Knowledge Sharing and Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism

Noel Scott, Eric Laws

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136452116
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Learn both theory and practice of knowledge management

Sir Francis Bacon once wrote, Knowledge is power. Knowledge Sharing and Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism provides strategies to grab that power and the competitive edge in the tourism industry through knowledge management (KM) and quality assurance. Leading tourism and hospitality experts offer the latest theory and practical frameworks to expand the knowledge needed for creating and maintaining success at destinations around the world. Each cogent chapter provides fresh directions for future research and the creation of effective ways to share and use knowledge.

As the tourism and hospitality industry expands, the competition increases as the search continues for ways to ensure quality, know the consumer, and discover the best standards of destination operation. Knowledge Sharing and Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism is a unique foundational text that clearly explains the theory and practical management of knowledge in this lucrative, very competitive industry. Knowledge theory is used to explore organizational functioning, change issues, and operations at destinations in industry clusters and networks. Chapters are extensively referenced.

Topics in Knowledge Sharing and Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism include:

• the role of higher education in transferring knowledge into practice
  
• four kinds of benchmarking
  
• e-mail response quality
  
• quality management at the destination level and its path to knowledge sharing
  
• tourism managers knowledge needsthe knowledge type, where the knowledge is available, and sharing that knowledge between academics and the industry
  
• strategic planning in knowledge management
  
• three element framework of knowledge management assessment
  
• a case study of an international tourism project and the use of knowledge management
  
• a case study of best practice in tourism research dissemination in Quebec and Queensland
  
  

Knowledge Sharing and Quality Assurance in Hospitality and Tourism is crucial, idea-sparking reading perfect for tourism researchers, tourism managers, administrators, educators, and students.

The Fuchsia Destination Quality Brand: Low on Quality Assurance, High on Knowledge Sharing

Megan Woods
Jim Deegan

SUMMARY. Quality has been widely recognised as a source of competitive advantage in tourism (Poon, 1993; Fayos-Sola, 1996; Laws, 2000). Given the shift that has taken place from interfirm competition to interdestination competition (Go and Govers, 2000; Crouch and Ritchie, 1999), a need to focus on the quality management at the destination level has been identified (Laws, 1995 and 2000; Woods, 2003). In an attempt to address this need, a case study of the Fuchsia destination quality brand, West Cork, Ireland, was carried out. The findings revealed that whilst the Fuchsia brand did not appear to function as a powerful signal of quality to the customer, it did provide a support system which fostered an environment conducive to knowledge sharing amongst the tourism service providers applying for brand membership. This was mostly as a result of the policy of compulsory training for brand applicants. The paper reveals the way in which policies and programmes undertaken to overcome reluctance to participate in a destination quality assurance system also helped remove obstacles to knowledge sharing amongst tourism suppliers at the destination. doi:10.1300/J162v07n01_05 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: < http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Destination quality brand, knowledge management (KM), knowledge sharing, network, competitiveness, SMTEs

INTRODUCTION

Quality has been widely acknowledged as a source of competitive advantage in tourism (Poon, 1993; Fayos-Sola, 1996; Laws, 2000). As interfirm competition shifts to interdestination competition (Go and Govers, 2000; Crouch and Ritchie, 1999), the importance of managing quality at the destination level is increasingly recognised (Laws, 1995 and 2000; Lenehan and Harrington, 1998; Woods, 2003). Knowledge management (KM) is inextricably linked to quality management and competitiveness (Probst, Raub and Tomhardt, 2000). This paper examines the issues of both quality management and knowledge management at the destination level, by focusing on a rural tourism destination quality brand network, called Fuchsia Brands, based in West Cork, Ireland.

LITERATURE REVIEW

To date, much of the tourism literature on quality has been focused on the agency level, i.e., the level of the individual firm. Laws (2000) concludes his study of the evolution of tourism service quality literature, ‘Service Quality in Tourism Research: Are We Walking Tall (Yet)?’ with the implication that service quality management at the destination level constitutes the next phase to be explored. Woods (2003) notes that destination quality management (DQM) is a particularly complex challenge given the compounded service element, the diverse and fragmented nature of the tourism destination and the predominance of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises. It is suggested that any DQM initiative take account of these complexities.

Firstly, given the large number of services at most tourism destinations, the service element, and the challenge it presents, is compounded. Due to service characteristics such as intangibility and inseparability (where consumption takes place during production and under real time conditions), mistakes and shortcomings are harder to conceal. Because services are experiential, they cannot be tested beforehand. The significance of this is that, unlike fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), it is not possible to have a trial of the tourism product (Laws, 1995). This increases the risk factor for the consumer. Consequently, any potential to implement a quality assurance system is particularly significant. Whilst there exist a number of quality assurance systems for individual tourism products and services (such as national tourist board approval and various organisational accreditation systems such as AA and RAC), this is not often the case for the destination. Thus, there is a need for some form of destination accreditation system.

