaximization is governed by themarket and not strategy. The system and the conventional schools advocate the capacity of organizations to plan and act effectively inside their environment (Pučko, Čater, & Rejc Buhovac, 2009). Strategic Management in Tourism Understanding historical andmodern trends andmo- vements in the business environment is the basic pre- requisite for strategic planning in tourism. New ini- tiatives for such planning will require from successful planners to have the capacity to predict new keymove- ments and developments. That will lead to creating in- novative and effective strategies. In the area of tourism, the relation between bidders and the market/business environment is unique, since the latter embraces the entire world. The tool pest is one of the most con- venient tools for the analysis of the business/market environment. That analysis governs the survey of po- litical, economic, social and technical factors. Because of the unique and specific business environment, char- acteristic of tourism,Mountinho, Ballantyne, and Rate (2011) propose another model of analysis of the busi- ness environment. That is the tool sceptical. S – So- cial factors, C –Cultural factors, E – Economic factors, P – Physical factors, T – Technical factors, I – Inter- national factors, C – Communications and infrastruc- ture factors, A – Administrative and institutional fac- tors and L – Legal and political factors (Mountinho et al., 2011). In Jordan, strategic planning is exploited by the use of various techniques. In his research, Aldehayyat (2011), investigates the importance of strategic think- ing in tourism in Jordan. One of the principal findings was that this was done only by the people, stakehold- ers and creators of the destinations, and that outside consultants were not hired. Nevertheless, Guiver and Stanford (2014), have found that a Destination Manager seldom applies the concept of strategic judgement of influences. In their research into countryside destinations in Great Britain, these authors have concluded that success- ful introduction of integrated planning is prevented by the structure of the tourist industry, public financ- ing, and difficulties in coordination of several agencies having equal goals. Okumus andWong (2005), have found that strate- gicmanagement incorporated different views andmo- dels, implying great variety in concepts from the point of view of teaching. The two authors recapitulate that modern curricula should focus on the implementa- tion of strategies, rbv (Resource-Based View) man- agement of know-how, establishing new companies, learning organization, managing a non-profit organi- zation and multi-national company. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 45 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement Strategic management should aim at maintaining of the tourist destination and the long-term stable po- sition competitively, while strategic marketing should promote combining the tasks of the tourist destina- tion management and its perception in the eyes of the tourists. Destination Management The basic definition of management and/or planning refers to organizing, managing and control. The same competences are also attributed to the destination management concerning the tourist offer, but it Is also necessary to add the marketing and communication component as a key to achieve transparency, and, con- sequently, economic and development success of the destination (Magaš, 2003). Laesser and Beritelli (2013) see destination man- agement (dmo) as the management process that aims to attract visitors and allocate time andmoney in a spe- cific geographic space. As they said, destination man- agement should comprise different domains of activ- ity, such as planning, lobbying (on behalf of all stake- holders), marketing in a comprehensive way, and co- ordinating a seamless customer experience. As Mu- nar (2012) pointed out, dmos have severalmain func- tions. Firstly, the coordination of marketing strategies, including the destination brand, and the management of information and knowledge about the tourism des- tination; secondly, the establishment of networks and initiatives to improve the destination offer, and thirdly, the coordination of tourism planning and develop- ment. The dmo should lead and co-ordinate this dif- ferent aspect of destination, as is shown below. In Figure 1, we can see the proposed scheme of the dmos activities and organization as seen by United Nations World Tourism Organization (2007). On the top part, we see the possibilities that the destination provides, and on the bottom part we see the issues aroundwhich dmos have to work in order to take full advantage of what a destination has to offer to poten- tial visitors. Tourism is nowadays a sector in a state of transi- tion. Therefore, the traditional role of dmo is chang- ing. As Presenza, Sheehan, and Ritchie (2005) pointed Elements of the Destination Attractions, amenities, accessibility, human resources, image, price The DMO Leading and co-ordinating Marketing Getting people to visit Delivery on the Ground Exceeding expectations Creating a Suitable Environment Policy, legislation, regulations, taxation Figure 1 Destination Management (dmo) (adapted from United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2007) out: ‘dmos are becoming more prominent as “desti- nation developers” by acting as catalysts and facilita- tors for the realization of tourism developments.’ Stakeholders at the Destination The connection point inside all three groups of stake- holders (private, civil and public sectors) at a destina- tion is the destination management. It is coordinat- ing all interests and encouraging a consistent and sus- tainable development, plus its marketing. Within the destination, each of the stakeholders has his interests, wishes, expectations and favors. Ackermann and Eden (2011), said that one stakeholder’s actions can generate a dynamic of responses across a range of others. Rela- tions between stakeholders at a destination are formal and informal. Tourism organization runs on several levels, and among them are related tasks. It is necessary to define clearly the tasks and scope of the work of each stake- holder. Uran (2014) prepared a structure, which shows us the relationship between the private and public sec- tors and civil society on the one hand, and the rela- 46 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement Lo ca ll ev el Re gi on al le ve l St at e le ve l Public sector Private sector Civil society Figure 2 Stakeholders (adapted from Uran, 2014) tionship between them at country, regional and local levels. This level of organization of tourism can also be found within the destination of the Mirna Valley. In this way, we can see that the stakeholders from the private sector are oriented to the features of the destination in the short and long-term. They are in- terested primarily in the promotion and growth of the destination on the common tourist market. The pub- lic sector is concerned about the social and economic interests in the long-term and puts much emphasis on the destination development. The civil society expects primarily the improvement of life quality within the destination with personal engagement. Adequate de- velopment of the destination and successful function- ing of the system within the destination requires co- operation of the key three sectors of stakeholders, and well qualified strategic managers and managers active at the destination itself. Sautter and Leisen (1999) said that for tourism planners it is important to consider the interests or perspectives of the different stake- holder groups. According to Wall and Mathieson (2006), ‘Stake- holder perceptions are accepted as crucial for eval- uating participatory processes and devising effective strategies for implementing sustainable tourism,’ but there is no clear understanding of how best to in- crease the involvement of stakeholders in sustain- able tourism. The importance of stakeholder involve- ment in strategic development of destination man- agement was classified in a research paper about a multi-stakeholder involvement management frame- work. Waligo, Clarke, and Hawkins (2013) explained that the inclusion of stakeholders affects development and establishment of sustainable tourism. The argu- ment was based on 3 assumptions. First, stakeholders represent a core component of the implementation of sustainable tourism (stakeholder identification), sec- ond, stakeholder perceptions are sought to facilitate the development of effective stakeholder involvement strategies (stakeholder engagement), and third ‘stake- holder involvement’ can facilitate the achievement of sustainable tourism objectives (multi-stakeholder in- volvement). Based on a theoretical overview, we can confirm the fact that the life of the local population should be included and engaged actively in the development when developing the destination and identifying the potentials. A tourist destination changes in the course of time in accordance with changes in all the environ- ments forming it. Through the view of Magaš (1997), who talked about the destination cycles, we could con- clude that Mirna Valley is in the development phase. That time the destination management becomes a ne- cessity, as the complete offer must be integrated into the environment. At present, it is still too early to speak about the consolidation phase, but an important question is what is desired after that phase, either an autonomous way or development of the tourist offer within a wider destination? It is well-known that problems, ranging from social, ecological to economic, start to appear at the destination. Such difficulties are faced even sooner, if the destination is too little for singular development and organization in terms of human capacities and environmental offer. Therefore, it is an appropriate moment now to ask the question how to go on. The answer is by organizing efficient destination manage- ment; however, the first thing is to define clearly the tasks and scope of work of each stakeholder, and then start to coordinate all aspects by stakeholders. How- ever, the positive effects of destination development are caused by (1) Exchange of information, (2) Use of synergies and (3) Coordination of action (Volgger and Pechlaner, 2014). Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 47 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement Methodology Preparation of the research contents was based on the document Strategic Action Plan for establishment of the Mirna Valley destination (Koščak, 2013), and on the study of implementation concerning individual priorities between the stakeholders at the destination. The Strategic Action Plan for establishment of Mirna Valley destination is a document that was presented to the stakeholders in tourism in the Mirna Valley area, and presents ideas about how to establishMirnaValley as a destination. Based on the theoretical overview and the knowl- edge of the Strategic Action Plan for establishment of the Mirna Valley destination, we have created the fol- lowing research questions: 1. What are the current challenges in destination management of Mirna Valley? 2. How can we get the key stakeholders (i.e. civil so- ciety, private sector, public sector) to be involved more actively in the destination management of Mirna Valley? 3. What are the expected future trends in destina- tion management of Mirna Valley? On the basis of the examination of the StrategicAc- tion Plan for establishment of the Mirna Valley loca- tion as a tourist destination, and after identifying in- dividual priorities stated therein, a questionnaire has been prepared. In that way, the implementation of pri- orities and the destination development were verified. The questionnaire was prepared in conjunction with the purpose of the research work to find answers to the research questions. Representation of the Research Sample In total, we have conducted 14 interviews with repre- sentatives in all sectors and in each Municipality sep- arately, receiving a wider insight into the situation in the field. The Tourist destination of the Mirna valley consists of 3 Municipalities. We interviewed all three representatives of local self-government – Mayors in this part the sample are equal to the entire population. In the private and civil sectors were interviewed key players in each. In the civil sector, these are institutions which covermost of the organized public events.With the interviews, we cover only the part of the private sector which is linked to tourism services, and they recorded the highest number of visitors. It is also im- portant to note that the Land of hay-racks was inter- viewed – a representative of the largest tourist service provider in the Mirna Valley. In this part, the popula- tion represents 20 individuals, and the sample we have gathered contained 11 of them. The aforementioned 14 in-depth interviews were made in the field in June, 2015 and July, 2015. In the Mirna Municipality those were the Mayor and a member of the Municipal Administration, the President and some members of the Sports Society Partizan, and the ‘Aladin’ adventure ranch head. In the Šentrupert Municipality the Mayor, the President and some members of the Ethnic Society Draga and the guesthouse workers from the Winehouse Frelih and the Land of hay-racks were interviewed, while in the area of the Mokronog-Trebelno Municipality, we talkedwith theMayor, amember of theMunicipal Ad- ministration, the President and some members of the Tourist Society and workers of the Guesthouse Deu. The result of the research shows that 14 participants in the selected sample comply with the preparation target of the work contents. In the field, we contacted the key persons in the Mirna Valley destination orga- nization.Wewere interested in the key targets of prior- ities formed by their creators. We selected the persons at executive level in the individual area of the devel- opment and promotion of tourism at theMirna Valley destination. In our opinion, they were able to present in detail the actual state of the destination manage- ment development and organization, preparation of various touristic and cultural events. Based on the recording of statistics of tourist ar- rivals, we divided them into 2 groups. First ‘the small group’ and another ‘the biggest group.’ From each of the groups we took 5 interviewees, the 11th was the Land of hay-racks – a representative of the largest tourist service provider in the Mirna Valley. We were interested in the key targets of priorities formed by their creators, when conceiving the devel- opment strategy of the Mirna Valley destination; we were also keen to know what concrete activities had already been carried out by them as members of the 48 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement individual sector to make the priority live, and what, in their opinion, the indicators controlling the imple- mentation and functioning of priorities at the desti- nation were. Below, the basic questions asked in the interviews and the principal research findings are pre- sented. We contacted the interviewees personally and re- corded their answers on the spot according to the key items. By means of a computer, the transcripts were analyzed and the principal findings written in sets as follow: Public sector, private sector, civil sector. Afterwards, interviews were interpreted sector by sector, first individually, then bymaking a swot anal- ysis of findings. The interviewees took part in inter- views voluntarily. Interviews were, therefore, agreed upon in advance. Research Methods The interview consisted of two parts. The first part comprised 4 sets, each set having three questions. The sets covered priorities given by authors of the docu- ment Strategic Action Plan for establishment of the Mirna Valley destination as development orientations and vision for managing the future development of sustainable tourism in the Mirna Valley destination. Priorities, on which the questions asked from the in- terviewees were based, had been devised on the basis and principles of participative planning, the represen- tatives of public, private and civil sectors having the possibility of giving operational proposals at the time of preparation of the Strategic Action Plan for forming the vision and for future action. In themain part, the intervieweeswere askedwhat, in their opinion, the key targets of those priorities are, what concrete activities had already been performed by them as individual sector to bring priority into life and what, in their opinion, the indicators controlling the execution and functioning of priorities at the des- tination are. In addition to the substantive part, also the basic demographic questions were asked (age, education, profession). With the help of field research, we verified the implementation of the development strategy in the Mirna Valley region, so that we would be able to as- certain that the area develops in the desired way, and at the rate directed by the development strategy. Data Interpretation and Analysis Public Sector After the interviews, we set out to analyze the an- swers we have received from the interviewees within the public sector. The most important thing for the public sector is to activate internal potentials and to include the local community. It is important that the destination should be managed and formed on the principle ‘bottom-up,’ i.e., the locals should see poten- tial behind it, while the public sector tries to manage it with responsible leadership. One of the Interviewees said clearly: ‘Sometimes it is felt that some people lack the sense of community and would like to fly solo.’ They have a common opinion, capable management linking together the entire destination is needed, es- pecially now, the destination has been established, an important step will be its managing. They are convinced an important area is also the cultural heritage, but they said the State, nevertheless, follows the traced path. ‘It is important to recognize the development-vision steps; the vision is carried on and, in that way, the desired management, i.e., the management “bottom-up” is reached,’ said one of the Interviewees. They said it is hard to speak about the operational phase of the project, as the project has been stopped because of financing, but they all want a common brand name, which is also one of their joint goals. In the project of Mirna Valley destination es- tablishment they must appear on the scene homoge- neously. The document – Strategy of establishment of Mirna Valley tourist destination – could be viewed from a wider standpoint and seen also in the light of economy. They said it is well-known that the prospects of the eu, today, are centered in tourism. Therefore, they are confident that they are turning in the right direction; regrettably, wider associating among them is missing. ‘We must be aware that the destination is attractive to tourists, therefore, statistics’ researches are needed to be able to design tourist packages which, so far, have been missing,’ said one of the interviewees. At present, only the Land of hay-racks has such packages Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 49 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement Table 1 Main Questions 1. What, in your opinion, is the key target of this priority? 2. What have you already done (in the framework of planned activities) to make priority live – what activities have been executed since preparation of the document till now? 3. What, in your opinion, are the indicators of priority functioning control? as a tourist product of the Mirna Valley destination. They also mentioned that sustainable development should not be neglected. ‘That is the preferred topic of tourism development in the entire eu. Experiences in nature and the rich heritage must be our priorities.’ Civil Sector Their activities link together the people and inhabi- tants beyond the borders of theMunicipality. They are also active in tourism, particularly in organization of events. They feel that the Municipalities, so far, have not yet managed to agree on joint management of the destination, as would be desirable. In that way, they would know when various projects and events take place within all societies; ‘maybe the system financ- ing would be organized better’ said one of the Inter- viewees. Their activities include publishing of folding book- lets; they are active in cultural activities, in organizing various events, including events for tourists. In addi- tion, they also receive funds from membership fees, donations and sponsorship. They admit that in the sphere of protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage a lot more could be done. ‘Tourism is sold by good stories. Will we win them by preserv- ing natural and cultural heritage? Something more is needed,’ was the convinction of an Interviewee. ‘Our management must know precisely what it wants and conduct a common policy. The management must proceed step by step, not in a hurry,’ said someone else. In their opinion, management could be better and they are concerned how a function, linking to- gether the Mirna Valley area, could operate. They are asking if they have to act together and conduct a com- mon policy, or would they then branch away and be an autonomous destination within the Dolenjska region. They are sure that the idea of a common brand name is an excellent idea. They are sure that the destination also needs indicators of control, telling them whether they are going in the right direction. Private Sector By system and transparent destinationmanagement in the private sector its members are eager to see the re- sult, i.e., an increased number of tourists at the desti- nation. From their point of view, the result of all pri- orities would be an increase in profit. They belong to a group that offers special tourist services at particu- lar destinationmicro locations, and without them, the destination could not be imagined such as it is. ‘An im- portant component here is the private sector of stake- holders in the destination,’ they are convinced. They said the private sector drew attention to the Choice in the Land of hay-racks emphasizing that they must work hard on their promotion and deliberate accord- ing to their best appearance on the promotion mar- ket, since the image in the right market groups of con- sumers is important. ‘Protection and sustainable de- velopment of cultural and natural heritage are today, of course, of great importance, as the sustainability pri- ority,’ they pointed out again and again. A lot has been done on that priority, in comparison with the past. In their opinion, theymust continue working on that pri- ority at an accelerated rate and more concretely. As they pointed out, for them it is the market activity that counts themost.What seems for themmost important at the destination is the coordination of individual rep- resentatives within the public sector, since, from there onwards, the destination is managed. ‘The connecting link is missing,’ they also said. SWOT Analysis of the Mirna Valley By the comparative researchmethod,we compared the interviews from individual sectors and tried to find mutual links, common points and/or differences; at the end of the research, by use of the synthesismethod, 50 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement Table 2 swot Analysis Strengths • Favorable geographic position (airports Ljubljana, Zagreb, Xth motorway corridor, proximity of fron- tier, proximity of principal eu markets) • Attractive landscape (natural, cultural heritage) for residence and tourism • Natural resources (forests, waters, . . .) • The Mirna Valley area is an example of active tourism • Rich cultural heritage of countryside • Local organization: Established and active struc- tures • Hospitality and friendliness of locals • Opportunities for free and safe walking • Experience in acquiring eu funds Weaknesses • Increase in the percentage of jobless young people • Lack of green fields • Weak cooperation culture and skills • Poor offer for high-rank guests wanting to spend more money (Russians) • Lack of tourist programs and new interesting and innovative products in spite of potentials offered by the region • Deficient statistics’ research; lack of public sanitary conveniences, parking lots, scarce and inappro- priate multi-purpose facilities for tourism, illicit dumping sites • Low transfer of know-how, tradition and skills to younger generations and familiarization of the young with the importance of tradition Opportunities • Accessibility and good quality of environment (fac- tor attracting creative people and investments) • Associating of sectors (technological development – tourism – farming – education) • Growth of individual tourism in the area • Relaxation and anti-stress programs as a type of offer of integral tourist products • Chances for development of green tourism • The area features intact and preserved nature offer- ing potential for tourism and quality of life itself • Protected and naturally preserved areas may be visited by tourists and visitors Threats • (Too) slow responding (indecision), and low readi- ness to take risks • Lack of developing – managing know-how and regional Project Managers • Deepening of social inequality • Lack of development cooperation within various development strategies and proposals for joint area management • Unfavorable circumstances for investments, partic- ularly, because of excessively expensive loans • Changes in the labor market – the increasing num- ber of jobless people in the farming sector • Keeping of statistics – decrease in overnight ac- commodations, good and ready integral tourist products we tried to link theoretic knowledge and explanations with practical facts, gained thanks to interviews. The swot analysis of the Mirna Valley area is presented below. Thus, some strengths, as well as weaknesses, opportunities and threats, apply also to wider Dolen- jska, and not only to theMirna Valley. Table 2 presents strengths according to the swot analysis. The Strategic Action Plan for establishment of the MirnaValley destination (Koščak, 2013) proposed sev- eral steps in establishing theMirna Valley destination, and one of the very important tasks was to determine priorities on the basis of swot analysis and to deter- mine actions, how to realize them. In the following part, we are presenting the priorities and certain ideas about what actions to take. Priority 1: Promoting Business Growth for Jobs and Economic Growth for aMore Developed Area In comparison with Slovenia, the Mirna Valley area is marked by low added value below average, low gnp Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 51 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement and lower salaries. The Mirna Valley area also fea- tures bad transfer of know-how, tradition and skills to young generations, bad familiarization of the young with the importance of tradition, deficient keeping of statistics, lack of public sanitary conveniences, park- ing lots, rare and inadequate multi-purpose facilities, some illicit dumping sites can be found. Actions: 1. Continuous learning, innovation and the adop- tion of the necessary knowledge. 