حمایت از نوآوری برای توسعه صنعت گردشگری از طریق روش های چند ذینفعی : تجارب از آفریقا

Innovation and entrepreneurship provide essential value to the advancement and quality of the international tourism industry. For Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs) tourism innovation is an opportunity to differentiate the tourism product making it more competitive and increasing socio-economic gains at grassroots level counteracting foreign currency leakages from the destination. The paper argues that for small indigenous businesses in LEDC destinations to flourish a supportive environment promoting innovation and entrepreneurship is required. The paper emphasises the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration by drawing on two distinct African case studies: a trade association in The Gambia and a training programme building entrepreneurial capacity in a university in Tanzania both of which have helped provide supportive environments for indigenous entrepreneurship and innovation. The Gambian case study is based on a collaborative marketing approach, the Tanzanian case study on the Triple Helix model. Both demonstrate the importance of institutional support in stimulating networking, transfer of knowledge and best practice in LEDC destinations.

In Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs), the tourism industry is often driven by conventional mass tourism which constrains the growth prospects of small firms (Dahles & Bras, 1999; Dahles & Kuene, 2002; Rogerson, 2007a) and limits the opportunities to reduce poverty that tourism could generate (Mbaiwa, 2005). Biggs and Shah (2003), Ashley (2006) and Holzner (2011) suggest that tourism can help to reduce poverty in LEDCs if there is significant expansion of the indigenous small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector. In LEDCs the collective bargaining power of SMEs to compete with large international tour operators and established ground tour operators and access tourism markets to their advantage is a major challenge. Formulating global network relationships and trade agreements so SMEs can commercialise their products/services through the international tourism supply chain is therefore one strategic intervention that can reduce foreign currency leakage and contribute to poverty alleviation (Ashley, 2006; UNCTAD, 2009). However marketing directly to tourists in developed countries before arrival and during their stay at an LEDC destination is a challenge due to lack of access to appropriate marketing channels. Overcoming this barrier is important for the development of SMEs in LEDC destinations so they can attract global demand directly (Erkuş-Öztürk, 2009). In a LEDC mass tourism context it is large hotels, multi-nationals and foreign investors that mainly have access to the expertise and resources to develop these global networks and therefore dominate tourism destinations. The SME sector is notoriously ill-prepared for such expansion and requires considerable support from government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private sector ventures (Rogerson, 2005). Innovation and entrepreneurship have helped to develop the reputation and advancement of the international tourism industry (Bardolet & Sheldon, 2008; Cawley & Gilmore, 2008; Getz & Carlsen, 2005; Morrison & Thomas, 2004), particularly through alternative tourism offers (e.g. eco-tourism and cultural tourism). Increasingly tourists are responding to, and demanding the development of, niche products and creative innovations that increase the quality of tourists' experiences and satisfaction while developing destinations and local communities (Bardolet & Sheldon, 2008; Cawley & Gillmor, 2008; Getz & Carlsen, 2005). Among other benefits, local innovation and entrepreneurship help link tourism benefits into the local economy and encourage the development of local enterprises (Ashley, 2006; Ashley & Haysom, 2006; Ashley, Roe, & Goodwin, 2001; Bah & Goodwin (2003); Meyer, 2010) creating more employment (Gurel, Altinay, & Daniele, 2010). However, the practice of entrepreneurship and innovation in tourism strongly differs between developed countries and LEDCs due to, among other reasons, the lack of support to SMEs that is independent of government-led programmes (Rogerson, 2007b). This paper analyses two alternative multi-stakeholder approaches to promoting indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship in two LEDC contexts: The Gambia and Tanzania. The first approach involves marketing innovation within a trade association – The Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET) in The Gambia. ASSET is an umbrella organisation established in 2000, representing diverse businesses operating in a number of integrated niches and markets including eco-tourism, community-based tourism, cultural tourism, volunteer tourism, domestic and business tourism, thereby promoting access to a wider tourist market than beach enclave tourism. The second approach focuses on a capacity-building project to support entrepreneurship and innovation in wildlife and cultural tourism through a training programme at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania where undergraduate courses for wildlife tourism are taught. Both approaches emphasise the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration to support entrepreneurship education and training and marketing innovation for SMEs to assist with poverty alleviation and tourism development. In both studies a supportive environment is conducive to growth and expansion of niche tourism, an important sector that should be given equal attention to that of conventional mass tourism.

LEDCs can benefit from using tourism as a development strategy given its high potential for employment. However, small businesses need to be run professionally so they provide high quality service and experiences to encourage tourists to venture beyond traditional mass markets. Institutional support for innovation to promote multi-stakeholder collaboration can enhance niche tourism development in LEDC contexts through professionally-managed small-scale indigenous businesses. There is a vast literature on the role of universities in generating and transferring knowledge as well as developing networks (Kunc & Tiffin, 2011) however less literature is available about identifying the critical success factors of trade associations in an LEDC context. This paper has presented two projects which correspond to different types of multi-stakeholder collaboration that aim to support innovation and entrepreneurship. In these projects leadership does not derive from government agencies. In one project it comes from a trade association (ASSET) and in the other it comes from a university. ASSET has in part acted as agent on behalf of small-scale businesses liaising with government, ITOs, large hotels and GTOs to increase standards, promotion, marketing or training for the mass tourism market and also new niche markets. Alternatively the university is promoting the education of students in entrepreneurship and innovation to help widen the provision of niche tourism businesses alongside mass safari tourism. University involvement in tourism development can provide LEDCs with the potential to reduce poverty through tourism by generating localised knowledge and training students to become professional entrepreneurs through high-quality innovations in niche tourism. Subsequently both the establishment of ASSET in The Gambia and the capacity-building project in Tanzania have contributed to an enhanced approach to destination marketing (marketing innovation) and a collaborative approach to destination development. This type of institutional leadership can be widely implemented since it addresses the concerns about extensive lack of collaboration in tourism due to its costs (Hjalager, 2010). The institutions in this paper have the power and legitimacy (Beritelli & Laesser, 2011; Jamal & Getz, 1995) to help lead a community in entrepreneurship and innovation. Given advances in social media technology and website use for booking methods, opportunities for SMEs to market to a wider audience beyond the traditional package tour are now vast. It is in this way that ASSET can act as a vehicle to enable SMEs to access a diverse tourist market beyond the traditional enclave package holiday. Given that niche tourism is usually practiced by high-income tourists (Stamboulis & Skayannis, 2003) prepared to pay a premium to engage with high-quality local products (Chaminuka et al., 2011), both multi-stakeholder frameworks can support clusters of local SMEs to target alternative tourist markets including cultural, business and domestic. SME clusters focused on niche tourism provide local economies with a reduction of leakages, recycling of financial sources locally, adding value to tourism products by emphasising local identity and authenticity (Novelli et al., 2006) and developing socio-economic sustainable destinations (Mbaiwa, 2005). As this research has not evaluated the operational effectiveness of the implementation of the two collaboration projects there is a need and opportunity to develop new research areas which could include the following: The development of a new classification framework to measure the impact, operational effectiveness and critical success factors of a university and a trade association in the local tourism industry would help to provide a clearer in-depth understanding of the role and support they can provide in developing locally based tourism strategies in LEDCs.