مدیریت یکپارچه کیفیت مناطق گردشگری: دورنمای دست یابی رقابتی اروپا

Maintaining and improving high quality supply in Europe is fundamental to keeping Europe's leading position as a destination in world tourism, to meeting the challenges of competitors and to increasing its market share. The paper presents the results of eight best practice case studies of different destinations in four European countries, which were part of a study, assigned by the European Commission (DG XXIII).The purpose of the study was to determine whether selected European destinations apply integrated quality management as a means to raise their competitiveness. To this end a comparative survey of destinations was conducted, based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model. Its results indicated that integrated quality management in tourist destinations is rather underdeveloped. In general, destinations tend to be strong in one element of the EFQM model, such as policy and strategy or human resources management, as opposed to showing a balanced and integrated approach to quality management.

Until recently, European tourism was more or less the unchallenged champion in comparison to other continents. Currently, European tourism still represents 60 per cent of the global market by volume and 50 per cent by value. World Tourism Organisation (WTO) projections show that by 2020 an estimated 14 per cent of the European population shall be able to travel abroad, that is double the world rate (Frangiali, 1998). Whilst most Europeans will continue to travel primarily on an intraregional basis, the rise of tourism in Pacific Asia and the Americas has challenged Europe's number one position in tourism. European tourism seems to have arrived in the mature stage of the life cycle and is likely to lose market share to the global competition of emerging destinations. Nevertheless, globalisation has fundamentally changed competition between firms that vie for customers. Due to the effects of globalisation the competition in tourism has shifted from interfirm competition to the competition between destinations. The European Commission (EC) has taken the initiative and invested considerable resources to develop `strategic guidelines based on practical experience to improve integrated quality management in tourism destinations'. The purpose was to review the more significant dimensions relating to the implementation of integrated quality management in selected destinations as a means of satisfying tourists’ needs, enhancing the competitiveness of the European tourism sector and ensuring balanced and sustainable tourism development. The authors were part of a team of researchers assigned to conduct a comparative survey of coastal destinations and urban destinations, across European countries, with the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management, (EFQM) model. An attempt will be made to put into perspective the various arguments and counterarguments concerning the application of integrated quality management in European destinations. More specifically the present study addresses the following issues: 1. What is integrated quality management in tourist destinations? 2. An analysis of selected cases to examine to what extent integrated quality management techniques have been implemented by European destinations and what are best practices, based on the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model? 3. What specific quality management measures are observed and required, and who should implement them?

The present comparative analysis tried to examine integrated quality management performance in seven European tourist destinations. It applied the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) multifaceted model to gain an initial understanding of how European tourist destinations, are trying to improve the integrated quality management for tourist destinations. It indicates that the seven selected European tourist destinations, IJmond, Nairn, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Blackpool, Knokke Heist and Dublin, have formulated diverging strategies to manage the quality of a tourist destination. For example, the emphasis in IJmond is on a joint public–private investment approach, Nairn emphasises community identity, commitment and local ownership, Glasgow builds its quality efforts on tourism training and the `Investors in People’ programme, St. Andrews accentuates a quality assessment approach. In contrast Blackpool has opted for a market driven approach to quality, the focus in Knokke Heist is on mitigating the negative impacts of tourism while Dublin underscores a quality awards recognition approach. This study provides empirical evidence that individual tourist destinations may implement strategies on the basis of a comprehensive partnership approach. The European destinations that were examined seem to have developed specific competencies in key areas of the EFQM framework. From the study findings it appears that the seven destinations display the leadership and commitment to deal with quality management issues. However, in general they seem to approach quality from a disciplinary perspective and from a comparative perspective, as opposed to an interdisciplinary and integrative perspective. For example, `best practice’ case comparisons hardly shed any light on what potential dynamism may exist between individual tourist destinations. Or for that matter, what dynamism exists between the EU supranational management and tourist destinations to improve their co-operative and competitive position. From an integrative perspective there appears to be considerable room for improvement in developing integrated quality management for tourist destinations and competitiveness. The effective development and implementation of integrated quality management for tourist destinations lies in an integrated approach to problem solving through relevant fields of knowledge, such as urban and regional planning, cultural and heritage preservation, and economic development. The European Union and national governments should facilitate the configuration, co-operation and co-ordination of the required knowledge infrastructure between transnational clusters of tourist destinations. Partnership, including private and public sector collaboration between destinations, is viewed as a prerequisite to bring about innovation and renewal, that is required to achieve and sustain a European-wide competitiveness in tourism and generate employment in the medium to long term (Gribling, 1998). Private–public sector configuration through partnership is difficult to achieve but would be highly desirable and is possible (Gribling, 1998). Such configuration would facilitate overcoming the barrier of asymmetric information through the co-ordination, and co-operation of knowledge transfer between tourist destinations, the business sector, the public sector and knowledge centres, including universities across the EU. The application of information technology would play an essential part in stimulating inter-organisational collaboration within networks of tourist destinations to develop integrated quality management practice so as to ensure a competitive European tourism sector (Go, Govers & van den Heuvel, 1999).