2. Prepare an attractive environment for the devel- opment of the company. 3. Pay attention to the surrounding tradition and handicrafts. Priority 2: Farming Friendly to the Environment and the Development of Additional Activities on the Farm Tourism at the destination of the Mirna Valley must be connected to agriculture. The area of theMirna val- ley is predominantly rural. We have to maintain farm- ing and forestry. For these activities, for their further development, we should promote the use of new tech- nologies.We need to create conditions for further con- servation of the countryside. Also, we should increase and exploit better the potential of tourism in the spa, wellness, business, recreation, winter, and event areas, etc. Actions: 1. On farms to introduce additional activities (sleep in the hayloft). 2. The increase in production and quality of prod- ucts on the farm (certification). 3. Execution of practical learning through educa- tional programs. 4. The increase in sales of agricultural products and foodstuffs. 5. Local farmers supply the local population with their food. Priority 3: Tourism and Infrastructure Dolenjska region has the longest number of nights of domestic guests. For overnight stays by foreign guests they were overtaken by a number of other Slovenian regions. It would be necessary to establish a linkage between heritage and tourism. It is necessary to accept the changes and trends of globalization. It is necessary to be on the visibility of the area, it is necessary to draw a good competitive bid to restore the natural and cul- tural heritage and to develop sustainable tourism. A crucial key to success in tourism is the individual ap- proach to guests. We can offer relaxation in thermal water, learning about the natural and cultural heritage, and traditional cuisine and wines. Actions: 1. Better infrastructure for access and indications to the facilities, attractions, heritage. 2. Larger andmore varied tourist offer and services. 3. Improve the organization of cooperation between all providers in the Dolenjska region. 4. Young people present interest in tourism. Main Findings A tourist destination changes in the course of time in accordance with changes in all the environments forming it. At the beginning the destination is, usu- ally, still some kind of intact nature and not yet in- fested with tourism. Here, the destination still has many chances of being integrated into the life of the local population in the course of development. En- gagement implies that much effort is applied to the development of the destination. At this stage, authors Jamal and Getz (1995) said that tourism development takes on the characteristics of a public and social good. The result is the increase of the number of tourists, enhancement of the offer, building of tourist infras- tructure etc. The so-called tourist seasons are formed, and alsomany ‘tourist’ benefits could be shared by nu- merous stakeholders at the destination. Later on, the destination management becomes a necessity, as the complete offermust be integrated into the environment. It may happen that the tourist desti- nation stagnates. This is the time when the destination is no more as attractive than before. Thus, a change of offer is necessary to retain the guests or to attract them anew. Slowly, the destination starts to face so- cial, ecological, economic and other problems. Dur- 52 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement ing the decline, the destination usually loses its value. In the tourist destination the management is changed, the accommodating capacities get lost. In this phase, the programs must necessarily be redefined, products renewed and modified, in short, the system must be established anew if the destination is to revive again. This is the step of some kind of destination reveal. In each stage of development, stakeholders perform a special task. All sectors of stakeholders mentioned the impor- tance of a commonbrand; therefore, developers should take into consideration the need to design a com- mon brand. It was also stated by Blain, Levy, and Ritchie (2005) that: ‘destination logos can facilitate many dmo marketing activities to establish brand im- age and identity, particularly relevant before the actual visitor experience.’ Involvement of stakeholders in strategic manage- ment of a destination is important in each stage of development. The article shows the importance of co- operation of key stakeholders (i.e. civil society, pri- vate sector, public sector) at different levels. More- over, the article demonstrates the importance of the ‘bottom-up’ development in a destination, which we can frequently interpret as a pressure on public institu- tions and the public sector, for example: For additional building of infrastructure. Reid (1996), mentions two approaches to the process of achieving the goals of destination development. In the model of ‘bottom-up’ approach there is present decentralization of authori- ties at a lower level. Local authorities have an impor- tant role in the local ecosystem management and de- velopment activities – also in terms of tourism orga- nizations and other activities (for example, arranging local transport infrastructure organization). The ‘top down’ approach is the opposite, in implementing the principles of tourism development; the country plays a major role. In the area of the Mirna Valley a joint managing policy must be found, representatives of individual destination sectors must be more incorporated into its management and, at the same time, the financing arrangements intended for the development should be examined concretely and thoroughly. To solve the problem of non-constructive destination, better run- ning of the management would have to be established. A DestinationManager is needed, considered to act as the principal driving wheel in the region. For the time being, in this relatively small area of Slovenia within the Dolenjska destination, a common development policy and appearance on themarket have not yet been introduced. Through interviews we could conclude that the Mirna Valley destinationmanagement is led to a large extent by the development center Novo mesto. An independent management center in the Mirna Val- ley area within the Dolenjska tourist destination had not yet been established, though the vision and strat- egy anticipated its establishment within one year after publishing the document. With a common interest in the development and destination marketing of the Mirna Valley, including all three municipalities, the Mirna valley can be developed as an important tourist destination. The number of visitors is increasing ev- ery year at the destination of the Mirna Valley. This is evidenced by the statistical recording by a representa- tive of the largest tourist service provider in the Mirna Valley – the Land of hay-racks. Only with destination management, with new lodgings capacity and some other parts of the tourist infrastructure, will it become a strong and distinctive sightseeing attraction. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research Every research has some limitations. In this case, we can talk about the limitation about the size of the re- search population, to minimize its effect we have con- ducted interviews with all Mayors within the destina- tion and selected carefully a sample of 20 most im- portant tourist providers at the destination; we man- aged to capture the opinions of 11 of them. For future research, it would be proper to use another research method – for example, a survey which would cover a larger number of respondents. It would be proper to think about a common brand name in the wider destination but, today, we do not have any concrete concepts of it. In the Mirna Valley area, also the cultural and natural landscape changes. With the change of generations many vineyards are abandoned in the valleys, especially in comparison with the past, and there aremore quarries in some way Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 53 Maja Žibert, Marko Košak, and Boris Prevolšek The Importance of Stakeholder Involvement spoiling landscape. When thinking about the future, we must ask ourselves what impact will a new road link between North and South (known as the 3rd de- velopment axis) have on uswhen it is constructed?Not only in the sphere of tourism, but also in the spheres of economy and transit. The Tourist Information Center should not be a building or organization only. There must be informers, who will be capable of providing useful information to tourists on the premises, in the flower shop, or in the street. Let us not forget that we are living in the age of advanced technology, when smartphones play an important role. Applications on the phones (about the offer of Mirna Valley and its contents too) should become one of the priorities to be established. Our work is an appropriate starting point for further researches in the Mirna Valley des- tination, particularly from the point of view of sus- tainable tourism, since, according to modern trends the sustainability and development of the destination must go hand in hand. Conclusions The starting point of any strategic tourism policy is a tourist destination (city, region, country) as a group of interconnected stakeholders. The activity of each indi- vidual affects the activity of the others. Certain com- mon objectives must be defined and achieved in a co- ordinatedway. The public sector should be responsible for the future development of the destination (devel- opment plans). The tasks of the public sector are inter- est rate subsidies, employment assistance, infrastruc- ture in the Municipality, taking care of monuments, organization of events and market research. The private sector of the Mirna Valley is well rep- resented. The leading group at the destination is the Land of hay-racks. For the private sector, it is im- portant to ensure and monitor the quality. They have to implement additional tourist offers to keep tourist longer at the destination. The private sector must con- sider these challenges. Civil society is very important for the development of tourism. They supply addi- tional activities, such as organizing events or infor- mation. These events are lacking in the Mirna Valley. Here are included tourist associations, cultural associ- ations, the Association of Rural Women, choirs, wine clubs and sports associations. 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This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 55 Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services MladenMitrović PhD student, University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies – Turistica, Slovenia mladen.mitrovic@live.com In the promotion and development of services provided by hotels, satisfaction sur- veys and assessment of the importance of different aspects of hotel services by vis- itors have an immense importance. Therefore, the aim of this research was to de- termine which aspects of the hotel are important (in a sample of respondents from Serbia), as well as to determine the dimensional structure of their satisfaction. The sample consists of 200 respondents, visitors to the hotel from the territory of Serbia. In the pilot study, an open-ended questionnaire was constructed for research pur- poses. Based on the respondents’ answers, two scales, which relate to the satisfaction and importance of hotel services, were constructed in the second phase. The number of facets in the scale is 21, and both constructed scales have good internal reliabil- ity. The results showed that the most important aspects of hotel services are safety, responsiveness, price, privacy and the physical characteristics of the hotel. Also, the results of exploratory factor analysis indicate that satisfaction with hotel services in Serbia can be seen as a one-dimensional construct rather than a phenomenon con- sisting of several different factors. There were no significant differences between the perceived importance of services and satisfaction with hotel services. Keywords: hotel services, satisfaction, importance, dimensional structure https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.57-68 Introduction From their outset to this day, hotel companies have had a clearmission about their business direction. Ab- solute satisfaction of all customer needs has brought an increase in profits, as well as leverage over the com- petition in the tourism market (Unković & Zečević, 2009). Therefore, the growing engagement in improv- ing hotel performances through increasing service quality in both practical and theoretical aspects is not surprising at all. Staying in a hotel is no longer just a matter of prestige, but, with its facilities, it has in- fluenced many to consider it as a very important part of their everyday life. The rising number of new ho- tels, as well as the introduction and development of online booking systems, provided the potential guests with the opportunity to take into consideration even the smallest details when choosing a hotel to stay in. Therefore, hotels pay more attention to public opin- ion polls, and allocate significant funds for this pur- pose (Unković & Zečević, 2009). This study aims to make its own contribution to the research of service quality in hotels. In addition to the theoretical frame- work, it will show the process of preparing a ques- tionnaire that leads to very important information on guest satisfaction with the hotel services, and which can be of significant help to hotel companies in their surveys. Therefore, in view of the actuality and significance Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 57 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services of testing the satisfaction of guests with hotel services, the main problem of this study is finding and deter- mining certain hotel services that are most impor- tant for the respondents from Serbia, as well as de- termining the dimensional structure of satisfaction with these services. The corresponding goals given in the methodological section were formulated based on the research problem. The main idea was to con- duct the study in two stages: The first one in which the questionnaire will be constructed based on the answers of the respondents, and the other in which the dimensional structure of the instrument will be checked. That is, a pilot study was first done to deter- mine which aspects of the hotel are important to the guests of the hotel. It can be noted that quantitative scientific research in this region in Serbia is not com- mon, and this work can also serve as the starting point for future research. Literature Review In everyday communication, quality is a frequently mentioned term. In visual terms, the concept of qual- ity is expressed relatively easily, but it is very hard to give a universal definition of it, which means that, in the process of defining it, one must take into account the specific business conditions typical for each indi- vidual organization (Barjaktarović, 2013). According to the interesting definition of service quality in the hotel industry given by Avelini Holje- vac (2002), quality is considered as achievement of es- tablished standards and their constant maintenance. Defining quality must be governed by customer de- mands. Numerous definitions of quality, which can be found in domestic, aswell as in international literature, are in favor of this view. A product quality is a mea- sure of its usefulness or suitability to meet customer demands. It is not always clear what is meant by qual- ity, but it is obvious that it can be defined very sub- jectively. According to some, it is possible to measure quality objectively, according to others, it is a subjec- tive experience (Ćosić, 2013). In whatever way we de- fine quality, one thing is certain – for customers, the only acceptable quality is the one that is in line with their expectations (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988, according to Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007). Dealing with the service quality in the hospital- ity industry has been a subject of interest for numer- ous authors. Saunders and Graham (1992), point out that ‘the intangible nature of the service as a product means that it could be very difficult to place quan- tifiable terms on the features that contribute to the quality of the product.’ The problems in measuring the quality can also arise from the uncertainty which a customer brings, because his or her requirements about the acceptable level of the service could be com- plicated to determine. O’Neill, Watson, and McKenna (1994), use a term of total quality management, which means that ‘quality awareness and practices extend to all aspects of an organization’s activities, and are not restricted to identifying and rejecting unacceptable products or services, as was once the situation.’ Ac- cording to them, the main objective of this philoso- phy is to reach the customer’s satisfaction, simultane- ously with the achievement of the company’s success. Mei, Dean, and White (1999), consider that ‘services are gaining increasing importance in today’s chang- ing global environment, where many businesses are facing intensifying competition and rapid deregula- tion, and in order to achieve competitive advantage and efficiency, businesses have to seek profitable ways to stand out.’ Su (2004), suggests that ‘one of the biggest con- temporary challenges of management in service in- dustries is providing and maintaining customer satis- faction.’ For the author, service quality and customer satisfaction are the key factors in competitive differ- entiation and customer retention, which suggests that there must be an obligation for hotels to provide a quality service to their customers if they want their business to succeed. Nadiri and Hussain (2005), agree with the previous statement, and point out that, ‘in a highly competitive hotel industry, individual hoteliers must find ways to make their products and services stand out among the others.’ To achieve this, hote- liers must understand their customers’ needs – and then set out to meet (or exceed) these needs. Uran Maravić, Ivankovič, Jerman, and Planinc (2014), em- phasize the nature of the hospitality industry, where products are produced and consumed simultaneously, and the direct contact between employees and con- 58 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services sumers that inevitably leads to errors, thus prevent- ing the achievement of high quality standards. The last, and maybe the most important phase in the hotel quality management system, is the information from the customer about their satisfaction with the hotel services. These authors consider that, although many instruments are provided for determining customers’ satisfaction, most of them are robust and impractical for everyday use. Quality is a value which permeates all spheres of modern economic and social life. It is an unavoidable term in the theory and practice of modern manage- ment, organization, education and operations of all economic subjects. As a key component of the value of products or services, nowadays, quality represents the most significant characteristic, and one of the strongest assets of every company competing in the international market. The focus areas for organizations are also chang- ing from profit maximization to maximizing profits through increased customer satisfaction. The pres- sures of competition are forcing the organizations not only to look at the processes, but also to the way they are delivered (Seth, Deshmukh, & Vrat, 2005). Only companies that are focused on quality, and thus fo- cused on the satisfaction of their guests, can be suc- cessful in the demanding tourism market (Vrtiprah & Sladoljev, 2012). Quality in tourism needs to be observed from the perspective of consumers, because customer pleasure and satisfaction are the only truemeasures of the qual- ity of tourism services. From the customers’ point of view, quality depends primarily on their expectations. They will expect to receive the best possible quality for their money, that is, the highest value (value for money). It is assumed that their expectations are re- alistic, which gives customers an awareness of the dif- ference in the level of service quality offered by, for ex- ample, three-star and five-star hotels. Tourists, as con- sumers, will be thrilled if perceived quality exceeds their expectations. However, they are likely to be dis- appointed if the quality of some of the services is below their expectations, which can lead to dissatisfaction, even if other services during the trip have been very satisfactory. Customer Satisfaction Measurement in the Hotel Industry The methods for measuring customer satisfaction can be divided into: Indirect method, based on the use of certain indicators which enable connecting the oper- ating results in terms of customer satisfaction; and di- rect method, that involves the active participation of customers who pronounce upon the level of their sat- isfaction with the particular service (Angelini, 2005). In order to get the most accurate data possible, var- ious models and techniques for measuring customer satisfaction, which are related to these methods, were developed in the usa and Europe. Each of them has its advantages as well as shortcomings. Thus, several measuring techniques are often employed simultane- ously in order to get as objective a picture as possible of customers’ perceptions regarding the products or ser- vices separately, but also in relation to the competition (Angelini, 2005). Sales revenues are the first indicators of customer satisfaction, which are used in indirect methods (An- gelini, 2005). The analysis of these indicators provides basic information, which must be complemented with the information about consumers and competition. The analysis of complaints is another technique re- lated to the indirect method for measuring customer (dis)satisfaction (Yuksel, Kilinc, & Yuksel, 2006). The complaint is a form of communication between the customers and the company through which the cus- tomers express dissatisfactionwith a particular service and ways of its provision. The analysis of the number and motives of dissatisfied customers contributes to measuring customer satisfaction. It is important to emphasize that a small number of dissatisfied con- sumers file complaints. Others, who do not inform the company about their dissatisfaction, express their dissatisfaction to others, thus creating a negative im- age, which can be extremely harmful to the company. The same happens when there is no proper response to a filed complaint. For these reasons, it is necessary first, to stimulate customers to file a complaint if they are dissatisfied, and then to troubleshoot the prob- lem and customers’ dissatisfaction timely and ade- quately. Gathering and analysis of comments is done in or- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 59 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services der to collect information on customers’ impressions about certain products or services. The most com- monly used are the forms or questionnaires containing several important questions related to customer satis- faction with certain services. When drafting a ques- tionnaire (comment cards) it is necessary to simplify the method of filling in (by circling the answer, giv- ing estimates from 1 to 5, etc.) in order to include as many customers as possible. These forms are anony- mous, which is another important aspect of stimulat- ing customers.When drafting questions,management focuses mainly on aspects of the offer which are con- sidered to be relevant or their strength. Therefore, it is necessary to leave space for a comment so that the customers could express their observations. Customer Retention Index is a very useful tech- nique for measuring customer satisfaction (Jankal, 2003). It expresses the number of consumers who have remained loyal to the end of the year, compared to those that existed at the beginning of the year and the new consumers. This indicator is also used to de- termine the company’s ability to retain customers. A satisfied customer is not a guarantee that he/she will return to the same hotel; it is necessary to establish a long-term relationship with customers and to ensure their loyalty (Sekulić & Mandarić, 2013). In applying this technique, one should take into account the fact that a loyal customer is not necessarily a satisfied one, but might actually be the result of the lack of better al- ternatives, cost increase in case of a change, etc. Also, this index does not reveal whether the ‘lost customers’ left for better offers or out of curiosity to try something new (Jankal, 2003). Based on the analysis of techniques which are re- lated to the indirect method, it can be concluded that not one of these techniques is enough by itself to get the overall picture of customer satisfaction, and that they should be combined with techniques which in- volve the customer directly. The following techniques can be singled out as the best known and themost used ones related to the direct method (Angelini, 2005): Critical Incident Technique, Problem Detection Sys- tem, Profit Impact of Market Strategy (pims), Cus- tomer Satisfaction Survey, TheKanomodel, Blueprint- ing, the servqual method. Critical Incident Technique is based on the as- sumption that customer satisfaction with a product or service is the result of the so-called ‘critical inci- dents’ (Gremler, 2004). This method assumes the ex- istence of a ‘tolerance zone,’ in other words, a customer will not