Tourism supply chain management: A new research agenda

Abstract

This paper reviews current research on supply chain management (SCM) within the context of tourism. SCM in the manufacturing industry has attracted widespread research interest over the past two decades, whereas studies of SCM in the tourism industry are very limited. Stakeholders in the tourism industry interact with each other to resolve their divergent business objectives across different operating systems. The potential benefit of considering not only individual enterprises but also the tourism value chain becomes evident. The paper examines the characteristics of tourism products, and identifies and explores core issues and concepts in tourism supply chains (TSCs) and tourism supply chain management (TSCM). Although there is an emerging literature on TSCM or its equivalents, progress is uneven, as most research focuses on distribution and marketing activities without fully considering the whole range of different suppliers involved in the provision and consumption of tourism products. This paper provides a systematic review of current tourism studies from the TSCM perspective and develops a framework for TSCM research that should be of great value not only to those who wish to extend their research into this new and exciting area, but also to tourism and hospitality decision makers. The paper also identifies key research questions in TSCM worthy of future theoretical and empirical exploration. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.