notice a slight discrepancy between their per- ceived experience and their expectations. Critical inci- dents are those that go beyond the tolerance zone, and those are the incidents that can be described in detail and which deviate, either in a positive or a negative way, from what is usual or expected. This technique implies raising three key issues relating to these inci- dents (Gremler, 2004). What incidents in the process of delivering and using a service caused a positive or a negative feeling? When did it happen? What circum- stances contributed to the fact that these incidents are considered critical? The customer is asked simple questions that re- quire adetailed description of the incident. Based on the obtained information, the reasons that led to that particular satisfaction or dissatisfaction are determi- ned, that is, the elements of service are defined that should be improved in order to enhance customer sat- isfaction. Problem Detection System is a technique based on the detection of the problems that customers face when using a service (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007). After detecting a problem, the level of importance, at- tributed to it by customers themselves, is determined in order to estimate the extent to which this particu- lar problem influences behavior when purchasing and using the service. Profit Impact of Market Strategy (pims) is a tech- nique that is based on the program of competitive strategies research (Angelini, 2005). It was developed with the aim of determining how the key elements of a strategy affect revenue and business growth. It pointed out the relationship between the company revenue and the quality of services it provides. A com- pany that manages to offer a service of better quality than its competition will have a short-term advantage in terms of higher profits, and a long-term advantage in terms of taking up a larger part of the market. Customer Satisfaction Survey is a technique that aims to measure periodically the degree of customer 60 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services satisfaction and to elaborate the indicators of ser- vice quality, making comparisons over time (Angelini, 2005). Its use is important for the companies that want to compare the results after the implementation of some actions taken to improve service quality, and, at the same time, are well acquainted with the needs of customers. The Kano model is named after its creator, Profes- sor Noriaki Kanu from the Tokyo University of Sci- ence (Kano, Seraku, Takahashi, &, Tsuji 1984, accord- ing to Chen & Chuang, 2008). Through this model he attempted to assess the degree of customer satis- faction based on the unexpected service qualities. He identifies the qualities of the three main categories of services whose presence influences customer satisfac- tion: The basic or expected qualities, articulated qual- ities, and surprising or qualities that delight. These qualities can be interpreted as customer requirements: Basic requirements, expected requirements and unex- pected requirements (exciting/surprising experience) (Chen & Chuang, 2008). Basic requirements are re- lated to the qualities that the product/service must possess according to the expectations of customers, that is, the qualities that are taken for granted. The ex- pected requirements are based on the principle that customer satisfaction is proportional to the function- ality of a product/service performance. The unex- pected requirements (exciting/surprising experience) are the factors that should surprise and delight the customer, the factors that are not expected from the product/service. This model also has a time dimension of curves (Chen&Chuang, 2008). If, at one point in time, some- thing was attractive (e.g. during the 1980s arrange- ments were presented only verbally, without any spe- cial multimedia information), it becomes expected later on. The attractiveness that is now offered on the market, after some time, becomes the object of imita- tion by competitors and, thus, becomes expected in fu- turemodels of the product or service. Another dimen- sion of the Kano model applies to the market segment as well. If, in one segment, something is attractive, that does notmean that it will also be in another, because it is expected or basic there. Social norms and rituals of consumption influence consumers’ expectations and their behavior greatly when purchasing products and services (Angelini, 2005). Blueprinting is a model which consists of process preparation so that the service could be defined as a systematic process in chronological order (Williams & Buswell, 2003) that follows the sequence from de- tecting to solving problems related to product qual- ity. It enables the production and delivery to be put into the context of the amount of engagement required from the employees and customers. This technique is used in the tourism industry (hotels and restaurants), where it is known as the ‘Service Factory,’ due to the inseparability of service production and consumption (Williams & Buswell, 2003). It connects customer sat- isfaction and the system of service delivery well. The servqual model is one of the most com- monly used techniques for determining customer sat- isfactionwith service quality in relation to their expec- tations. Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (Parasura- man et al., 1988, according to Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007), developed a technique for measuring service quality known as servqual. They define service quality as the perception of the specificities of the quality of hospitality companies, which is based on the comparison between the performances that were delivered to a customer by a particular company and general customer expectations that are the same for all companies that provide the same services. The servqual model is used by hospitality companies so they can understand the expectations and perceptions of their customers more easily. Method The survey approach was used to conduct the present research. The problem of this study was to identify the underlying structure of the Serbian sample. The aim of the research was to determine the dimensional structure of satisfaction with hotel services on a sam- ple fromSerbia, and to determinewhich aspects of ho- tel services were considered themost important by the respondents. The research questions read: 1. What aspects of hotel services are the most im- portant for respondents from Serbia? Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 61 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services 2. Is satisfaction with hotel services a one-dimensi- onal or multidimensional construct on a sample of respondents from Serbia? The survey was conducted in two stages, and the sample was suitable, and consisted of a total of 200 re- spondents. A pilot study was conducted to determine which aspects of hotel service are important for guest satisfaction. The First Stage The sample was convenient and it consisted of 100 examinees of both sexes (58 females and 42 males), aged 18 to 70 years, mean age 34.3 years. The survey was anonymous. The task of each respondent was to specify those aspects of hotel services which, in their opinion, affect their satisfaction with hotel services. Aquestionnaire with open questions was used in this pilot survey. The answers were stored in a database, and the frequencies were calculated for each of the responses. Those answers whose frequency exceeded 10 were retained in the survey, i.e., the responses that were appearing in 10 and over of the total sample of the respondents. They are displayed in Table 1. The criterion for determining the boundaries for select- ing the response was the frequency of occurrence of certain characteristics, since all the following differ- ent answers (hotel aspects) appeared in a significantly smaller number, mostly in 5 subjects. The Second Stage Based on the results of the pilot study, a questionnaire of 21 items was designed that cover different aspects of satisfactionwith hotel services. The surveywas anony- mous, and the task of respondents was to assess, on a 5-point Likert scale, each of the listed aspects accord- ing to their importance in assessing hotel services, as well as to estimate the level of their satisfaction with that kind of service, taking into account the latest ho- tel where they had stayed. The sample was suitable and it comprised 100 respondents of both sexes (46 males and 56 females), aged 18–74 years,mean age 39.6 years. The sample was collected by random selection near different hotels in several cities in Serbia. Respon- dents were asked to participate in an anonymous sur- vey to be used for scientific purposes? Exploratory fac- Table 1 Aspects of Hotel Services Which Affect Satisfaction with Hotel Services . Security at the hotel . Service promptness . Price . Discretion . Hotel interior . Hotel exterior . Hotel cleanliness . Air conditioning well resolved . Respect for house rules . Food quality . Staff courtesy . Hotel location . Access to medical services . Comfort of rooms . Hotel parking lot . Regular changing of bed linens . Existence of facilities . Staff professionalism . The room has a balcony . Road communication with the hotel . Overall service quality Table 2 Reliability of the Scales Scale α N Importance .  Satisfaction .  tor analysis (principal components analysis) of the ob- tained data was then conducted to determine whether the satisfaction with hotel services on a sample from Serbia was a one-dimensional structure or it consisted of several dimensions. The samewas done with the in- formation concerning the importance of certain hotel services. Both scales showed good internal consistency reliability, Cronbach’s Alpha > 0.7 (Table 2). Results When it comes to the satisfaction with hotel services, the results of principal components analysis revealed 62 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services Table 3 Satisfaction Scale: Total Variance Explained Component Initial Eigenvalues () () ()  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . . Notes (1) total, (2) percentage of variance, (3) cumulative percentage. as presented in Table 3. The results show that, accord- ing to the Guttman-Kaiser criterion, 4 factors can be extracted that explain 62.73of the variance. If we take into account the screen criterion, we see that one fac- tor can be extracted that explains 44.78 of the vari- ance. In support of this solution, speaks the matrix of the structure, which shows that almost all of the items have a high saturation on the first factor (Table 4). Such a solution is reached even after the implemen- tation of different rotations. Based on the results of the exploratory factor anal- ysis, it can be concluded that the structure of satisfac- tion with hotel services in Serbia is one-dimensional, and that we can talk about general satisfaction with Table 4 Component Matrix of the Satisfaction scale      . –. –. –.  . –. –. –.  . –. –. –.  . –. –. .  . –. . .  . –. . .  . . –. .  . –. –. .  . . –. .  . . –. .  . . –. –.  . . . –.  . . . –.  . . . –.  . . . .  . . . .  . –. . .  . . –. –.  . –. . –.  . . . –.  . . . –. hotel services as a single dimension rather than a phe- nomenon which is estimated structurally by a number of factors. After this, the measures of descriptive statistics were calculated for the issues concerning the impor- tance of hotel services. The results showed that all these aspects of the satisfaction with hotel services were assessed as equally important to the sample from Serbia. The aspects that were estimated the least im- portant for the satisfaction with hotel services were hotel parking lot, whether a room had a balcony or not, and whether there were facilities such as gym, an- imators, etc. while hotel cleanliness, security at the ho- tel, and courtesy and friendliness of staff were ranked as the most important aspects of the satisfaction with hotel services among Serbian customers (Table 5). In order to check whether the satisfaction with ho- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 63 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services Table 5 Descriptive Statistics for the Importance Scale Aspects of hotel service () () Hotel cleanliness . . Security at the hotel . . Staff courtesy . . Air conditioning well resolved . . Food quality . . Service promptness . . Price . . Overall service quality . . Regular changing of bed linens . . Comfort of rooms . . Discretion . . Hotel interior . . Hotel location . . Hotel exterior . . Staff professionalism . . Respect for house rules . . Road communication with the hotel . . Access to medical services . . Existence of facilities . . Hotel parking lot . . The room has a balcony . . Notes (1) mean, (2) standard deviation. tel services is a truly unique dimension, different from other dimensions of hotel services’ assessment, prin- cipal components analysis was conducted of the items related to the satisfaction with hotel services and the evaluation of the importance of these services (Ta- ble 6). The results show that, based on the scree criterion, two factors can be extracted explaining the total of 51 of the variance. If we look at the matrix of the structure, we can see that the answers related to the satisfaction with hotel services are grouped consistently on the second, and the responses related to the assessment of the impor- tance of these aspects of hotel services are grouped on the first factor (Table 7). Thus, out of all 42 items that were subject to factor analysis, the top 21 satisfaction Table 6 Importance Scale: Total Variance Explained Component Initial Eigenvalues () () ()  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . . Notes (1) total, (2) percentage of variance, (3) cumulative percentage. with hotel services gave the largest saturation to the second factor, while the other 21 items gave the largest saturation to the first factor. Therefore, the second fac- tor can be called satisfaction with hotel services, and the first assessment of the importance of these ser- vices. This shows that there are two dimensions to this questionnaire, as well as that the satisfactionwith hotel services in Serbia can be viewed as a single dimension. For descriptive purposes, a t-test for dependent samples was conducted, and it is shown in Table 8. This statistical technique was used because it com- pares the arithmetic meanings of a group obtained in two different tests. In our case, we compared the av- erage scores obtained from the satisfaction with hotel services and the assessment of the importance of these services, on a sample of respondents from Serbia. Results show that there isn’t a statistically signifi- cant difference between perceived importance of and satisfaction with hotel service. This finding isn’t a sur- prise, considering the fact that people will probably choose to stay in hotels that do have contents that are important for their satisfaction. Discussion The goal of this study was to examine the dimensional structure of hotel service satisfaction on a sample from Serbia, and to determine which aspects of hotel ser- 64 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services Table 7 Component Matrix (Solution with Two Factors) (a) () () (b) () ()  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –.  . .  . –. Notes (a) satisfaction scale, (b) importance scale, (1) factor 1: importance, (2) factor 2: satisfaction. Table 8 Difference between Perceived Importance of and Satisfaction with Hotel Service () () () () () . . .  . Notes (1) mean, (2) standard deviation, (3) t-test for a de- pendent sample, (4) degrees freedom, (5) significance. vices were considered the most important by the re- spondents. First, on a sample of 100 respondents, in the first phase of the survey, aspects of hotel services which in- fluence the satisfaction of respondents were selected (based on the answers of the respondents). The results showed that the safety of the hotel is in the first place of respondents’ answers. In an earlier study in Serbia (Vujko, Vujnić, Gajić & Petrović, 2015), in the context of an examination of the expected and perceived qual- ity of hotel services, the results also showed that safety is an extremely important feature for acquiring an ap- propriate picture in the hotel’s tourist awareness. Ac- cording to the authors, trust and security aremirrored in people who are ‘a link’ between guests and hotels, and it is also the goal of the hotel to build trust and loyalty between contact staff and hotel guests. This result can be understood in such a way that, regardless of whether guests come to hotels for work or vacation, they certainly do not want to consider whether their personal belongings are safe, whether they will be stolen, etc. So, for hotel management, it is important to provide the feeling that guests are not compromised, which can be accomplished in different ways: By installing special safes into rooms, engaging security, adding security cameras to and around the hotel, editing space around the hotel to look bright and safe. The second place in frequency in our pilot survey, was the speed and efficiency of hotel services (prompt- ness or responsiveness). Johnston (1995), emphasized that the efficiency of responding to the needs and re- quirements of hotel guests, the attendance of guests and the response to the problem, and ‘unsolicited em- ployee actions,’ are key aspects that affect both the sat- isfaction and the discontent of visitors. It could be said that security and responsiveness belong to the ‘human factor of hotel services,’ that is, the quality of employ- ees, within which their abilities, knowledge and skills play a big role, and affect the overall amount of busi- ness. The explanation for this result can also be found in the time spent hosting at the hotel. Usually it is a few days away, a business conference or the like, when waiting for staff, waiting in the lines, for serving food and drinks, for carrying luggage,means losing the pre- cious time that the guests set aside for a pleasurable holiday. Therefore, it is not surprising that the respon- dents often stated this service as very important. The third place in the list of factors that affect sat- isfaction is the price. According to Knežević, Barjak- tarović and Obradović (2014), the price is an impor- tant factor in the sense that the hotel industry is under constant control and pressure to improve the quality of Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 65 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services its product continually and, at the same time, optimize price and quality. The price of the hotel product rep- resents the value that the hotel generates through the location, appearance, facilities, service, image and sat- isfaction of the users of hotel services (Barjaktarović, 2013). The discretion in the hotel, which is the fourth most frequent response, belongs to the already de- scribed ‘human factor’ in the hotel, that is, the discre- tion the staff guarantees refers to the knowledge and kindness of the staff, which creates the feeling that the company can be trusted (Barjaktarović, 2013). Then, in the opinion of our respondents from Ser- bia, the aspects that we can label as physical charac- teristics of the hotel (hotel interior, exterior, cleanli- ness, air conditioning, comfort of rooms, . . .), Vujko et al. (2015) marked as ‘tangible’ and explained that, in this context, it implies physically visible things in the process of providing services (such as equipment, in- terior design and exteriors, uniforms and appearance of staff, promotional material, appearance of rooms, cleanliness), and it was also pointed out that the hotel guests’ satisfaction depends largely on them. These au- thors also stated that the location of the hotel facility, which proved to be important in this research, plays an important role in the satisfaction of guests, as well as the availability of parking spaces, the distance of cul- tural and historicalmonuments and, for example, con- nection with the city center. Based on this result, it is clear that the whole appearance and cleanliness of the interior rooms of the hotel, room, restaurant, or the outside environment,must strive constantly for attrac- tiveness and perfection. This also indicates that, for the marketing of a hotel team, it is important to deal with as many details of different rooms as possible, in or- der to attract as many tourists as possible, and for ho- tel managers to keep in mind constantly that the ap- pearance and cleanliness are important aspects in the satisfaction of guests. In the second phase of the research, the application of factor analysis was aimed at determining whether the satisfaction with hotel services on a sample from Serbia, was a one-dimensional structure or it consisted of several dimensions. The same was done with the in- formation concerning the importance of certain ho- tel services. In this study, both scales showed good in- ternal consistency reliability. Results show that, on the Serbian sample, it is a one-dimensional phenomenon. We can say that, on the Serbian sample, hotel service satisfaction is perceived as global. It is a unique dimen- sion, not a phenomenon that, in its structure, hasmore different factors. The results of factor analysis showed that our questionnaire has two substantially different dimensions – satisfaction with hotel service, and im- portance of hotel service aspects.Different dimensions have been highlighted in some other research on client satisfaction with hotel services. For example, in the re- search of Parasuraman et al. (1988, according to Swar- brooke&Horner, 2007), five dimensions were isolated in the analysis: Tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, as the basis for their service quality measurement instrument, servqual. Armis- tead (1990, according to Johnston, 1995), found two different dimensions of the satisfaction with hotel ser- vices: ‘Firm’ and ‘soft.’ The firm dimensions are time (responsiveness), fault freeness and flexibility (ability to customize the service or add additional services). The soft dimensions are style (accessibility of staff and ambience), steering (the degree to which customers feel in control of their own destiny) and safety (trust, security). However, as alreadymentioned, this is not the case in this survey, as it has been shown that satisfaction with hotel services in Serbia can be seen as a one- dimensional construct. In a study by Milfelner, Snoj, and Korda (2009), the one-dimensional structure of satisfaction with hotel services has been confirmed. The authors point out that ‘overall assessment of the guest satisfaction and hotel image model provides ev- idence that the constructs are one-dimensional.’ One- dimensional structure sees satisfaction as one variable that represents general satisfaction with services. In this study, results show that there is no statisti- cally significant difference between perceived impor- tance of and satisfaction with hotel services. This find- ing isn’t a surprise, considering the fact that people will probably choose to stay in hotels that do have contents which are important for their satisfaction. In our study, almost all given aspects are equally important for ho- tel service satisfaction, where politeness to a customer, hotel cleanliness, security at the hotel stand out slightly 66 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Mladen Mitrovi Dimensional Structure of Satisfaction with Hotel Services on the Serbian sample. This result indicates that re- spondents do not give a noticeable advantage to the human factor of providing services (kindness of staff), or objective characteristics (cleanliness in the hotel), or feel the security that is a subjective construct. All these different aspects are equally important, and it is important for all of them to pay attention to building the image of the hotel and retaining and attracting new guests. What is clear, is that it is certainly important to use techniques within the direct method of mea- suring customer satisfaction, in order to improve the quality of business and the provision of hotel services. According to Barsky (1992), guest survey techniques in hotels can contribute in different ways and to different parties: Managers can get bonuses, employees can be rewarded or re-qualified, resources can be re-routed, contacts are established and developed, and guests get a way to be respected and give their opinion. Conclusions Measuring the satisfaction of visitors to the hotel is the starting point in the planning and improvement of hotel services, and relationships with guests.Within the methods of measuring satisfaction, research is the most used, for it serves to measure the performance of a hotel facility from the viewpoint of guests’ experi- ences. The advantage of this study is that it has some- what illuminated everything that hotel visitors in Ser- bia consider important when evaluating hotel service, and it gives us an insight into their expectations. Per- sonswho are involved in the improvement of hotel ser- vices can also benefit from the knowledge that satisfac- tion with services here is a unique phenomenon, since it does not consist of several factors, but all the char- acteristics are important and, grouped together, and should be considered as such. Here, we can mention that the quantitative re- search of this area in Serbia is rare, and does not deal mainly with the construction of adequate instruments for measuring the satisfaction of guests. That is why the additional significance of this research is one such attempt, in which we, on the basis of an open-ended question, tried to obtain clear information on which aspects of the hotel are important for the satisfaction of the guests, and on the basis of them, we make an adequate questionnaire. Then, using the appropriate statistical technique, we check the factor structure of the constructed instrument, and explain further the constructs of satisfaction, and the importance of eval- uating the aspects of hotel services on the sample of respondents in Serbia. In this way, wewanted to some- how draw attention to the importance of applying re- search (and appropriate methodology) in the field of tourism. Through the results, we answered two main re- search questions. Certain aspects are seen as more significant among respondents from Serbia (security, kindness, purity, speed of service), but all aspects are considered important. A clear dimensional structure has also been obtained, which suggests that satis- faction with hotel services on our sample is a one- dimensional construct, and that satisfaction with ho- tel services and the assessment of the importance of services are two different factors. 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This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. 68 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania kiaghokilonzo@gmail.com Although the tourism industry is currently the biggest source of foreign income in Tanzania, it has for many years been concentrating on Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Game Reserves and national parks, while neglecting rock art sites, which in fact, are among the potential tourism attractions. The author acknowledges the con- tribution of the former in tourism promotion, but innovation is of vital important for rapid development of tourism promotion. This paper explores factors that have made the rock arts of central Tanzania to remain a neglected topic to the general public. It does so togetherwith demonstrating ideas tomake Tanzanian rock art sites among the tourist attractions since they have been taken lightly and not realized in tourism promotion for over four decades regardless the fact that the country occu- pies the largest concentration of rock art in Eastern Africa. Nevertheless, Tanzania occupies the oldest history of human ancestors, which are Zinjanthropus, Homo ha- bilis and Homo erectus. The factors that are keenly looked at, in this study, include protecting the sites fromnatural disasters, involving people living around the sites in protection measures, building hotels and camps around the sites and educating the general public about the sites. The author of this study believes that there is a need for innovations, not only for tourism promotions but also for proper exploitation of economic resources of the rock art sites to alleviate poverty at least from the family level, especially for people who dwell around these sites. Keywords: rock art, rock paintings, Central Tanzania, promotion, attractions https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.69-81 Introduction This article argues that the Rock Art of Tanzania has not been given the tourist attention it deserves. Al- though Tanzania is blessed in having the largest con- centration of Rock Art in Eastern Africa and the old- est history in the world, its potential seems not to have been felt strongly by Tanzanian and African commu- nities, and, thus, it has not yet been realized in tourism promotion. It is against this background that a library research andminor observations and interviews were launched to provide relevant information to write this paper. There was no attempt made to conduct field research for this study. The study is an attempt at contributing some ideas that may make Tanzanian Rock Art sites popular tourist attractions. The rationale of this at- tempt comes from the fact that the potential of central Tanzanian rock paintings has been taken lightly. Such a step, among various benefits, would have a good con- tribution towards poverty alleviation for people living around areas of rock sites. The Tanzanian rock paintings are believed to be over 40,000 years old, and the country is also asso- ciated with human ancestors, namely Zinjanthropus, Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 69 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations Homo habilis, and Homo erectus, but no or very little efforts have been invested to exploit such ancestors to attract visitors to Tanzania. Tourism in Tanzania stands as the biggest source of foreign revenue, but the traditional attraction sites have remained to be the national parks, conservation and game controlled areas, despite the fact that Rock Art has all the symptoms of cultural tourism. It is further noted that, although African rock paintings became known to the outside world much earlier than those from other parts of the world, it seems that the western ones, for instance, have re- ceived wide publicity, a factor that has attracted some western scholars who have worked in Africa such as Willet (2005, p. 42) to charge, ‘Paintings of animals have been reported in Mozambique as early as 1721, and the first mention was made of Bushmen paint- ings in South Africa in 1752, whereas the European ones were totally unknown until Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola’s daughter, Maria accidentally looked up at the roof of the cave of Altamira in 1878.’ Indeed, the cave art of Chauvet (a site which was discovered only in 1994) and Lascaux in France, including that of Al- tamira in Spain, have become some of the greatest tourist attraction sites in Europe. The Tanzanian rock paintings are over 40,000 years old according to Anati (1986) but very little is known about them. Tanzanian primary and secondary schools’ curricula seem to ne- glect arts subjects as they do not include topics about Rock Art. These subjects ought to have made young Tanzanians aware of such cultural heritage in their country, rather than leaving it to art historians and museum staff. Since tourism is amajor driver of global economics, this paper is, therefore, intended to present alternative measures that the author suggests can revitalize the business of tourism promotion. The study done by Bailey and Richardson (2010), about a new economic framework for tourism decision-making shows that tourism is, and will continue to be, a major driver of economic vitality throughout the world. The paper then presents such alternative measures by elaborat- ing Rock Art and the concept of tourism, and then discusses possible innovative measures that could en- hance its management. Some tourism management personnel, art scholars and students are likely to ben- efit from the discussion. Rock Art in Tanzania Preliminary information that one with little knowl- edge of Rock Arts would definitely need from this pa- per in the first place is the meaning of Rock Art and the reason why it was done. Rock Art is the art which was done on surfaces of huge stones by using the petro glyphs or pictograph style (Masao, 2003). Petro glyphs, which is also known as engraving are carvingsmade on the rock surface by using a sharp object. Pictographs are paintingsmade by using a soft object like a brush or fingers. The rock artists used blood, fat that came from game animals and plant oil, cow dung, hyrax drop- pings mixed with urine, fat or water. There are various reasons why Rock Art was paint- ed. In his class presentation, Dr. F. Masao (2015) listed down some of the reasons. First, the rock artists re- sponded to the phrase ‘art for art’s sake,’ meaning it was done as a hobby to create art. Second, the RockArt is associated with ancestors’ worship. Animals were slaughtered at worshiping sites as a sacrifice to seek for rainfall, health and good harvest in society. The clan leaders such as chiefs who, in most cases, were also religious leaders and traditional doctors/healers, painted or commissioned artists to paint on the rock surfaces during prayers for good harvest, health and rainfall, an image of the animal that was slaughtered at the site as a sacrifice. An intensification of the sac- rifice depended solely on how long the painted image would stick and stay intensively visible on the rock face. Chiefs and elders were also glorified by using rock paintings, and that was another reason for the existence of Rock Arts. According to Masao (2003), there were symbols that were painted on rocks which were associatedwith heads of clans, such as symbols of a spinal column, which appears as an emblem of chief- tainship almost all over the south of Lake Victoria. The rock paintings, according to Masao (2015), played a role of motivation or sympathetic magic. They used to lure animals during hunting because it was a belief that the effectiveness of hunting depended to a large extent on the resemblance of the painted image to an intended animal. Precisely, the more resembling to an 70 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations animal the painting is, the more effective the hunt- ing would be. Therefore, in the societies that practiced hunting, people used to paint images of animals to get motivated before going out hunting. Third, the Rock Art was done to preserve information and cul- ture. These paintings, with a good citation being the Bushmen, were also used to preserve information and culture by keeping the records of all the animals or things these people came across. Although the greatest contribution that Africa has made so far to the cultural heritage of mankind, es- pecially in the modern art of the western world, is its richly varied sculpture. People often forget that painting and engraving are the earliest art forms the continent has ever created. The Tanzanian Rock Art, believed to be the oldest in Africa (Masao, 2003, p. 21), has attracted world academic attention since 1923 when Bagshawe published a paper in Man entitled ‘Rock Painting of the Kangeju Bushman.’ But a Ger- man colonialist, Karl Peters, is said to have seen Tan- zanianRockArt in his various travels in central Tanza- nia since 1891 (Anati, 1986, p. 25). To most westerners of the time, however, Rock Art was a ‘puzzling curios- ity’ as modern Makonde sculpture is to some western writers such as Kasfir (1999, p. 109), or as the Ife Royal sculpture created in the 12th century ce is to some western art skeptics. All these examples represent the attitude held by some western ‘doubting Thomases’ on the capability of the African to paint, to create mod- ern sculpture that is not a commodity and to create realistic figurative sculpture. The largest concentration of Rock Art of Tanza- nia, according to Masao (2003, p. 22), lies in the cen- tral plateau, especially in the Kondoa District in the Dodoma Region, the Iramba District in the Singida Region and Mbulu District in the Manyara region, as can be seen on the map (Figure 1). The occupants of such areas are the Sandawe,Hadzabe, Tatoga,Nyaturu, Nyiramba, Irangi, Gogo and Iraq tribes. According to Anati (1986, p. 18), ‘The Eastern part of Africa, from Eritrea to Mozambique, has so far revealed a scattered distribution of Rock Art zones with a major concen- tration in central Tanzania.’ Anati reports that Tanza- nia has over 370 sites and over 550 rocks, shelters and caves that are decorated. The central highland areas Figure 1 Map of Tanzania: Areas with most concentration of Rock Art in central Tanzania only have around 330 sites, of which 200 have been recorded. Other areas in Tanzania with rock sites in- clude the Kilimanjaro district, the Usambara Moun- tains, the Ukimbu district, Nachingwea and Masasi (Anati, 1986, p. 23). According to my phone interview with Prof. E. Jengo (2015), the ancestors of these ethnic groups are supposed to be the authors of the Rock Art we see to- day, and they were made up of four distinct horizons or groups. These were Early Hunters and Gatherers (hge), Late Hunters and Gatherers (hgl), Pastoral- ists (pa) and Farmers and Mixed Economy (fm). The hge was the oldest stage, which seems to have been neglected because the paintings are faded and barely seen in many areas except Kondoa and Singida in central Tanzania. The art is believed to have been done over 40,000 years ago because, among the ma- jor stylistic phases of this art that was detected, it is similar to those represented in the slabs of Apollo 11 cave, in Namibia, which has evidence of using color- ing pigments dated between 47,000 and 50,000 years ago. The figures in this category seem to represent wild animals such as giraffe, elephants, warthogs, buf- falo, rhino, hyena and wild dogs, which are depicted in representational naturalistic and semi naturalistic Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 71 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations styles. They are mostly shaded in red ochre, paint, ashy or latex white, and rare black lines shaded with brown. Such depictions, according to Masao (2003), are known as zoomorphic figures. Reptiles in this cat- egory include snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and tortoises, as well as fishes. The hgl category, in which paintings are esti- mated to be about 10,000 years old, features human figures known as anthropomorphic figures. They are presented in highly stylized or abstract forms and poorly drawn silhouettes with less anatomical details. The figures are often depicted in small groups or pairs rather than individuals, and are drawn in single thin and thick lines. Inmost cases, they appear to be associ- ated with some kind of activity. The human figures are presented in a dynamic and stylized way, sometimes with bows and arrows in their hands, which can also be categorized in the group of paraphernalia or equip- ment. Masao (2003, p. 24) categorizes paraphernalia and equipment in the picture cluster of bows, arrows and spears. Likewise, paraphernalia and equipment are also suggested by Leakey (1983, p. 43), to represent ethnographical objects such as a fish weir, bird cage, trap or the skeletal woodwork of a hut. This group of late hunters and gatherers is sub- jected to mythology and human daily activities, such as hunting. By the way, hunting has been very com- mon and widespread in many societies that are found in central Tanzania. Interestingly enough, these rock paintings reflects the occupations of each of these early communities. According to Mwenesi (2006), ‘The drawings and photographs of rock art portray vividly the dynamics of the day-to-day lives of these ancestors.’ For exam- ple, Anati (1986, p. 19) shows that wild animals and ideograms painted on vertical rock surfaces were the work of the hge group, while the hgl community also occupied themselves with painting humans and wild animals on vertical rock surfaces. ‘The precise de- piction of human beings and animals such as elands, elephants, giraffe, rhinoceros, lions, and cheetah, help us to visualize the type of environment these people lived in, and struggled against’ (Mwenesi, 2006, p. 101). The images seen in these areas provide evidence that those ethnic groups were hunters, gatherers, pas- Figure 2 Paintings from Kondoa Rock Sites (Ntiro, 1982, p. 32; reproduced with permission from Tanzanian National Arts Council) toralists and farmers. Ntiro (1982, p. 32), for instance, portrays one of the rock paintings which shows five human-like images, whereby twomale figures on each side pull a female figure in the middle. This composi- tion can be decoded from different perspectives with a number of translations, depending on the viewer’s historical background and life experience. However, Ntiro (1982) decodes the composition as boys’ contest to win a girl. The image suggests that the males on the right-hand side are two boys in masks trying to take the girl (in between) by force fromher two brothers on the left with bare heads. The presentation of the two male figures on the right appearing in masked faces and strange heads is interpreted as enemies trying to steal the girl from her family. It is obvious even nowa- days to see people appearing in covered faces when engaging in a wrong or unacceptable attempt, such as stealing or robbing. Moreover, the artist presents the two strangers with erect penises to show their need and readiness for the girl, which drives them crazy to the extent of using force trying to grasp her from her brothers. The image evidences that, although people did not speak the languages that we speak today, they had a way of communication. Ntiro’s translation reflects today’s many Tanzanian and African societies, in which, according to their tra- 72 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations ditions; girls usually leave their families and move to their husbands aftermarriage.However, under normal circumstances, this task has never been easy for the girl’s family. Girls’ family members, including parents, brothers, sisters, and other extended family members and guardians such as grandfathers and mothers, un- cles and aunts, know for sure they would be missing their beloved one. Therefore, there is usually a kind of resistance, which is mostly caused by a strong bond among these family members. When a boy wants to marry, therefore, his family should convince the girl’s family by first being nice to the girl’s family, and sec- ond, giving a bride price, which is normally a certain number of cows, goats, money and/or other valuable goods, depending on the inquiry, norms and customs of the girl’s culture. So, the knowledge we get today from studying rock paintings which were done thou- sands of years back does not only remind us of the civ- ilization that had been part and parcel of human exis- tence since prehistoric times, but also tells us that Tan- zanian artists of today and their works, build another foundation of the future Tanzanian history. The pa group, which is concentrated mainly in Kenya and Tanzania, portrays naturally engraved and painted domestic animals on oblique, as well as verti- cal, rock surfaces. The paintings featured animals such as cattle, goats, sheep and dogs, which are commonly painted in black, white and brown colors. Again, there are also geometrics, which are presented by lines, squares, ladders, circles, dots and doodling, which suggest having cattle ownership by pastoralists. Some characteristics of these paintings, according to Anati (1986), seem to reflect secondmillennium bc features to suggest that the style was common or intro- duced during that time. Most of the features are asso- ciated with the Stone Age Bowl culture. The fm category, which is reflected in today’s Ban- tu speaking people, particularly in some societies of Kenya, Tanzania,Mozambique,Uganda,Malawi, Zam- bia andZimbabwe, was engaged in pattern and symbol making on cave floors, roofs, walls, vertical and hori- zontal rock surfaces. These societies are connected to initiations and ancestral worship. Schematic designs, which are principally in white and cover the last 2,000 years, comprise these societies. In this category, the paintings are featured by ideograms (graphic symbols that present an idea or concept) and abstracts. Masao (2003, p. 23) categorizes this type of paintings as geo- metric figures, which are non-representational paint- ings, possibly with completely different ideas from ge- ometric purpose and representation. They were rep- resented by lines, squares, ladders, dots and doodling, circle and rays, concentric and spiral. Neither humans nor animals were involved in this category. It is be- lieved that artists hesitated to paint human figures be- cause of their religions and spiritual beliefs. Accord- ing toMasao (2003, p. 24) the ideograms and abstracts would be comparable to the pastoralists’ cattle owner- ship signs. Today, people who live in the areas rich in rock paintings, including Sandawe, are mixed farmers with large herds of cattle. The rock paintings and engravings confirm the thinking of Masao (2003, p. 21) when he writes, ‘As we study Rock Art, we are dealing with intellectual concepts, emotional expressions in differing states of consciousness and aesthetic tastes of early people, in other words, with the spiritual rather than thematerial aspects of a culture.’ Indeed, a careful observation of the drawings and paintings of the human figure by the rock artists reveals interesting stylistic contrast with that of animals. The animals are painted in a realistic manner while the human figure is often drawn in an abstract style, hence begging the question, ‘What de- termined the difference?’ However, the answer is not hard to find in that, throughout the ages, the human image in art has been frowned upon for religious or magical reasons. It is, for example, speculated that the rock artists had to draw the human figure abstractly for fear that if he/she drew a realistic human figure and a neighbor lost a relative, then he would be re- garded as a witch capable of copying human faces. Another example refers to our time when the use of icons brought about the Iconoclastic controversy that divided the Catholic Church into two halves: The Or- thodox Eastern church and the Roman Catholic faith. The breaking of icons in former Catholic churches in Germany during the Reformation was another bat- tle that was raged against icons. The overall reason is how people interpret the controversial Biblical com- mand given to Moses that reads, ‘You must not make Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 73 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations for yourself a carved image of a form like anything that is in the heavens above or that is on earth under- neath or that is in the waters under the earth.’ (New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1961, p. 93). Although the rock artists did not live in a community with an organized religion, it is often believed by some archaeologists that the clan had authority to enact laws to bind it together, and drawing the human figure in an abstract way may have been one of them. These peo- ple are our ancestors, and with their rock paintings and engravings Tanzania’s history of art begins. Tourism Tourism, according to Bailey and Richardson (2010, p. 367) is one of the largest economic sectors in theworld, which represents approximately 6 of the global ex- port. In Tanzania, tourism is glorified as the biggest source of securing income. Tourism, according to An- derson (2015), who quotes the 2011 National Visitors’ Exit Survey Report, contributes 18 of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (gdp) by earning around us $ 1.35 billion in 2011 and us $ 1.7 billion in 2012. The traditional attraction sites, which are the natural tourist attractions, have remained to be the national parks, conservation and game controlled areas, which, according to Anderson (2015), accounts for more than 90 of tourist arrivals in Tanzania. To date, there are many such natural attractions for domestic and for- eign visitors to visit and see a variety of fauna and flora. Some of those attractions include Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Selous Game Reserve, and the National Parks of Serengeti, Mikumi, Lake Manyara, Tarangire, Arusha, Saadan, Ruaha, Katavi, Mkomazi, Udzungwa, Rubondo Island, Kitulo Plateau, Gombe StreamandMahaleMountains. Theman-made tourist attractions in Tanzania, according to Lwoga (2012, p. 23), include theKondoaRockArt Sites, Zanzibar Stone Town, Bagamoyo historical town, Kilwa Kisiwani and Songo Mnara, Dar es Salaam city and its Museums, Olduvai Gorge, and many others. They provide em- ployment to hotel owners, game scouts, wardens, art and crafts dealers, tour guides, wild life photographers and film makers. A full Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism has been established to deal with the management of natural and cultural heritage resources. However, the impact of the Antiquities Department, which is di- rectly responsible for Rock Art in the context of initi- ating innovations to promote Rock Art sites, has yet to be felt at maximum level as popular attractions for tourism. This shortcoming is the major reason for writing this paper. Let us now discuss the measures that may alleviate the shortcoming, which are part of the efforts made to strengthen cultural tourism in the country. Rock Art and Cultural Tourism Despite the fact that Rock Art has all the potential for cultural tourism, it has not been involved much in the promotion of cultural tourism. Cultural tourism is conceptualized in Wineaster Anderson’s report on Cultural Tourism and Poverty Alleviation in Rural Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, as having ‘various symptoms, such as heritage tourism, arts tourism, ethnic tourism and other elements of learning that enables tourists to experience other people’s way of life (values, norms, beliefs, traditions, etc.) in their natural environment (Meethan, 2003; Richards, 2011)’ (Anderson, 2015). This quotation categorizes the Rock Art in a group of cultural tourismbecause theRockArt is ‘art’ itself, her- itage, and enables tourists to experience Tanzanians’ values, norms, beliefs and traditions. Anderson’s pa- per goes further and reports that cultural tourism has failed to demonstrate its potential to alleviate poverty of people in the surrounding areas (Anderson, 2015). It has been like that for over four decades. This lack of interest, specifically for Rock Art has been recorded in the report on Rock Art of Tanzania prepared by Em- manuel Anati, the Director of the International Com- mittee on Rock Art, who was commissioned by un- esco in the 1980s to conduct research on Rock Art in Eastern Africa. He writes, The Rock Art of central Tanzania has not yet been discovered fully. Only now are we beginning to grasp its significance in relation to world history and to the world’s cultural heritage. It is still almost ignored in the general history of Africa. Often it is seen as an undated ‘curiosity’ by old fashioned archaeologists, and, until recently, was considered unimportant by most of the Tanzanians themselves. The record of visitors, which 74 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations is kept at Kolo, shows that since 1959 between 120 and 400 annual visitors have come to see the sites, with peaks of 616 people in 1972 and of 562 in 1973. Obvi- ously, this cultural patrimony is as yet little known and has not been given the importance it deserves, despite the keen interest of several archaeologists and the con- stant concern of the Department of Antiquities. And yet it appears to provide one of the longest uninter- rupted chronological sequences of artistic creativity in the world. As we shall see, it is likely to include the earliest paintings known in Africa and perhaps in the world, and provides unique documentation of man’s way of thinking, his intellectual achievements, the imaginative world and cultural changes which took place in the societies of eastern Africa during the last 440,000 years. (Anati, 1986, p. 24). Anati has been quoted at length so as to show the significance of TanzanianRock Art and the place it oc- cupies in the evolution of man’s culture. As the estab- lished cradle of mankind, Tanzania should maximize its potential in proving to the world that the coun- try has enough evidence to support such a view. Ac- cording to Mapunda (2013, p. 81) the rock paintings in the rock sites of Kondoa, central Tanzania, have been noted to vanish at an alarming rate due to both nat- ural and cultural factors. The natural factors include animal droppings, rainwater, seepage and exfoliation, whereas the cultural factors include graffiti, touching, splashing with local brew (for ritual purposes), illegal excavation in the rock shelters, dusting and soot. Let us now examine measures that can be taken to make Rock Art a true attraction to domestic, as well as foreign, tourists. The management measures that should be taken to attract tourism to these sites should go in line with protection of the sites fromground dust and rain water that deteriorate the paintings. In her book, Africa’s Vanishing Art, Leakey (1983) predicts that these Rock Arts are likely to be destroyed by the year 2020, if serious management measures are not taken. The author suggests that, to make such a con- servation project successful, the measures should fully involve people who dwell around the sites in order to get their support and commitment to the project. Failure to involve the local community might end up in unsuccessful investment of the project. The Antiq- uities Division of Tanzania, for instance, according to United Republic of Tanzania (1965, 2014) and Bwashiri (2011), carried out a conservation project of this kind between 1965 and 1968 in the Kolo-Kisese Rock Art sites, which were considered to be at a high risk of de- struction. However, the project, which involved fenc- ing the rock paintings by using a wire mesh, was not successful because of an inappropriate operational ap- proach. The local community was not, or was partially, involved in the project. Members of the community, who have less or no education in Rock Arts, were not equipped with enough knowledge on the rationale of such conservation. As a result, this project did not get support from people living in that area. According to Mapunda (2013, p. 82), the project suffered heav- ily from vandalism from some members of the local community, who removed not only the wire mesh, but also nuts, timbers and locks, that used to support the wiremesh, and used them to renovate their housewin- dows. These people from the local community did not see why such expensive material (wire mesh, timber and nuts) should be left in the jungle protecting the rocks, which are less important to them. Methodology The aim of this article was to give suggestions which would popularize the Tanzanian Rock Art sites and make them tourist attractions. The central plateau, which includes the Kondoa, Iramba and Mbulu dis- tricts in the Dodoma, Singida and Manyara regions respectively, was used as the case study because it has the largest number of Rock Art sites in Tanzania. Ac- cording to Anati (1986, p. 23), the central part of Tan- zania has over 330 sites out of 370 sites located in the entire country. That means over 89 of all the Rock Art sites which are located in Tanzania are found in the central plateau. The source from which data was collected for writing this paper includes library re- search and some minor interviews and observations. The qualitative data were analyzed through descrip- tive analysis. The author is particularly grateful for the work done by Professor Emmanuel Anati (1986). It was from him, to a large extent, that the problem of this study was formulated. Anati showed that the amounts of Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 75 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations visitors to Rock Art sites was dwindling year by year. Therefore, the research question for this study was how do we initiate innovations to promote Rock Art sites as popular tourist attractions in Tanzania, atmax- imum level? In answering this question, the author attempts to offer possible solutions to the problem. Unstructured interviews were used in this study. Phone interviews were conducted in April, 2017, with five Tanzania TourismBoard (ttb)members, who are responsible for the promotion of tourism in the coun- try. The two main questions in the interview were as follows: Are there any plans to build tourist resorts close to important Rock Art sites? To what extent have you created awareness of the accessible Rock Art sites? The rationale for asking these two questions was based on the fact that, by bringing tourists close to the Rock Art sites, the world will recognize the earliest sources of painting and drawing that took place in Tanza- nia over 40,000 years ago. The second question was based on the fact that the general public knows very little about Rock Art. Therefore, by making it popu- lar through official means by the relevant authority, tourists will be attracted to visit the sites. In terms of observation, the author applied a par- ticipatory method by visiting the Jiangxi Provincial Museum in China and the Qana/Cana Grotto site in Lebanon. Although these visits were not initially meant for this particular study, the author found them useful, because they provide relevant information for the study. The author got a chance to visit the Qana/ Cana Grotto site when he went to Lebanon for a vaca- tion in the summer of 2005. The author again had a chance to visit the Jiangxi Provincial Museum in November, 2016, following an invitation from the Chi- nese Department of Culture through the University of Dar es Salaam in the context of promoting cultural cooperation between Tanzania and China. Responses from the Interviews The respondents weremembers of the Tanzania Tour- ist Board (ttb), who responded that the Tanzania Tourist Board had never given Rock Art sufficient em- phasis as an item of the tourist attraction. There were no reasons given for such an attitude. This confirms what Anati had written 31 years ago about the impor- tance which had been given to Rock Art in Tanzania. The visitors’ record that is kept at Kolo shows between 120 and 400 people visited the Rock Art sites annually from 1959 to 1971 with peaks to 616 people in 1972. The figure began to diminish to 562 people in 1973 (Anati, 1986, p. 24). These figures are very small compared to those in the traditional tourism, which is given a priority in terms of promotion as a tourist attraction. According to Lwoga (2011, p. 129) the overall figure of tourists, which includes Rock Art and traditional tourism, from 1959 to 1971 ranges between 7,880 and 68,400 people with peaks to 199,200 in 1972 and di- minishing to 143,500 in 1973. These figures make a clear picture that there were more tourists who visited other areas apart fromRockArts sites, and that reflects the insufficient emphasis given to the Rock Art sites. The response to the second question was also neg- ative. The five respondents confirmed that they have never contacted investors to build resorts at important Rock Art sites. This shows very clearly that many in- stitutions are not aware of the potential of Rock Arts sites in Tanzania as tourist attractions. Author’s Observations on Cultural Tourism During the visit to the Jiangxi Provincial Museum in China, the author of this study and other visitors were taken around the museum by professional guides who were conversant with every display in the Museum, and explained in detail the significance and history of each and everything that was displayed. Likewise, in Lebanon, the author visited the Qana/Cana Grotto site, 10 kilometers southeast of the city of Tyre in South Lebanon, where there were also guides to take visitors around this cultural site. There were a lot of people vis- iting this cultural heritage site, at which Jesus is said to have done the miracle of turning water into wine. Publicity: It may seem that Rock Art of Tanzania is only relevant to researchers and students of archae- ology judging from the publications available in the nation’s libraries, but this is far from the truth. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, through its Antiquities Department, which is responsible for managing Rock Art, should find a better way to reach a wider community with information on the signifi- cance of Rock Art to the country. The Ministry could 76 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations use media as a platform to reach a wider commu- nity by disseminating important information about the Rock Art. This would make people aware and ap- preciate this Tanzanian cultural heritage. In addition, reading materials such as pamphlets, magazines and leaflets should be used to publicize this cultural her- itage. These reading materials should be distributed in public areas such as hotels’ lounges, restaurants and local and international flights for people to read. The author acknowledges some public institutions like the National Museum and House of Culture for setting aside a special room for Tanzanian rock paint- ings to enable the general public to view their cul- tural heritage. However, the display is not focused on any aspect of knowledge that would make the ordi- nary person appreciate the significance of rock paint- ings in the cultural development of today’s Tanzania. Although the Museum should be commended for set- ting aside a space for the display of cultural heritage of universal value, it should also take steps to either put professional and reliable guides to explain to the vis- itors the significance of the display, or have a public address system that would communicate useful infor- mation at intervals to the public. Countries like China and Lebanon, for instance, have taken such steps by employing full time professional guides in their Mu- seums and cultural sites. The professional guides take time to explain the significance of each display in the museums and sites to visitors. Hotels and Camps: Given that Tanzania is rich in Rock Art where 370 sites have been reported, would it not be convenient to build hotels and camps near the sites to attract visitors? At the Ngorongoro Crater area there are hotels for visitors wishing to view game. The same spirit should guide our tourist management offi- cials to view Rock Art as an important part of cultural tourism that needs shelters for visitors to stay in order to appreciate it fully. Such important sites asMongomi wa Kolo in Kondoa, central Tanzania, which, accord- ing to Bwashiri (2008, p. 22), is the main visitor attrac- tion to the Kondoa World Heritage Site, and where the most famous painting called The Abduction Scene of the hgl style is located; or Msaghaa in Singida, where artworks of the fm groups are still preserved in caves, are but a few of the interesting areas where camps and hotels could be erected. Camps and ho- tels around the Rock Arts sites would also create jobs to the local communitymembers and encourage other economic activities. This would play amajor role in al- leviating poverty among the community members, as mentioned by other scholars. Cole and Buhrich (2012, p. 71), for instance, mention that rock art tourism is a global phenomenon and, in many parts of the world, is contributing to community development and re- gional economies. The hotels and camps around the Rock Art sites would definitely need employees with different skills and educational levels. Local commu- nity members would take jobs such as house-keeping, guards and driverswhich, inmost cases, do not require a high level of education. It should be known that these sites are located in rural areas with few or no schools and, hence, the majority of people who reside there have not attended schools. The participation of Mi- cro and Small Enterprise (mse) in tourism, according to Mshenga and Richardson (2013, p. 168), has a great potential to economic development and poverty al- leviation. The two scholars (Mshenga & Richardson, 2013) studied micro and small enterprise participa- tion in tourism in the coastal region of Kenya after realizing that such participation has recently become the subject of research and policy analysis. The study found that participation of small business in tourism can, in some circumstances, contribute to poverty reduction. Another study by Professor Winiester Anderson shows that cultural tourism can play a major role in improving the lives of people living around the tourist sites by creating jobs and encouraging other economic activities. She evidences in her research on how cultural tourism could be the factor for poverty alleviation. Professor Anderson found that enterprises such as hotels, lodging houses, restaurants and curio shops are largely involved in tourist-related activities. Tourists who visit tourism sites usually need accom- modation in hotels and lodging houses, meals and souvenirs, which, in most cases are provided by lo- cal people living around the tourism sites. According to Anderson (2015) ‘enterprises are largely involved in tourist-related activities, which include the provi- sion of accommodation (hotels and lodging houses) Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 77 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations and restaurants [. . .] and sale of souvenirs, pottery and earthenware.’ Duval and Smith (2014) emphasize the need of accommodation in the site areas in their paper which discusses the steps towards the development of Rock Art tourism. Duval and Smith’s paper, in which research was conducted in the region of uKhahlamba- Drakensberg Park (udp) of South Africa, aimed to de- termine the ways in which tourism can contribute to the preservation of Rock Art sites. According to Duval and Smith (2014, p. 44), after the first step, which is to designate an organization responsible for developing sustainable Rock Art tourism by beginning with al- locating all the Rock Art sites, the next step should be to create a network of all the organizations and individuals who can contribute to the development of Rock Art tourism, which include accommodation providers, tourism service providers and local com- munities, as well as marketing and development pro- fessionals. However, Tanzania has designated the Ministry of Natural Resources andTourism tomanage natural and cultural heritage resources through its Antiquities De- partment. Duval and Smith continue by saying that the whole process of developing sustainable Rock Art tourism should have a back-up of substantial politi- cal and financial support. This should not be the case for Tanzania, since the country is well known for its political stability, which supports infrastructures such as hotels and camps in the Rock Art sites. The gov- ernment would benefit from collection of revenue in all these economic activities, which could be used to improve infrastructures such as roads, and social fa- cilities like schools. Investment of camps and hotels, therefore, is as an opportunity for the local commu- nity members to benefit from schools. The pressure to build hospitals would more likely come from visi- tors who need this facility when they visit the sites. In another instance, the hotels might be offering health insurance for some of their staff members. That situa- tion will increase the pressure to build hospitals in the areas as staff would also need these facilities. Learning fromOthers Evidently then, if theworld has recognizedTanzania as having the largest concentration of rock art that cov- ers 200 square miles with 370 sites of rock art out of which 200 have already been recorded, (Anati, 1986, p. 23), what initiatives should the Tourist Board take in promoting the art? Should they visit other places to learn how this neglected art is promoted? Yes, the Tourist BoardMembers should visit countries that are doing well in promoting their cultural heritage such as Lebanon, China, France, Norway and South Africa, to learn their cultural tourism promotion techniques. If the rock arts site of Chauvet, for instance, was dis- covered only in 1994 in France, but is now among the greatest tourist attraction sites in Europe, it is, there- fore, possible to make the Tanzanian central plateau rock arts, which are over 40,000 years old, popular and great tourist attraction sites in the world. The interviews showed that theTourist Boardmem- bers have made several visits to other places such as Malaysia, India, Egypt and South Korea as part of their efforts to see how other countries are promoting their tourism attraction sites. The author learnt that, through such visits, the promotion of the traditional tourism sites has been doing verywell in Tanzania. It is time to apply the same traditional tourism promotion skills to these cultural heritage sites. In northern Norway, there are Rock Art sites and some institutions are built close to them. In order to create awareness among students of the importance of their cultural heritage, some of the institutions make and use logos that depict Rock Art. In Tanzania, some big medical institutions are built in the same premises with hospitals to make it easy for medical students to practice what they learn in classrooms. Among those medical institutions are the Muhimbili Univer- sity of Health and Allied Sciences (muhas), which is built in the same compound with the Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam; the Catholic Uni- versity of Health and Allied Sciences (kuhas), which is also built nearby the Bugando Referral Hospital in Mwanza; and the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University (kcmu), which is built by the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (kcmc) in Kilimanjaro. If archaeology, art and history academic institu- tions would be built nearby the rock sites, it would not only give students a chance to practice what they read in books and learn in classrooms, but would also in- 78 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations crease awareness among these students about the im- portance of their cultural heritage. These institutions would make and use logos/emblems that depict the RockArts found in the sites that are affiliatedwith such institutions. Monitoring skills is a dispensable tool for proper conservation of the rockpaintings that could be earned through such visits. According to Jopela (2010, p. 58), regular monitoring activities would enable site con- servators to determine causes of site deterioration and address appropriate measures to mitigate site damage. The RockArt site (bne 1) in theClocolan district, Free State Province in South Africa, is a good example of Rock Art sites which are monitored regularly, and the ttb could visit the site to learn proper monitoring strategies. If appropriate measures are taken, the paintings on the rocks will not ‘fade out.’ According to Jopela (2010, p. 66), the faded appearance is usually due to pigment loss or discoloration, which is caused by salt growth and a cover of a mineral layer. If regular monitoring is practiced at the Tanzanian Rock Art sites, the paint- ings’ fading and deterioration can, therefore, be de- creased. Monitoring is also mentioned by Duval and Smith (2014, p. 45) as a process to measure changes in the position of art in uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park tourism. They emphasize that the monitoring process should also include visitor numbers to Rock Art sites, and the place of Rock Art in promotional materials. Conclusion Tanzania is blessed in having the largest concentra- tion of Rock Art in EasternAfrica, but its potential has not yet been realized by those entrusted with the task of tourism promotion. The contribution of Ngoron- goro Conservation Area, Selous Game Reserve, and national parks of Serengeti, Mikumi, Lake Manyara, to mention a few, in Tourism promotion is acknowl- edged fully by the author, but innovations are always in place if diversification in promotion approaches is needed for rapid development of tourism promotion. Family economic growth of local people would also be a factor, since people living around the site areas would have a better opportunity to sell and supply goods and services to tourists who visit the sites. It should be noted that the majority of rural families in Tanzania, where these sites are found, according to United Republic of Tanzania (2010), cannot afford their basic needs such as food, education, health ser- vices and shelters without support from the govern- ment, ngos, friends or relatives. So, effective tourism promotion in these areas could be another way of sup- porting these people. If these Rock Art sites, which, according to Mapunda (2013, p. 81), are among the country’s economic resources, are exploited strategi- cally, it could alleviate the scorching poverty of the country within a short period of time. We live in an age when a people’s perception of the origins of their visual arts can influence the historical development of their arts deeply. The development of the art of paint- ing and drawing in Tanzania should be glorified as the earliest art form of Africans, and not the art of sculpture, which made its presence felt in the world much earlier in the nineteenth century than painting. Making Rock Art a cultural tourism would also be a way of preserving and restoring such cultural heritage. This would attract people from all over the world to visit the sites as tourists and develop awareness of the country’s conservation. Regulatory measures and by- laws, according to Lwoga (2011, p. 32), would be set in the tourist destinations, which would also help to con- serve the environment and its resources. This should go in-line with regular monitoring of the sites, which, of course, should be based on a negotiated partner- ship with people living around the sites, to determine condition change of the paintings and take necessary measures. Finally, if we are to succeed in making Rock Art a popular attraction for tourism promotion, we must first teach our people in schools and elsewhere about the cultural and intellectual significance of Rock Art. It is possible that those responsible today for promot- ing tourismmight not have been exposed to a curricu- lum that included topics on Rock Art among other things. As a result of this anomaly, Rock Art has re- mained a neglected subject by the general public, but an elitist discipline to art historians and somemuseum staff. This needs our urgent attention. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, which is responsible for managing natural and cultural heritage resources Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 79 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations through its Antiquities Department, should advise the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to in- clude a topic about RockArt in primary and secondary schools’ curricula. This suggestion should go together with the proposal of building academic institutions, especially those dealing with arts, history, and archae- ology and heritage management, near the Rock Art sites to allow students to do practical and field training on the sites. Besides, local community members should also be given education about the significance of their cul- tural heritage through media, seminars, workshops and schools (for children). They should also be in- volved fully in Rock Art conservation projects from brainstorming processes rather than only waiting to see implementation of the projects in their areas. Du- val and Smith (2014, p. 45) insist that local commu- nities have to be involved because they are the people most able to benefit from increasing the social value of sites, as they will then become true partners in de- veloping Rock Art tourism. These people ought to be well informed about their cultural heritage, and they should be made to understand that it belongs to them. This would make community members know why such projects are important to them and their future generations. People who live around the Kolo-Kisese Rock Art sites, for instance, were more likely to sup- port the conservation project which was implemented in their area, if they were involved in the project from the brainstorming process. References Anati, E. (1986). The state of research in rock art: The rock art of Tanzania and the East African sequence. Bolletino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, 23, 15–68. Anderson, W. (2015). Cultural tourism and poverty allevia- tion in rural Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 13(3), 208–224. Bailey, E., & Richard, R. (2010). A new economic framework for tourism decision making. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 10(4), 367–376. Bwashiri, E. J. (2008). The management of indigenous liv- ing heritage in archaeological world heritage sites: Case study ofMongomiwaKolo rock painting site, Central Tan- zania (Unpublished Master’s dissertation). University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Bwashiri, E. J. (2011). The implications of the management of indigenous living heritage: The case study of theMon- gomi wa Kolo paintings world heritage site, Central Tan- zania. South African Archeological Bulletin, 66(193), 60– 66. Cole, N., & Buhrich, A. (2012). Endangered rock art: Forty years of cultural heritage management in the Quinkan Region,CapeYorkPeninsula.AustralianArchaeology, 75, 66–77. Duval, M., & Smith, B. W. (2014). Seeking sustainable rock art tourism: The example of the Maloti-Drakensberg Park world heritage site. South African Archaeology Bul- letin, 69(199), 34–48. Jopela, A. (2010). Towards a condition monitoring of rock art sites: The case of bne 1 in Free State Province, South Africa. South African Archeological Bulletin, 65(191), 58– 66. Kasfir, S. L. (1999). Contemporary African art. London, Eng- land: Thames and Hudson. Leakey,M.D. (1983).Africa’s vanishing art: The rock paintings of Tanzania. London, England: Hamish Hamilton. Lwoga, N. B. (2011). Tourism-meaning practices and history. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania:Dar es SalaamUniversity Press. Mapunda, B. B. B. (2013). Get off my land! Towards mutual understanding in archaeological field conflicts. ap: On- line Journal in Public Archaeology, 3, 74–96. Masao, F. T. (2003). The prehistoric rock paintings of Tan- zania mainland. In Y. Goscinny (Ed.), East Africa art bi- ennale (pp. 20–36). Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: La Petite Galerie. Masao, F. T. (2015). The rock art in Tanzania [Powerpoint slides]. University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tan- zania. Meethan, K. (2003).Mobile cultures?Hybridity, tourism and cultural change. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 1(1), 11–28. Mshenga, P. M., & Richardson, R. B. (2013). Micro and small enterprise participation in tourism in Coastal Kenya. Small Business Economics, 41(3), 667–681. Mwenesi, L. C. (2006). Rock art and the national curriculum in Tanzania. Utafiti, 7 (1), 100–108. New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. (1961). War- wick, NY: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Ntiro, S. J. (1982). Asili ya Sanaa. In E. Jengo, L. A.Mbughuni, S. A. Kandoro (Eds.), Falsafa ya Sanaa Tanzania (pp. 28– 43). Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: basata. Richards, G. (2011). Creativity and tourism: The state of the art. Annals of Tourism Research, 38(4), 1225–1253. United Republic of Tanzania. (1965). Annual Report of the 80 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Rock Art and Tourism in Tanzania: In Search for Innovations Antiquities Division for the Year 1965.Dar es Salaam, Tan- zania: Author. United Republic of Tanzania. (2004). Kondoa rock art site: Nomination of properties for inclusion on the World Her- itage List.Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Author. United Republic of Tanzania. (2010). National strategy for growth and reduction of poverty ii. Dar es Salaam, Tan- zania: Author. Willet, F. (2002).African art. London, England: Thames and Hudson. This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 81 Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy on Visitors at Tourism Fairs Dejan Galovski Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Bulgaria dejangalovski@gmail.com In this paper, the efforts that Macedonia makes for promotion and positioning it as a tourist destination will be reviewed. In recent years Macedonia much effort has invested in the development and promotion of tourism products, as well strategies, plans, and programs to promote that nation’s tourism potential. The Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism has a major role through their annual programs realize goals and projects to promote and support tourism. Every year, the agency participates in international tourism fairs where it promotes the tourism potentials and natural beauties of Macedonia, and establishes collaboration contacts for the development of tourism there. In addition to international tourism fairs, they par- ticipate in creating marketing campaigns, promotional videos, online campaigns, and similar activities. In this paper, national marketing campaigns as a tourist des- tination, which have primary role of promoting Macedonia in global media, will be analysed and their effects reviewed. For the purpose of this paper, research has been conducted, a questionnaire with multiple choice, checkbox, and scale ques- tions about visitors’ opinions at the international tourism fairs in Sofia, Bulgaria, and in Belgrade, Serbia in February 2016. Interviewees were specifically asked about whether they were familiar with the range of tourism services and facilities inMace- donia, tourismmarketing campaigns of Macedonia, the latter’s impact on them, and the evaluation of the presentation of Macedonia at the tourism fair. The results have shown that visitors have a positive assessment of the presentation of Macedonia at the tourism fair, and most of them often watch television and Internet advertise- ments for Macedonia as a tourist destination. Furthermore, at the tourism fair in Sofia, using an open questionnaire, a representative of the Agency for the Promo- tion and Support of Tourism was interviewed about the participation of Macedonia at the international fairs and their experiences and expectations. Keywords: tourism, tourism fair, marketing, promotion, Macedonia https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.83-89 Introduction One of the oldest market institutions, maintaining its vitality from theMiddle Ages until today, is fairs. They first developed as sales sites and later evolved into ex- hibitions of products. The fairs are a strong impetus to trade and one of the attributes of a market econ- omy. Tourism fairs are an effective tool of marketing tourism. At a tourism fair, visitors can be directly in- troduced to the tourist services of companies. In this paper, research will be conducted about visitors’ opin- Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 83 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy ions at tourism fairs about tourist services, and the marketing of one tourist destination and its influence on visitors. Methodology In this research, primary data obtained fromquestion- naires and interviews conducted by the researcher will be used, accompanied by secondary data from pub- lished books and Internet sources regarding tourism fairs and the national tourism marketing of Macedo- nia. The questionnaire containsmultiple-choice, scale, and dichotomous questions. The formof the question- naire was interviewer-completion. A structured interview was conducted with a rep- resentative from the Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism from Macedonia at the interna- tional tourism fair in Sofia, Bulgaria about tourism services and the promotion of Macedonia and expe- riences from international tourism fairs. Hypotheses In this research two hypotheses will be tested: h1 The majority of respondents saw advertising about Macedonia as a tourist destination on the internet. h2 The majority of respondents know that lake tourism is offered in Macedonia, and the first synonym of Macedonia as a tourist destination is Lake Ohrid. Importance of Tourism Trade Fairs It was in the late 1950s that the first serious attempts weremade to establish and organize tourism fairs. The main objective of the tourist industry was two-fold from the very beginning (Bhatia, 2007, p. 287): 1. As ‘public fairs’ the purpose is to enable travel agents and tour operators, hoteliers, carriers and National TouristOfficers to establish contact with the travelling public, and thus to promote their programs and services. 2. As ‘trade fairs’ in the more specific sense, their aim is to create opportunities for contact and business discussion, contract negotiations and exchange information within the industry itself. Trade fair tourism involves an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can show- case and demonstrate their latest products, services, study the activities of rivals, and examine recent mar- ket trends and opportunities (Esombia, 2013, p.23) The first such travel trade fair, known as the In- ternational Tourism Borse (itb), was held in 1967 in Berlin. Since then, there have been a number of other countries that have organized travel trade fairs regu- larly. The enthusiastic participation in these fairs is a result of the ever-expanding travel trade industry. A large number of exhibitors participate in these fairs, representing all segments of the travel industry, in- cluding travel agents, tour operators, hoteliers, airline companies, shipping companies, national tourist orga- nizations, etc. In addition, travel trademedia is present (Bhatia, 2007, p. 287). Participation in travel trade fairs has several inher- ent advantages, which are responsible for the growth in their numbers over the years as wells as the participa- tion. Some of these advantages of participating in the travel trade fairs are as follow (Bhatia, 2007, p. 288): • Opportunity for both buyers and sellers of tour- ism services to meet under one roof and transact business; • Lower cost of participation because of the advan- tage of scale; • Effective vehicle of communication with clients; • Better quality of attendance; • Single platform to introduce the product (in the form of a brochure); • Easy access to travel trade media; • Cultivating new information about the travel product; • Acquiring new information about the travel prod- uct; • Opportunity for effective public relations. Trade fairs make it easy for companies to evaluate their competitors. Exchanging information and hold- ing talks remains important. In a decision-making situation the degree of personal trust established be- tween business partners is a key factor. In the compe- tition for a business partner’s trust personal acquain- 84 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy Table 1 Assets Aimed for Realization of the Program for Promotion and Support of Tourism Category       Total asset ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, ,, Assets for tourism fairs ,, ,, ,, – ,, – Notes Based on data from www.tourismmacedonia.gov.mk, in mkd (1 mkd = 0.01612 €). tance andword-of-mouthmarketing become values in their own right. Whether at home or abroad, the abil- ity to maintain close customer contact is an essential factor in the quest for strategic success. It is important that tourism firms attend such trade fairs, be they national, regional or international; with minimum cost for participation, maximum advan- tage is obtained via the introduction and promotion of their product tomake business contacts and contracts. Tourism trade fairs are organized annually and of- ten are combined with trade fairs for sports equip- ment, wine and food, education and other compatible fields. The two most important and prestigious inter- national tourism trade fairs are the World Trade Mart (wtm) in London, uk and the International Tourism Borse (itb) in Berlin, Germany; the interest and atten- dance on these fairs are at an extremely high level. Macedonian National Marketing Tourism Policy In conducting and creating the national marketing tourism policy in Macedonia, the main role is played by the Tourism sector of the Ministry of Economy and the Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism,whichwas established on 01December 2008. Since 2010, assets from the budget of Republic of Macedonia have been allocated to the agency for the realization of the program for promotion and support of tourism; total assets for each year can be seen in Ta- ble 1. Promotion of Macedonian tourism potential at in- ternational tourism fairs from 2010 to 2015: • 2010 – Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul, Ljubljana, Pris- tina, Sarajevo, Moscow • 2011 – Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul, Utrecht, Helsin- ki, Ljubljana, Tel Aviv, Pristina • 2012 –Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul, Utrecht,Helsin- ki, Essen, Izmir, London • 2013 – Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul, Utrecht, Helsin- ki, Moscow, Vienna, Warsaw, Brussels, Milan, Sofia, Goteborg, Tirana, Poznan, Shanghai, To- kyo, India, Florida (usa) • 2014 –Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul,Utrecht,Helsin- ki, Moscow, Vienna, Brussels,Milan, Sofia, Gote- borg, Poznan, Izmir, Tokyo, London • 2015 – Belgrade, Berlin, Istanbul, Utrecht,Helsin- ki, Moscow, Brussels, Sofia, Goteborg, Tokyo, London, Paris, Cologne, Rimini, Madrid Assets aimed for the realization of the program for promotion and support are allocated for following activities: conventional promotional activities (mak- ing and printing promotional material, presentation at international fairs, inviting international tour oper- ators and journalists, billboard campaign, promotion in international print media, promotion of tourist po- tential and education through international matches, conferences, workshops with international meaning), activities for electronic promotion, organizing Days of Macedonian tourism in particular countries, spe- cific promotion activity aimed to transit passengers, activities for tourism support, subsidiary of foreign organized tourist turnover and many other activities. The most important national branding campaigns are ‘Macedonia Timeless’ and ‘Essential Macedonia;’ the Internet and Google is equally important for the promotion of the tourist destination in the new era of digital technologies. Macedonia Timeless is a series of promotional tourist videos about the Republic of Macedonia. The videos showcase scenery from the Balkan country and of Macedonian culture to a foreign audience. Each video of the project is the work of a private production company, carried out on behalf of the Macedonian government, which officially funds the effort. The de- fined purpose of the project is ‘to promote awareness of Macedonian tourism opportunities’ (‘Macedonia Timeless,’ 2017). Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 85 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy The first group of tourism commercials consists of: • 2 general commercials • Macedonian Temples • Ohrid . . . City of Light • Macedonian Wines • Archaeology Following these, a fewmore commercial videos for the capital city Skopje, Macedonian Food, Adventure in Macedonia and Macedonia for couples were made. The website of Macedonia Timeless campaign is useful for potential tourists, as it offers basic informa- tion about Macedonia and a large amount of useful information for tourists to plan their trip. There is a ‘Things To Do’ section with activities, attractions, and tours, as well as online brochures. Also from campaign Macedonia Timeless are six thematic brochures: Sound (Tradition and Events), Touch (Archaeology,History, andCulture), Taste (Wi- ne and Food), Instinct (Hunting and Fishing), Scent (Rural Beauty), and Sight (Nature and Adventure). From 27 June 2012 to date, there have been more than 10,800,000 views on the official YouTube channel ofMacedonia Timeless.More than 40.000 people have clicked ‘Like’ on the official Facebook page ofMacedo- nia Timeless. EssentialMacedonia is a documentary aboutMace- donia’s tourist potentials and natural resources, de- picting the country’s essence by presenting its natural, historical, and cultural treasury and images of the ev- eryday life of its citizens, produced by ‘Travel Channel International.’ This documentary was broadcasted on 8 March 2011 on the Travel Channel in a duration of 30minutes. The documentary has been presented in 20 languages and 120 countries across the globe for three years. Travel Channel International is a world-renowned tv channel specializing in tourism and promotion of new tourist destinations (‘Dokumentaren film za Make- donija,’ 2011). PresenterDannyRobins is enthusiastic aboutMac- edonia’s hospitality, delicious food, possibilities for mountain biking, the beauty of Ohrid Lake, wine tourism and dazzling landscapes (‘Travel Channel: Macedonia an Exciting Destination,’ 2010). Google promotion aims to promote Macedonia as a tourist destination, increasing visits to the website of macedonia-timeless.com and to a presentation of the possibilities for tourists and increasing total numbers of tourists in Macedonia. Target countries for 2015 were Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Netherlands, Russia, Italy, France, Great Brit- ain, Germany and Sweden. Criteria for selection of the 10 countries were the number of foreign tourists, direct flights, subsidized countries, tourists who are major consumers, and hits on the website from 2014. Google Online campaign is realized through: • Banners and pop ads with videos and pictures • 257 keywords in 6 languages • YouTube videos Through banners and pop ads interest in the key- word ‘Macedonia’ for Serbia, Russia, Italy, Great Brit- ain, France, Netherlands and Sweden is used; addi- tionally, for Bulgaria, Turkey, and Germany, ‘History’ is a keyword. The keywords used for Serbia are ‘Nature’ and ‘Ad- venture,’ and ‘Ohrid;’ for Bulgaria, ‘Nature’ and ‘Ad- venture;’ for Turkey, ‘Nature’ and ‘Adventure;’ for Rus- sia, ‘Nature’ and ‘Adventure’ (snowboarding); forGreat Britain, ‘Nature,’ ‘Adventure,’ and ‘Skopje;’ for France, ‘Food,’ ‘Wine,’ and ‘Skopje;’ for the Netherlands, ‘Tra- dition’ and ‘Culture;’ for Italy, Germany, and Sweden, the general keyword ‘Macedonia’ is used. Table 2 shows the funds spent for online promo- tion for the period from 16 March to 18 August 2015. The highest numbers of clicks and view are from Ser- bia, Turkey, Bulgaria, andRussia; themost impressions are from Turkey and then from Russia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. The highest costs for promotion are in uk, Turkey, and Russia. Results of Survey During the international tourism fairs in Sofia, Bul- garia from 11–13 February 2016 and in Belgrade, Ser- bia from 18–21 February 2016, with the target survey group of visitors at the fairs, interviews were con- ducted with 144 respondents, 58 in Sofia and 86 in Belgrade. 86 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy Table 2 Funds Spent per Country (16 March to 18 August 2015) Country Clicks/Views Cost () Average cpc () Impressions United Kingdom , ,. . ,, Turkey ,, ,. . ,, Russia ,, ,. . ,, France , ,. . ,, Germany , ,. . ,, Italy , ,. . ,, Netherlands , ,. . ,, Bulgaria ,, ,. . ,, Serbia ,, ,. . ,, Sweden , ,. . ,, Spain , . . , Notes Adapted from Temelkovski (2016). I chose to do research at this international tourism fairs because the visitors from these countries are among top five visitors of Macedonia for every year, recently. Furthermore, these countries are neighbours to Macedonia, and they offer similar tourism prod- ucts, such as religious tourism, ski tourism, gastron- omy tourism, mountain tourism, and others. The Belgrade Tourism Fair is the largest tourism event in Serbia and Southeast Europe. It has been meeting global business standards formore than three decades, creating partnership relations with the ex- hibitors and attracting an increasing number of visi- tors annually (see http://beogradskisajamturizma.rs). Since 2003, it has been a member of the European Tourism Trade Fairs Association (ettfa). Its high quality led it to become a member of another pres- tigious organization: the International Tourism Trade Fairs Association (ittfa). The international Tourist Fair ‘Holiday&SpaExpo’ (see http://holidayfair-sofia.com) has been one of the most significant events in the tourism business for over three decades in Bulgaria, providing excellent op- portunities for useful business contacts between ex- hibitors, promoting various products, programs and offers to professionals and the general public. The survey was conducted through a simple ran- dom sample with structured questionnaire by means of a random selection. The questionnaire contains questions of multiple-choice, scale, and checkbox; the responses will assist in the realization of the aim of the survey. Results from this research have shown that 59 of the respondents are female and 41 are male. Regard- ing the age of the respondents, those of 26 to 35 years represented 27.1, 26.4 are at age above 55 years, 17.4 are of age of 36 to 45 years, 15.3 are of age of 46 to 55 years, and 13.9 are of age of 15 to 25 years. Ac- cording to the education, the biggest part even 70.8 of respondents had university education; 26.4 had secondary education, and 2.8 have primary educa- tion. According to the social status of respondents, 63.9 are employed, 18.8 are retirees, 10.4 are stu- dents and 6.9 are unemployed. Regarding howmuch are their annual personal expenses are for tourism and leisure, almost half part of respondents (47.2) answered between €500–1500, 35.4 less than €500, 14.6 between €1501–2500, and 2.8 over €2500. In Figure 1 it can be seen that 64 of respondents had been toMacedonia and 36 had never been there. From those respondents who never been in Macedo- nia, 86.5 answered that they would visit there and 13.5 that they would not. From those respondents who would not visit Macedonia, 42.9 answered that they would visit Greece, 28.6 that they would visit Turkey, and 28.6 that they would visit some other destinations. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 87 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy Yes 63.90 No 36.10 Figure 1 Have You Ever Been in Macedonia? Yes 63.90 No 36.10 TV 49.30 Internet 43.10 Printed editions 1.40 Radio 1.40 Billboards 6.90 Flyers etc. 7.60 Tourism fair 14.60 I have not seen 24.30 Figure 2 Where Have You Seen Advertising of Macedonia as Tourist Destination? Figure 2 whether respondents had seen advertising about Macedonia as a tourist destination in the previ- ous year and in which medium. Most of the respondents 49.3 had seen advertis- ing of Macedonia as a tourist destination on televi- sion and 43.1 had seen on the Internet and social media. Furthermore, 24.3 of the respondents had not seen any such advertising. Then 14.6 of the re- spondents had seen advertising at tourism fair, 7.6  of the respondents had seen in flyers, catalogues and brochures, 6.9  of the respondents had seen on bill- boards, 1.4 of the respondents had listen advertis- ing on radio and 1.4 of the respondents had seen in printed editions. About the impressions of advertising of Macedo- nia as a tourist destination, 56. of respondents said that the advertising was interesting, 17.4 said that it was exciting, 0.6 said that it was dull, and 27.7 of respondents had not seen the advertising. About information regarding tourist services in Macedonia, 57.6 of respondents can find enough in- formation, 14.6 cannot find enough complete infor- mation, 15.3 find insufficient information, and 12.5 had not searched for such information. For over half (54.2) of the respondents, the first thing when they think about Macedonia as a tourist destination is Lake Ohrid; 17.4 of respondents think it is a land of natural beauty, 16 a land of tradition and Lake tourism 95.80 Mountain tourism 28.50 Religious tourism 23.60 Wine tourism 17.40 Other 6.30 Figure 3 Type of Tourism Product in Macedonia history; 9.7 of respondents think of delicious food and wine, 1.4 the cradle of civilization, while 1.4  of respondents thing of some other things. Figure 3 shows that 95.8 of respondents knows that lake tourism is offered in Macedonia; 28.5 know that mountain tourism is offered there; 23.6 of re- spondents knows about religious tourism there; 17.4 know about wine tourism, and 6.3 of respondents knows that some others type of tourism products are offered in Macedonia. On a scale from 1 (dislike) to 5 (like), the respon- dents evaluated the promotional materials and the na- tional stand ofMacedonia at the international tourism fairs. Half (51.4) of respondents gave Grade 5, 38.2 of respondents gaveGrade 4, and 10.4of respondents gave Grade 3. Interview The interview was conducted with Ljupco Janevski, Head of Unit for Analysis, Research and Strategic planning,Department for Promotion and Exhibitions, the Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism at the international tourism fair in Sofia, Bulgaria. He said that the agency presents Macedonia as a brand and a tourist destination, and provides an even presentation of all the possibilities for tourism and development of tourism in the country, from a mass tourism to the most specific forms of tourism. This year religious tourism is promoted through brochures and the first guided tours of monasteries; 31 monas- teries are offering accommodation in Macedonia. At all fairs in which the agency participates, the offer of tourism in Macedonia is the same. The greatest interest for tourism in Macedonia is predominantly seen at regional fairs in Turkey, Ser- bia, Bulgaria and Slovenia. At the tourism fairs in these countries we expect various target groups, because the 88 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Dejan Galovski Effectiveness of Macedonian Tourism Marketing Policy interest for Macedonia as a tourist destination is high. Macedonia is undiscovered destination as for Balkan countries as well as for other countries. Macedonia and these countries have similarity in mental and so- cial aspects and because of that enables faster fluctua- tion of tourists from these countries and tourists from these countries are in top 10 countries of international tourist arrivals in Macedonia. Also most of macedo- nian tourists are traveling in these countries. After each tourist fair, visitors contact us and we have feedback, it’s very important that the fan page of Macedonia Timeless on Facebook currently has around 36,000 people[likes], and most interest arises from the natural beauties of Macedonia with more than 1000 likes on certain videos from the campaign ExploreMacedonia; we have increased visit at theweb- site of www.tourismmacedonia.gov.mk. The Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism regularly participates in certain b2b fairs, such as in London, Brussels, the Netherlands and Ri- mini, Italy, where there have been great successes. Such a method enables stronger relationships with the tourism sector in Macedonia and in the countries where they are present. Conclusion According to the analysed data, it can be concluded that in the recent years Macedonia has made sustain- able efforts for promotion of tourism and from year to year invests significant financial assets for promo- tion and development of tourism. The tourism prod- ucts of Macedonia are promoted by the Agency for the Promotion and Support of Tourism through the all available promotional assets as marketing campaign in print media, tv, internet, tourism fairs, billboard campaign, subsidiary and many more activates Tourism fairs are one of the oldest form of pre- sentation and most important promotional tool of the tourism product and destination. The Agency for Pro- motion and Support of Tourism every year from an- nual programs allocating funds for participation in tourism fairs and participated at the most important tourism fairs in Europe and the world. Positive results of the Macedonian tourist policy are a result of the increased investments in the last five to six years, and making strategies, programs, fu- ture plans and objectives for the improvement, devel- opment and promotion of tourism. The first hypothesis, which stated: ‘The biggest part of respondents saw the advertising of Macedonia as a tourist destination on the Internet,’ can be partially ac- cepted because 50of respondents saw the advertising on the tv and 43 of respondents advertising on the Internet. The second hypothesis, which stated: ‘The biggest part of respondents know that in Macedonia is offered lake tourism as a type of tourism and the first synonym of Macedonia as a tourist destination is Lake Ohrid,’ can be accepted in whole because the large majority respondents said that they know that Macedonia of- fers lake tourism and formore than half of the respon- dents as the first association forMacedonia as a tourist destination is Lake Ohrid. This research has been funded and supported from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission can- not be held responsible for any usewhichmay bemade of the information contained therein. References Bhatia, A. K. (2007). The business of tourism: Concepts and strategies.New Delhi, India: Sterling. Dokumentaren film za Makedonija. (2011, 7 March). Večer. Retrieved from http://vecer.mk/kultura/dokumentaren -film-za-makedonija Esombia, S. (2013).Global tourism and the environment: The necessities for clean energy and clean transportation us- ages. Raleigh, nc: Lulu Press. Macedonia timeless. (2017). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_Timeless Temelkovski, O. (2016). Online campaign Macedonia. Re- trieved from https://prezi.com/vhchm0pifwz6/online -campaign-macedonia/ Travel Channel: Macedonia an exciting destination. (2010, 24 July).Macedonia Online. Retrieved from http:// macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/16114/2/ This paper is published under the terms of the Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License. Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 89 Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth in Botswana? A Vector Auto Regression Approach Strike Mbulawa Botho University, Botswana smint50000@gmail.com Samuel Chingoiro Botho University, Botswana chingoiro@yahoo.co.uk The study examines the role of tourism as a potential driver of economic growth in a middle-income economy. Specifically, the study analyzes the short run relationship between economic growth and tourist expenditures using annual time series data from 1980 to 2015. The study is motivated by the fact that tourism is being given priority in devising strategies for rural and national development. Botswana has en- joyed economic growth since independence at an annual average of 9, which is considered one of the fastest in the world. Though mining revenues have been given the credit for the development of the economy, it is also important to realize the con- tribution of other important sectors like tourism in the context of an emerging econ- omy. Using the vector auto regression approach, the study supports unidirectional causality moving from tourist expenditures to growth. Findings show that growth responds immediately to shocks in tourist expenditures up to six periods. However, tourism expenditures are not a key driver of growth and their effect on growth face diminishing returns. Demand side policies should focus on reducing inflationary pressures, which improves demand for products by tourists and increases growth. Supply side policies should focus on providing adequate finances to tour operators and tax incentives. These can improve the level of innovation and infrastructure development that are important in extending the impact of tourist expenditure on growth beyond six periods. They will also improve the contribution by fdi inflows in improving tourist expenditures. Keywords: Botswana, tourism, causality, economic growth https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.10.91-101 Introduction The development of tourism and its contribution to growth and poverty reduction has gained popular- ity in recent years. Pioneering work (Lea, 1988; Sin- clair, 1998) shows that tourism can promote economic growth through creating employment and income generation. The tourism sector is still emerging and it is highly labor intensive, which can contribute pos- itively to the socio-economic wellbeing. The rise in tourist revenues boosts foreign exchange income, in- creases employment potential and brings economic growth (Samimi, Sadeghi, & Sadeghi, 2011). The pro- ceeds from tourist activities also act as a form of ex- port income which can be used subsequently for in- vestment purposes in the goods market. The national economy benefits from taxes extracted from increased Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 91 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? revenues. Tourism development brings growth in crit- ical sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, retail and transportation. The growth in the tourism sector is expected to continue as countries develop and their incomes rise. This allows people to have extra in- come to spend on leisure, which requires countries to develop strong tourism sectors to take advantage of the growth patterns (McCatty & Serju, 2006). On the global front (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2013), the market share of tourist attractions of emerging economies made a huge in- crease of between thirty and forty seven percent in 2010. Emerging economies are growing faster than de- veloped economies as tourist destinations for people from developed economies. Tourist arrivals in Sub Sa- haran Africa had grown by 14 between 2009 and 2010. This was represented by an increase from 20.5 million to 21.5 million in the two years, and this fur- ther increased to 28 million tourist arrivals in 2015 (retosa, 2011). The United Nations World Tourism Organization (2004) also shows that tourism accounts for approximately 55 of service sector exports. The direction of causality between tourism and growth remains unsettled. Previous studies acknowl- edge the potential for growth to drive tourism and, alternatively, the existence of a tourism led growth hy- pothesis (Makochekanwa, 2013;Holzner, 2010; Samimi et al., 2011). Results have been sensitive to the measure of measures for growth and tourism, and more so on the data set employed. This leaves policymakers in dif- ferent countries having no proper direction to follow. Findings generated elsewhere are not tenable in the context of Botswana, where discussions are ongoing on how to diversify the economy. Lack of clarity on the direction of causality leaves room for further interro- gation in the context of Botswana.Whilst acknowledg- ing studies done in an African context (Padachi, See- tanah, & Rojid, 2010; Nkurayija, 2011; Makochekanwa, 2013), this study extends the current knowledge by fo- cusing onBotswanawith a different data set andwhere no similar work has been done. The connection be- tween tourism and growth is not automatic, but it de- pends on the national strategy, level of openness, insti- tutional and regulatory framework. Thismakes results from country studies irrelevant in the context of other economies. This study seeks to determine the impact of tourism on growth in the short run, and vice versa. It seeks to find out whether or not economic growth leads to tourism, and vice versa? How do innovations and shocks in tourist expenditures influence growth in Botswana? The study confirms that tourist expenditures’Gran- ger-cause growth. The latter responds immediately to shocks in later, up to six periods. The study suggests the existence of diminishing returns to scale which suggests that effective policies are required to sustain the impact of tourismexpenditure on growth. Tourism expenditure is not a key driver of growth in Botswana, but it is making marginal contributions despite the potential that it has. The level of Foreign Direct In- vestment (fdi) is important in increasing the level of tourist expenditures in the short term. Policies at- tracting fdi will subsequently improve indirectly as it works through attracting more tourists. In the case of Botswana, keeping low levels of inflation has a two- fold effect: Improving the level of growth and attract- ing more tourist expenditures. These are all benefi- cial to the economy as confirmed by the results on causality. The rest of the study is organized as fol- lows: Section two explains the developments in the tourism sector and connection with growth, section three reviews literature on the connection between economic growth and tourism development, section four explains the data methodology employed in this study, section five discusses the results and section six concludes and gives policy recommendations. Tourism Expenditure and Economic Growth in Botswana Botswana is a middle-income country, within the Southern Africa Development Community (sadc), with a population of about two million. Tourism is one avenue for addressing poverty without reliance on diamond revenues. The country has many wildlife species in Chobe and the Okavango Delta which gen- erate tourist activities. The Botswana Tourism Master Plan (2000) shows that 17 of the country is desig- nated as national parks and game reserves, and at least 20 are wildlife management areas. The Okavango is the largest inland wetland habitat in the world oc- 92 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth?                 Figure 1 Total Turist Expenditures as Parcentage of gdp (dark – tte, dark – ttesdc) cupying 13,000 km2. The other national parks, like the Central Kalahari Game reserve andKgalakgadi Trans- frontier Park are not visited frequently by tourists. The country is recognized as a global tourism des- tination of choice, thus the need to exploit the tourism potential. Tourist expenditure comes from those in transit, business, leisure, and those visiting friends and relations (Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, 2007; Joseph et al., 2010). The tourism sec- tor witnessed an increase in holiday makers of 90 between 1993 (106,800 visitors) and 1998 (203,172 vis- itors). The number of rooms grew by 33 during the same period. In 1998, employment within the sector was around 4.5 of the employed labor force. Thus, the contribution of tourism to economic growth has been in the form of visitors’ expenditure, national out- put, foreign currency earnings, creation of employ- ment and improved government revenues (Botswana Tourism Master Plan, 2000). The amount of tourist expenditures (tte) as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (gdp) has increased over the years (Figure 1). It has increased from below 3 in 1980 to 11 in 2015. This has performed better than the contribution of to- tal tourist expenditure in sadc (ttesdc) which has increased from 2 to 9 over the same period. Tourist expenditure patterns as a percentage of gdp have been improving over the years. Figure 2 shows that domestic tourism expenditure (dts) has contributed more as compared to other types of ex- penditure like business tourism expenditure (bte) and leisure tourism expenditure (lte). The highest contribution of 4.1 has been made by dts, while . . . . . . . . . .         Figure 2 Tourist Expenditure Patterns as Percentage of gdp (dark – dts, light – bte, dashed – lte) - - -               Figure 3 Botswana gdp Growth Rate (Percentage) bte contributed only 1. A huge potential on driving growth may be received from dts and lte, which can be sources for diversification. During the years of the global financial crisis (2008/2009) expenditure patterns fell, but they show improvements after 2010. The growth rate in gdp (Figure 3) has remained positive since the year 1980, however it fell from be- ing above 15 (1988) per annum to the current level of about 3.5 (2015). In 2009, it fell to negative 8.5, due mainly to the effects of the global financial crisis and a huge recoverywasmadewithin a year to positive 7.6. The growth rate in gdp is projected to remain below 5 beyond 2015, and it has been unstable, which can be explained by changes in commodity prices. Review of Literature The connection between tourism and growth has been given attention by several researchers. Basically, there Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 93 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? are three strands in literature: The first supports a tourism led growth hypothesis. Evidence from the WorldTravel andTourismCouncil (seewww.wttc.org) shows that tourism expenditure contributes to growth by generating income, employment, investment and exports. It can have both negative and positive ef- fects, depending on the level of planning and devel- opment in a nation. Similarly, Nkurayija (2011) shows that tourism provides potential for diversification by attracting foreign direct investment, creating employ- ment and boosting other government revenues. This is critical in the context of Botswana. According to Makochekanwa (2013), tourism con- tributes to economic growth in varying proportions within different countries. The impact of tourism on growth was more significant in the Seychelles and Mauritius. The study found that a 1 increase in tour- ism led to a 0.16 increase in gdp within the sadc. Again, Narayan, Narayan, Prasad, and Prasad (2010) found that a 1 increase in tourism exports led to a 0.72 and a 0.24 increase in gdp in long and short runs respectively. These results are supported by Aleemi and Qureshi, 2015, who showed that tourism receipts have a significant and positive effect on gdp. They are contributing at least 0.24 of the gdp for Pakistan. Similarly, Wang and Xia (2013) support the existence of a dynamic long run relationship between tourism and economic growth. However, the study shows that, in the short term, gdp Granger causes tourism revenue and not vice versa. Tourism was found to benefit tourism dependent countries by caus- ing average economic growth rates through high in- vestment in capital in the formof infrastructure (Holz- ner, 2010). On the other hand, Adamou and Clerides (2009a) argue that tourism specialization brings high growth rates at low levels of specialization. This is followed by diminishing returns, which results in tourism mak- ing a small contribution to growth. Hence, tourism led growth fails to be sustainable beyond a certain level of growth, which calls for other factors to take growth forward. Tourism (Eugenio-Martin, Morales, & Scarpa, 2004) is adequate for growth in medium income countries and low-income countries, but it is not necessary for developed nations. Their study ar- gues that tourism only benefits countries where there is adequate infrastructure and human capital. The second strand focuses on a fed back hypoth- esis which supports bidirectional causality between the two variables. Work has been done by several re- searchers and summarized as follows: Samimi et al. (2011) examined a causality and long run relation- ship between economic growth and tourism develop- ment using panel data and panel vector autoregression (panelvar) approach. The study shows bidirectional causality between the two variables in the short term and supports the positive impact of tourism develop- ment on growth. Similarly, Padachi et al. (2010) used a panel var approach and found bidirectional causal- ity between the two variables using selected African countries. The third strand argues that economic growth and tourism sector development have an insignifi- cant relationship. McCatty and Serju (2006), show that the outputmultiplier for economywas small, such that, for every one dollar spent in the tourism sector, there would be one dollar increase in output which would drive employment by only 0.3 percent. Simi- larly, Homafar, Honari, Heidary, Heidary, and Emami (2011) examined the role of tourism on economic de- velopment, and their findings show that the impact of tourism on income production wasminimal. Further- more, Ekanayake and Long (2012) examined the link between the variables using data for developing coun- tries. Results fail to provide evidence in support of the tourism led growth hypothesis. The positive elasticity of tourism revenue with respect to real income was statistically insignificant. Data andMethodology This study employs annual time series data for Bo- tswana for the period 1980 to 2015. The period was chosen based on the availability of data on key vari- ables. The study employed a vector autoregression ap- proach after establishing that the two main variables (economic growth and tourism expenditure) were not cointegrated. The study employed the method by Jo- hansen to test for cointegration (1995). Impulse Re- sponse Functions (irf) were used to test how each variable would respond to shocks made on another, 94 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? and Forecast Error Variance Decompositions (fevd) were used to test whether or not tourism expenditure was a key driver of economic growth. The variables employed, as explained hereunder, are as follows: Economic growth (gdpg) = f (to, tte, fdi, cpi). (1) In this study, the vector autoregression (var) tech- nique has been employed to explain the interdepen- dences among variables. It is useful in examining the dynamic behavior of economic time series and for pol- icy analysis. In a var system of equations, the behav- ior of a variable can be caused by its own changes in the past or by changes in other variables (Green, 2012). The causality between growth and tourism can be esti- mated using a bivariate auto-regression stationary se- ries. In this study, there are three control variables, and, as such, amultivariate var is specified as follows: gdpgt = β0 + p∑ k=1 βkttet−k + p∑ k=1 ψktot−k + p∑ k=1 νkfdit−k + p∑ k=1 φkcpit−k + p∑ k=1 ωkgdpgt−k + εt. (2) gdpgt = α0 + p∑ k=1 αkgdpgt−k + p∑ k=1 δktot−k + p∑ k=1 θkfdit−k + p∑ k=1 ϕkcpit−k + p∑ k=1 ηkttet−k + εt. (3) where β0 is a constant, coefficients are represented by β, ψ, ν, φ, ω, α, δ, θ, ϕ, η and εt is an error term. Economic growth is represented by growth in gdp (gdpg). This is measured as an annual percentage growth rate of gdp atmarket prices based on constant local currency. gdp is the sumof gross value added by all resident producers in the economy, plus any prod- uct taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. Trade Openness (to) was mea- sured as total exports and imports divided by total Table 1 Pairwise Correlation Variable Loggdppc tte to fdi Logdppc  tte .*  to . –.  fdi . . –.  Notes * Significant at 5 level. gdp. Foreign Direct Investment (fdi) was measured as total foreign capital net inflows on investment. In- flation was measured by the Consumer Price Index (cpi). It reflects the annual percentage change in the cost to the average consumer of acquiring a basket of goods and services that may be fixed or changed at specified intervals, such as yearly. Data for all the pre- ceding four variables were obtained from The World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org). Total tourist expen- diture as a percentage of gdp (tte) was used to cap- ture the effect of tourism on economic growth. This was obtained from World Travel and Tourism Coun- cil (see www.wttc.org) and (see www.gov.bw). The estimations proceeded as follows. We first tested for the presence of multicollinearity, using pair- wise correlation, in the variables to avoid having spu- rious results. Stationarity tests were done using aug- mented Dickey Fuller (1979), the optimal lag length was tested using the Akaike Information Criterion (aic) and causality tests were done using the method by Granger (1969). Discussion of Findings The results using pairwise correlation (Table 1) show that there was no problem of multicollinearity in the data. A positive correlation is suggested between eco- nomic growth and all three variables. This suggests that as the variables increase economic growth is ex- pected to rise. The summary statistics (Table 2) were used to explain the behavior of variables during the period. There was a total of 36 observations with mean values ranging between 3.17 and 102.69, being for fdi and to respectively. The average growth rate was 5.40 per annum during the period. Trade openness showed the highest volatility, which shows that the flow of Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 95 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? Table 2 Summary Statistics Item Loggdppc tte to fdi Mean . . . . Min . . . . Max . . . . sd . . . . Kurtosis . . . . Skewness . –. . . Notes N = 29. Table 3 Results for Unit Root Variables Levels First difference () () () () tte –. . –. . gdpg –. . to –. . –. . fdi –. . cpi –. . –. . Notes Column headings are as follows: (1) test statistic, (2) probability. trade between Botswana and her trading partners was not stable during the period. The least variable was economic growth, which remained around 5.09 on average. fdi, cpi and gdpg were distributed nor- mally, while the other variables were not distributed normally since their value of kurtosis was below 3. Ev- idence shows that all variables were skewed positively. Table 3 shows that tte, to and cpi became sta- tionary after first differencing. The probabilities given byMackinnon were below 1. The other two variables (gdpg and fdi) were stationary at level. Variables were used in estimations at their level of stationarity. Table 4 shows that the variables are not cointe- grated. The p-values were higher than 5. This means that economic growth and tourist expenditure are re- lated in the short term. This result suggests that the method by Granger (1969) should be employed in the analysis. Findings on Causality The results (Table 5), show that there is unidirectional causality moving from tourist expenditures to eco- Table 4 Test for Cointegration: Johansen Method () () () () () None . . . . At most  . . . . At most  . . . . At most  . . . . At most  . . . . Notes Unrestricted cointegration rank test (trace). Column headings are as follows: (1) hypothesized No. of ce(s), (2) eigenvalue, (3) trace statistic, (4) 0.05 critical value, (5) prob- ability (MacKinnon-Haug-Michelis (1999) p-values). Table 5 Granger Causality Wald Tests Equation Excluded χ2 df Prob. < χ2 d_loggdppc d.tte .  . d_loggdppc d.to .  . d_loggdppc d.fdi .  . d_loggdppc All .  . d_tte d.loggdppc .  . d_tte d.to .  . d_tte d.fdi .  . d_tte All .  . d_to d.loggdppc .  . d_to d.tte .  . d_to d.fdi .  . d_to All .  . d_fdi d.loggdppc .  . d_fdi d.tte .  . d_fdi d.to .  . d_fdi All .  . nomic growth and not the other way round. This shows that the level of economic growth is sensitive to the level of expenditure by tourists. Specifically, the study shows that tourism expenditure has a positive impact on economic growth in the short term. The level of tourist expenditures can be useful in predict- ing the level of economic growth. Results in this study are consistent with previous studies (Nkurayija 2011; Makochekanwa, 2013; Adamou & Clerides, 2009b; Aleemi & Qureshi, 2015) which show that growth is 96 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6           Response of gdpg to gdpg −4 −3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6           Response of gdpg to d(tte) −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2           Response of d(tte) to gdpg −0.8 −0.6 −0.4 −0.2 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2           Response of d(tte) to d(tte) Figure 4 Impulse Response Function (Response to Cholesky One sd Innovations ±2 se) driven by expenditure on tourism. The increase in the level of growth is less than the proportional to the in- crease in tourist expenditures. The small contribution to growth is as a result of diminishing returns that are experienced in the short term. Findings show that the increase in growth from tourist expenditures may not be sustainable beyond certain levels. This finding is ex- plained further by results from the Impulse Response Functions (irf) discussed below. The other key observation from the study is that growth can be explained by inflation. The study shows that causality between inflation and growth is unidi- rectional. It moves from the former to the latter. The study also shows that inflation can be helpful in pre- dicting the levels of tourist expenditures in the short run. Causality moves from the latter to the former, which shows that the level of tourist expenditures is explained by inflation. The expectation is that low levels of inflation would attract more expenditure by tourists since services would be cheaper. This would eventually result in higher growth rates in the short term. These results have policy implications for mon- etary authorities. The other important finding is that Foreign Direct Investment is useful in explaining the level of tourist expenditures. The former may provide opportunities for improving infrastructure which is critical for de- velopment of the tourism sector. In the event that fdi is used for improving infrastructure, it will be possible have high growth. This is consistent with evidence from previous studies (Holzer, 2010; Malaj & Kapiki, 2016). These studies show that investment in infrastructure is one way of extending the influence of tourist expenditures Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 97 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120           Percent gdpg variance due to gdpg −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120           Percent gdpg variance due to d(tte) −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120           Percent d(tte) variance due to gdpg −40 −20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120           Percent d(tte) variance due to d(tte) Figure 5 Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (Variance Decomposition ±2 se) on growth. It also increases the flow of tourists into a country as they enjoy better facilities. The level of openness has not been found to influence levels of growth and tourist expenditures during the review pe- riod. Impulse Response Function & Variance Error Factor Decomposition The study also tested how changes in tte would af- fect growth and vice versa. The findings in Figure 4 show that tourist expenditures respond significantly to shocks from growth and changes to its own levels. Shocks from the growth are expected to have imme- diate impact on tte until the seventh period. Again, tte is expected to respond immediately and signif- icantly to its own changes until the 8th period. The study shows that tte would not respond to shocks in growth and its own levels after the 8th period. This may mean that other factors may be important in sus- taining the growth in tte. On the other hand, shocks to tte would have an effect on growth starting from the same period. The impact of tte on growth would last until the 6th period. Thismay be the time at which diminishing returns set in, as suggested by Adamou andClarides (2009b). Again, shocks to growth are im- portant in explaining the levels of growth in the future. The impact of changes of growth rate on growth is im- mediate, but it would subside after the 6th period. The study used fevd tests to establish the main drivers of growth and tourist expenditures. Findings (Figure 5) show that tourist expenditures are not the main driver of economic growth. The study shows that increased expenditures by tourists explain around 10 of changes in growth. The changes in growth are ex- plainedmainly by its own changes, which accounts for over 80 of variations. The study also shows that eco- nomic growth does not explain many of the variations in tte. In other words, the former is not a key driver of the latter. Evidence shows that changes in tte are driven mainly by its own changes. Again, tte is ex- plaining over 80 of its own changes. Findings in this study have key policy implications. 98 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? Conclusion and Policy Recommendations The study sought to determine the impact of tourism development on economic growth and vice versa, to examine the response of economic growth to shocks in tourism expenditure and vice versa, and to test whether or not tourist expenditures are a key driver of economic growth. The study employed a vector auto regression approach to explain the dynamic re- lationship between economic growth and tourist ex- penditures. The key findings of this study support the tourism led growth hypothesis. This is not consis- tent with results by Rajapakse (2016a; 2016b), which show that gdp Granger causes tourism development. Tourism expenditures are important in explaining the short run growth. Tourism expenditures have a sig- nificant and positive impact on economic growth. In other words, tourism expenditure Granger causes short term growth. This is consistent with previous findings (Mazghouni & Goaied, 2015; Gupta, 2015), which show that tourism is a key sector in develop- ing economies, as it improves inclusive growth. The contribution of tourist expenditures to growth suf- fers from diminishing returns. This is shown by the irf result, which provides evidence that tourist ex- penditures affect growth positively for up to six pe- riods. The level of growth in previous periods was found to be important in explaining future levels of growth. This is also supported by irf results, which show that growth responds quickly to its own shocks for up to six periods. The study showed that the main driver of growth was its own expenditure. This evi- dence is given by fevd results, which show that pre- vious levels of growth explain at least eighty percent of changes in future growth. Consistent with Rajapakse (2016a; 2016b), the level of tourist expenditures (tte) is explained by fdi, which is important for putting in place suitable infrastructure. Lack of adequate in- frastructure (Abdin, 2016) has been seen as a major hindrance to influx of tourists and, hence, low tourist expenditures. Causality moves from fdi to tte. The former is important, particularly in sustaining the contribution of tte to growth. Surprisingly, tte was not found to be the key driver of growth. This re- sult could have been obtained because of the lim- ited number of control variables used in the model. tte is driven mainly by its own levels in the previ- ous periods, and they respond to shocks in growth immediately. The study provides several policy impli- cations: The government should focus on containing any inflationary pressures in the economy as this im- proves short growth and levels of tte. Inflation affects growth directly by improving output, and indirectly by improving expenditures by tourists as they enjoy lower prices for services. Policy makers should focus on attracting more fdi, as this sustains the contribu- tion of tourist expenditures on growth. fdi inflows extend the effect of tourist expenditures on growth beyond the suggested six periods. Economic growth can be underpinned by revenues received from the tourism sector. The upgrading and maintenance, by using fdi flows, of tourist facilities, attractsmore visi- tors, whowill then spendmore as they come for leisure and business trips. The country needs to take advan- tage of the more tourist attractions available by giving more incentives for people to stay longer at tourist facilities and spend more while in the country. Ex- penditures can be improved by focusing on the supply side. This means better quality products and services in line with tourists’ taste should be made available. Incentives should be given to support innovation by tourist operators, and competition should be encour- aged, as this improves quality and competitive pricing. Tax concessions can be given to new tour operators to promote entry into and stabilization in the industry. Availability of finance by local financial institutions can be channeled to the tourism sector to increase the capacity to develop more infrastructures, which brings growth to the economy. Infrastructure can be in the form of more tourist facilities, health care and roads. Continuous improvement of immigration laws will promote entry by visitors who are coming on holi- day and/or business. According to Gupta (2015), it will also attract more fdi into the sector, which is vital for growth. Generally, the study supports the possibil- ity of diversifying the economy using non-traditional sources of growth, tourism development. More stud- ies may need to focus on exploring the potential of tourism development on growth and diversification. This may be done by considering the contribution of different flows from tourism, which can be business, Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 99 Strike Mbulawa and Samuel Chingoiro Do Tourist Expenditures Matter for Growth? leisure, domestic and foreign. It is still plausible to look at how tourism can contribute to social development. Studies can look at how tourism can improve welfare and reduce levels of economic ills like unemployment. References Abdin, J. (2016, 3 October). Policies required to develop tourism sector. The Independent. Retrieved from http:// www.theindependentbd.com/printversion/details/ 62384 Adamou, A., & Clerides, S. (2009a). Tourism development and growth: International evidence and lessons for Cyp- rus. Cyprus Economic Policy Review, 3(2), 3–22. Adamou, A., & Clerides, S. (2009b). 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Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 101 Abstracts in Slovene Povzetki v slovenšini Vloga posrednikov pri krepitvi zmogljivosti skupnosti iz perspektive turizma v revnejših predelih Hiroaki Saito Povečano prepoznavanje turizma kot učinkovite strategije, za zmanjševanje revščine pojasnjuje, zakaj je turizem v revnejših predelih (pro− poortourism, ppt) danes de- ležen vse večje pozornosti. Medtem, ko imajo številne države v razvoju koristi od pozitivnih učinkov, ki jih prinaša ppt lokalnim gospodarstvom, je veliko skupnosti zapostavljenih zaradi pomanjkanja zmožnosti za opravljanje turistične dejavnosti. Za razvoj lokalnih skupnosti in uvedbe ppt, sta bila večkrat uporabljena pristopa od zgoraj navzdol (top−down, td) in od spodaj navzgor (bottom−up, bu). Vendar pa ta pristopa ne dajeta pričakovanih rezultatov brez močnih posrednikov med de- ležniki, ki igrajo ključno vlogo pri premagovanju ključnih izzivov, ki so del krepitve razvojne sposobnosti skupnosti. Ta študija obravnava vloge štirih vrst posrednikov med deležniki, pogosto obravnavanih pri krepitvi razvojne sposobnosti skupnosti. Na podlagi njihovih vlog in omejitev, študija predstavlja kontekstualni okvir, kjer vsak tip posrednika med deležniki vidno prispeva k uspešni krepitvi razvojne spo- sobnosti skupnosti. Študija ponuja dragocen vpogled v to, kako lahko znanstveniki in izvajalci obravnavajo izbiro in uporabo različnih vrst posrednikovmed deležniki, pri krepitvi razvojne sposobnosti skupnosti za uspešno prilagoditev ppt. Ključne besede: posredništvo med deležniki, krepitev razvojne sposobnosti, lokalna skupnost, turizem v revnih predelih Academica Turistica, 10(1), 3–17 Slovenska turistična industrija: e-hendikepirana? Boštjan Brumen, Marjetka Rangus, Maja Turnšek Hančič, Tanja Lešnik Štuhec in Mitja Gorenak Moč interneta inmožnost opravljanja poslovanja preko spleta postavlja vmodernem poslovanju ločnicomed uspehom in neuspehom.Namen tega članka je ugotoviti, ali obstajajo dejavniki, ki so v povezavi s prisotnostjo slovenskih turističnih subjektov na svetovnem spletu. Prepoznavanje teh dejavnikov bi pripomoglo k izboljšanju pri- sotnosti slovenskih turističnih ponudnikov na spletu. Seznam2181 poslovnih subjek- tov, ki smo ga pridobili s spletne strani Telekoma Slovenije www.bizi.sipredstavlja populacijo raziskovanja. Poslovni subjekti, katerih nace koda dejavnosti se začne z: i 55.10, i 55.20, i 55.30, i 56.10, n 79.11, h 49.39, n 77.34 ali r 93.292 so bili iden- tificirani kot tisti, ki primarno poslujejo na področju turizma. Za vsakega izmed po- slovnih subjektov smo preverili, ali je prisoten na svetovnem spletu. Izvedli smo sta- tistične analize (asociacije, regresija in odločitveno drevo), s pomočjo katerih smo ugotavljali povezave med prisotnostjo poslovnih subjektov na spletu in podatki o podjetjih. Izmed 2181 poslovnih subjektov je le 655 (30) takšnih, ki so prisotni na spletu v obliki lastne spletne strani. Skladno s pričakovanji so tisti poslovni subjekti, ki imajo več zaposlenih, bolj pogosto prisotni na svetovnem spletu. Delež poslovnih subjektov, ki imajo dva ali več zaposlenih in so prisotni na svetovnem spletu, presega 60.Majhni poslovni subjekti, prav tako tisti, ki so bili nedavno ustanovljeni in tisti, Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 103 Abstracts in Slovene Povzetki v slovenšini ki imajo malo zaposlenih, najpogosteje nimajo lastne spletne strani; to je zaskrblju- joče dejstvo, saj je število takšnih veliko, kljub temu, da podatki kažejo pozitivno poslovanje teh poslovnih subjektov. Raziskava je pokazala presenetljivo dejstvo, da ostaja velik delež poslovnih subjektov v slovenskem turizmu, ki niso prisotni na sve- tovnem spletu. Ugotovili smo celo, da nekateri večji poslovni subjekti nimajo lastne spletne strani. Te ugotovitve jasno kažejo, da poslovni subjekti v slovenskem turizmu pogosto zaostajajo za svetovnimi trendi. V prihodnosti bo tako potrebno posvetiti več časa in truda v implementacijo in uporabo informacijsko-komunikacijske teh- nologije v slovenski turistični sektor. Ključne besede: informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije v turizmu, ikt, prisotnost na spletu, turizem, tehnologije Academica Turistica, 10(1), 19–26 Post hoc analiza modela učna usmerjenost–inovacije–uspešnost v gostinski industriji Shogo Mlozi Poudarek tega članka je na problemih, povezanih z učno usmerjenostjo (zavezanost k učenju, skupna vizija, dovzetnost), učinkom učne usmerjenosti na inovacije in kako inovacije lahko privedejo do dosežkov v gostinstvu, predvsem v hotelih. Za zbiranje podatkov je bilo uporabljeno namensko vzorčenje. Podatki so bili zbrani od zaposlenih iz različnih oddelkov hotelov v Unguji, Zanzibar. Analiza strukturirane enačbe temelji na 228 odgovorih. Tri hipoteze oblikovane iz prvotnega orientacij- skega konstrukta so imele pozitiven učinek na inovacije, medtem ko so imele ino- vacije močan vpliv na poslovno uspešnost. Prva hipoteza (h1): obveznost do učenja pozitivno (+) vpliva na inovacije (p = 0,30, p < 0,01). Druga hipoteza (h2): skupna vizija pozitivno (+) vpliva na inovacije (β = 0,28, p < 0,01). Tretja hipoteza (h3): do- vzetnost do učenja pozitivno (+) vpliva na inovacije (β = 0,12, p < 0,05). Nazadnje, četrta hipoteza: (h4) inovativnost ima pozitiven (+) in močan vpliv na uspešnost (β = 0,55; p < 0,001). Za namen predstavitve podrobnosti ugotovitev pridobljenih na podlagi splošnega modela, je bila izdelana post hoc analiza. V post hoc analizi sta bili dve podskupini vstavljeni v celotni model. Rezultati so pokazali, da ima vsaka podskupina drugačen učinek, ko je vstavljena v celotni model. Podskupini sta vklju- čevali starost (pod 35 let in nad 35 let) in izkušnje (pod 10 let in nad 10 let). Ugo- tovitve, pridobljene s post hoc analizo, so bile zanimive in so logično prispevale k oblikovanju te študije. Menimo, da so naše ugotovitve dragocene za managerje, saj se lahko na podlagi teh ugotovitev seznanijo s posledicami spodbujanja učenja kot trdnega temelja za oblikovanje novih idej, ki jih je mogoče tržiti. Vendar bi morali managerji razumeti tudi posledice izbire učne usmerjenosti v primerjavi z drugimi spremenljivkami inženirske inovativnosti in uspešnosti. Ključne besede: učna usmerjenost, inovativnost, uspešnost, gostinska industrija, Zanzibar Academica Turistica, 10(1), 27–41 104 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Abstracts in Slovene Povzetki v slovenšini Pomen vključevanja deležnikov v strateško načrtovanje in razvoj destinacije: primer doline rekeMirne Maja Žibert, Marko Koščak in Boris Prevolšek Cilj prispevka je pojasniti pomen vključevanja deležnikov na destinaciji pri strate- škemnačrtovanju razvoja in upravljanja destinacije. Ključni pojmi strateškega in de- stinacijskega upravljanja so predstavljeni v teoretičnem uvodu, na podlagi katerih je tudi predstavljeno glavno raziskovalno vprašanje. Kakšne so vloge in naloge posa- meznih in ključnih akterjev destinacije pri njenem strateškem upravljanju? V razi- skavi so skupaj z razlagami drugih avtorjem predstavljena nova stališča, ki temeljijo na našem raziskovalnem vprašanju. Ugotovitve izhajajo iz rezultatov, da mora biti življenje lokalnega prebivalstva ne le aktivno vključeno v razvoj destinacije, pač pa hkrati tudi v prepoznavanje potencialov, ki jih destinacija ima in nudi. Vsaka od sku- pin deležnikov destinacije ima posebno nalogo in vlogo pri strateškem načrtovanju in razvoju destinacije. V prispevku so predstavljeni pregledi izzivov in trendov pri strateškem upravljanju manjše turistične destinacije. Pri upravljanju takih destinacij je ključnega pomena upravljanje »od spodaj navzgor« ter razmislek o skupni bla- govni znamki, ki zagotovi prepoznavnost območja in ključnih turističnih atrakcij. Ključne besede: strateško upravljanje, destinacijski management, deležniki na destinaciji, razvoj destinacije Academica Turistica, 10(1), 43–55 Dimenzionalna struktura zadovoljstva s hotelskimi storitvami Mladen Mitrović Raziskave o zadovoljstvu potrošnikov in oceni pomembnosti različnih vrst storitev, ki jih ponujajo hoteli, imajo velik pomen pri izboljšanju in razvoju hotelskih stori- tev. Zato je bil namen te raziskave ugotoviti, katere lastnosti hotela so pomembne za anketirance iz Srbije ter, da se določi dimenzionalna struktura njihovega zadovolj- stva. Vzorec je sestavljalo 200 anketirancev iz Srbije, ki so koristili hotelske storitve. Raziskava je bila izvedena v dveh fazah. Za potrebe pilotne študije je bil zasnovan vprašalnik odprtega tipa. V drugi fazi sta bili na podlagi odgovorov anketirancev zasnovani dve lestvici in sicer ena o zadovoljstvu potrošnikov in druga o pomemb- nosti hotelskih uslug. Lestvica je vsebovala 21 pomebnih lasnosti. Obe lestvici sta imeli veliko interno zanesljivost. Rezultati su pokazali, da so najpomembnejše la- snosti hotelskih uslug varnost, odzivnost, cena, zasebnost ter fizične lastnosti hotela. Enako so rezultati raziskovalne faktorske analize pokazali, da se zadovoljstvo s ho- telskimi uslugami lahko opazujemo bolj kot enodimenzionalen konstrukt in ne kot fenomen sestavljen iz več dejavnikov. Raziskava ni pokazala pomembne razlikemed zaznano pomembnostjo storitev in zadovoljstvom s hotelskimi storitami. Ključne besede: hotelske storitve, zadovoljstvo, pomembnost, dimenzionalna struktura Academica Turistica, 10(1), 57–68 Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 105 Abstracts in Slovene Povzetki v slovenšini Umetnost jamskih poslikav in turizem v Tanzaniji: v raziskovanju inovacij Kiagho Bukheti Kilonzo Čeprav je turistično gospodarstvo trenutno največji vir tujih prihodkov v Tanzaniji, se že vrsto let osredotoča na zavarovano območje Ngorongoro, Game Reserves in nacionalne parke, pri čemer zanemarjajo območja jamskih poslikav, ki so dejansko potencialne turistične znamenitosti. Avtor priznava prispevek prvega pri promociji turizma, obenem pa so inovacije ključnega pomena za hiter razvoj turistične pro- mocije. Članek raziskuje dejavnike, zaradi katerih so jamske poslikave v osrednji Tanzaniji ostale zanemarjena tema za širšo javnost. Članek se prav tako ukvarja z demonstriranjem idej, ki bi tanzanijska območja poslikav na kamen uvrstile med turistične znamenitosti, saj jih že več kot štiri desetletja niso vključevali v promocijo turizma, ne glede na to, da država poseduje največjo koncentracijo jamskih poslikav na vzhodu Afrike. Poleg tega Tanzanija poseduje tudi najstarejšo zgodovino člove- ških prednikov, ki so Zinjanthropus, Homo habilis in Homo erectus. Dejavniki, ki so izrecno obravnavani v tej študiji, vključujejo zaščito območij pred naravnimi ne- srečami, vključevanje ljudi, ki živijo v okolici zaščitenih območij, gradnjo hotelov in kampov okoli zaščitenih območij in izobraževanje javnosti o teh območjih. Avtor te študije meni, da obstaja potreba po inovacijah, ne le pri promociji turizma, tem- več tudi za pravilno izkoriščanje gospodarskih virov jamskih poslikav, z namenom zmanjševanja revščine vsaj na ravni družin, zlasti za ljudi, ki živijo na teh območjih. Ključne besede: umetnost jamskih poslikav, poslikave kamnin, osrednja Tanzanija, promocija, privlačnosti Academica Turistica, 10(1), 69–81 Učinkovitost marketinške politike makedonskega turizma na primeru obiskovalcev turističnih sejmov Dejan Galovski V tem prispevku bomo pregledali prizadevanja Makedonije za promocijo in pozici- oniranje Makedonije kot turistične destinacije. Makedonija je v zadnjih letih vložila veliko truda v razvoj in promocijo turističnih proizvodov iz Makedonije. Obenem ustvarja strategije, načrte in programe za spodbujanje turističnega potenciala Ma- kedonije. Agencija za promocijo in podporo turizma ima pomembno vlogo pri pro- mociji. S svojimi letnimi programi uresničuje cilje in projekte, ki promovirajo in podpirajo turizem. Vsako leto agencija za promocijo in podporo turizma sodeluje na mednarodnih turističnih sejmih, kjer nacionalna agencija promovira turistične potenciale, naravne lepote Makedonije in vzpostavlja stike za sodelovanje pri ra- zvoju turizma v Makedoniji. Poleg mednarodnih turističnih sejmov, sodelujejo tudi pri ustvarjanjumarketinških kampanj, promocijskih videov, spletnih kampanj itd. V tem prispevku bomomed drugim analizirali tudi nacionalnemarketinške kampanje Makedonije kot turistične destinacije, ki imajo glavno vlogo pri spodbujanju Make- donije v svetovnih medijih, in pregledali njihove učinke. Za namen tega prispevka je bila izvedena raziskava z vprašalnikom z več možnimi odgovori ter vprašanji o mnenju gostov na mednarodnih turističnih sejmih v Sofiji, Bolgariji in Beogradu 106 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Abstracts in Slovene Povzetki v slovenšini februarja 2016. Vprašanja so se nanašala na to, ali so gosti seznanjeni s turistično po- nudbo Makedonije, turističnimi marketinškimi kampanjami Makedonije, vplivom kampanj na njih ter na oceno predstavitveMakedonije na turističnem sejmu. Rezul- tati so pokazali, da imajo obiskovalci pozitivnomnenje o predstavitviMakedonije na turističnem sejmu. Prav tako si večina od njih pogosto ogleda oglaseMakedonije kot turistične destinacije, ki jih najdejo na televiziji in internetu. Na turističnem sejmu v Sofiji smo obenem, z uporabo odprtega vprašalnika, opravili razgovor s predstav- nikom agencije za promocijo in podporo turizma v Makedoniji, o udeležbahMake- donije na mednarodnih sejmih ter njihovih izkušnjah in pričakovanjih. Ključne besede: turizem, sejem turizma, marketing, promocija, Makedonija Academica Turistica, 10(1), 83–89 Ali so turistični odhodki pomembni za gospodarsko rast v Bocvani? Vektorski regresijski pristop Strike Mbulawa in Samuel Chingoiro Študija preučuje vlogo turizma kot potencialne gonilne sile gospodarske rasti v go- spodarstvu s srednjim dohodkom. Natančneje, študija analizira kratkoročno raz- merje med gospodarsko rastjo in turističnimi izdatki z uporabo podatkov v časov- nih vrstah v letih od 1980 do 2015. Študija je motivirana z dejstvom, da ima turizem prednost pri oblikovanju strategij za razvoj podeželja in države. Bocvana je imela gospodarsko rast od njene osamosvojitve pri letnem povprečju 9, kar velja za eno najhitrejših na svetu. Čeprav so bili prihodki rudarstva glavni vzrok za razvoj gospo- darstva, je pomembno tudi, da se pri razvijajočemgospodarstvu zavedamoprispevka drugih pomembnih sektorjev, kot je turizem. Z uporabo vektorskega pristopa avto- matske regresije, študija podpira enosmerno vzročno zvezo, ki se giblje od turističnih izdatkov do rasti. Ugotovitve kažejo, da se rast takoj odziva na pretrese v turističnih izdatkih do šest obdobij. Vendar izdatki za turizem niso ključni dejavnik rasti, prav tako se njihov učinek na rast zmanjšuje. Politike povpraševanja bi se morale osredo- točiti na zmanjšanje inflacijskih pritiskov, ki povečujejo povpraševanje po turističnih izdelkih in povečujejo rast. Politike oskrbe bi se morale osredotočiti na zagotavlja- nje ustreznih finančnih sredstev organizatorjempotovanj in na davčne spodbude. To lahko izboljša raven inovacij in razvoj infrastrukture, kar je pomembno pri razšir- janju vpliva turističnih izdatkov na rast po šestih obdobjih. Prav tako lahko izboljša prispevek prilivov neposrednih tujih naložb v povečanje turističnih izdatkov. Ključne besede: Bocvana, turizem, vzročnost, gospodarska rast Academica Turistica, 10(1), 91–101 Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 107 Academica Turistica Instructions for Authors Instructions for Authors Aim and Scope of the Journal Academica Turistica – Tourism and Innovation Journal (at-tij) is a peer-reviewed journal that provides a fo- rum for the dissemination of knowledge on tourism and innovation from a social sciences perspective. It especially welcomes contributions focusing on inno- vation in tourism and adaptation of innovations from other fields in tourism settings. The journal welcomes both theoretical and appli- cative contributions and encourages authors to use va- rious quantitative and qualitative research methodo- logies. Besides research articles, the journal also pu- blishes review articles, commentaries, reviews of bo- oks and conference reports. 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The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. References should be complete and contain all the authors (up to six) that have been listed in the title of the original publication. If the author is unknown, start with the title of the work. If you are citing a work that is in print but has not yet been published, state all the data and instead of the publication year write ‘in print.’ Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference 110 | Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 Academica Turistica Instructions for Authors list. Full titles of journals are required (not their abbre- viations). Citing References in Text One author. Tourism innovation specific is mentioned (Brooks, 2010). Thomas (1992) had concluded . . . Two authors. This result was later contradicted (Swar- brooke &Horner, 2007). Price andMurphy (2000) pointed out . . . Three to five authors, first citation. Laroche, Bergeron, and Barbaro-Forleo (2001) had found . . . It was also discovered (Salamon, Sokolowski, Haddock, & Tice, 2013) . . . Three to five authors, subsequent citations. Laroche et al. (2009) or (Salamon et al., 2011). Six or more authors.Wolchik et al. (1999) or (Wolchik et al., 1999). If two references with six or more authors shorten to the same form, cite the surnames of the first author and of as many of the subsequent authors as necessary to distinguish the two references, followed by a coma and et al. List several authors for the same thought or idea with separation by using a semicolon: (Kalthof et al., 1999; Biegern & Roberts, 2005). For detailed instructions please see the Publica- tion Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2009, Chap- ter 6). Examples of Reference List Books American Psychological Association. (2009). Publica- tion manual of the American Psychological Associ- ation (6th ed.). Washington, dc: Author. Swarbrooke, J., & Horner, S. (2007). Consumer beha- viour in tourism. Oxford, England: Butterworth- Heinemann. Journals Laroche,M., Bergeron, J., & Barbaro-Forleo, G. (2001). Targeting consumers who are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 18(6), 503–520. Wolchik, S. A., West, S. G., Sandler, I. N., Tein, J.– Y., Coatsworth, D., Lengua, L., . . . Griffin, W. A. (2000). An experimental evaluation of theory- basedmother andmother-child programs for chil- dren of divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 843–856. Newspapers Brooks, A. (2010, 7 July). Building craze threatens to end Lanzarote’s biosphere status. Independent. Re- trieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/ environment/nature/building-craze-threatens-to -end-lanzarotes-biosphere-status-2020064.html Chapters in Books Poirier, R. A. (2001). A dynamic tourism develop- ment model in Tunisia: Policies and prospects. In Y. Aposotolopoulos, P. Loukissas, & L. Leontidou (Eds.), Mediterranean tourism (pp. 197–210). Lon- don, England: Routledge. Conference Proceedings Price, G., & Murphy, P. (2000). The relationship be- tween ecotourism and sustainable development: A critical examination. In M. Ewen (Ed.), cauthe 2000: Peak performance in tourism and hospitality research; Proceedings of the Tenth Australian Tou- rism and Hospitality Research Conference (pp. 189– 202). Bundoora, Australia: La Trobe University. Paper Presentation Thomas, J. (1992, July). Tourism and the environment: An exploration of the willingness to pay of the ave- rage visitor. Paper presented at the conference To- urism in Europe, Durham, England. Theses andDissertations Sedmak, G. (2006). Pomen avtentičnosti turističnega proizvoda: primer destinacije Piran (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Ljubljana, Lju- bljana, Slovenia. Working Papers Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., Haddock, M. A., & Tice, H. S. (2013). The state of global civil society vo- lunteering: Latest findings from the implementation Academica Turistica, Year 10, No. 1, June 2017 | 111 Academica Turistica Instructions for Authors of the un nonprofitt handbook (Comparative Non- profit Sector Working Paper No. 49). Baltimore, md: Johns Hopkins University. Web Pages Croatian Bureau of Statistics. (2001). Census of popu- lation, households and dwellings. Retrieved from http://www.dzs.hr/Eng/censuses/Census2001/ census.htm For detailed instructions please see the Publica- tion Manual of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association, 2009, Chap- ter 7). 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