Brands offer an alternative to quality assurance systems. ‘Branding is a name, term, sign, symbol or design or combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors’ (Kotler, 2000: 404). Thus, pivotal to the concept of branding is the ability to distinguish one product from amongst its competitors. Indeed, brands are the most obvious source of differentiation for competing products (De Chernatony and McWilliam, 1989). According to Morgan and Pritchard (2002: 21), writing in the specific context of destination branding, ‘the point of differentation must reflect a promise which can be delivered and which matches expectations.’ Doyle (1998: 174) emphasises the importance of exceeding customer expectations through providing an augmented level of added values, which are ‘difficult for competitors to imitate’ and a potential level, which builds customer preference and loyalty. Thus, a brand has achieved its ‘full potential’ when consumers perceive a brand as offering superior brand values and benefits to the competitor offerings, causing them to ‘specify’ or ‘recommend’ the brand (Lambkin, Meenagan and O’Dwyer, 1994). Hence, successful brand-building facilitates the brand to act as a differentiating device (Doyle, 1989; Kotler, 2000), a short-hand device in selecting products and services (De Chernatony, 1991), a promise of consistent quality (De Chernatony and McWilliam, 1989), a risk reducer (Kapferer, 2001) and a symbolic device in creating and reinforcing a unique brand image or personality (Kotler, 1988; De Chernatony, 1991). This suggests that if a destination were to develop a brand, it might act as a quality assurance system and thus reduce risk for potential visitors.

The second complexity is the diverse and fragmented nature of the tourism destination product. This characteristic represents a significant challenge for destination mangers in light of the consumer’s demand for a quality of experience. Indeed, according to Baum and Henderson (1998: 4):

One of the biggest challenges facing the delivery of quality in the service sector is represented by the concept of the service delivery chain within which consumers’ total experience consists of an amalgam of purchases and non-tariff encounters which may be the delivery management responsibility of a diversity of service providers.

According to Murphy et al. (2000: 44), ‘a destination may be viewed as an amalgam of individual products and experience opportunities that combine to form a total experience of the area visited.’ This definition underlines how, despite the fragmentation on the supply side, the experience at the destination is perceived as a gestalt by the visitor, and that there is a demand on the part of the consumer for a total quality of experience (QOE) (Otto and Ritchie, 1995). This need for coordination and consistency on the supply side is the result of an expectation for such on the demand side. Essentially, today’s tourists expect satisfaction with their entire tourist experience at a given local tourism destination rather than merely with the individual components of the total tourism product (e.g., accommodation, catering, activities) that they consume within the destination at different times and places (Ryan, 1997). This suggests that any quality brand should encompass the full gamut of tourism products and services at the destination, in accordance with the concept of multi-product destination branding.

Lastly, the preponderance of small and medium-sized businesses at the tourism destination raises a challenge for destination quality managers. The most commonly found hospitality enterprise is small (Baum, 1999; Morrison and Thomas, 1999; Middleton, 2001). Often, they operate under different constraints than larger firms (Hjalager, 1996; Buhalis and Cooper, 1998; Telfer, 2001; Morrison, 2002). This can have consequences for quality management. Becton and Graetz (2001) in their study of small tourism and hospitality businesses in Australia found that there was a shortage of skilled staff and owner-managers. Those they surveyed had little management training or qualifications. Barriers to further training include the cost of training and inflexibility of hours and place of delivery. This general finding is supported by Gouirand (1994) who notes in a French tourism context that small hoteliers have neither the time nor the disposition to avail of training. Breiter and Bloomquist (1998: 32) conclude that small and medium-sized hotels are less likely than large hotels to implement TQM: ‘The smaller the hotel, the less likely it is to incorporate empowerment, training and development, rewards and recognition, and tools and techniques.’ Indeed, Gouirand (1994) states that constraints common to small tourism firms can have serious implications for quality and consumer satisfaction (Gouirand, 1994). Consequently, SMTEs reluctance to engage in quality management may threaten a destination’s competitiveness. Thus, any destination quality initiative should aim to include SMTEs.

The complexities of the tourism destination product suggest that a multi-sectoral destination quality brand which caters to SMTEs’ needs might prove an effective measure to improve a destination’s quality standards and its competitiveness.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge management (KM), along with quality management, has been one of the most dominant concepts in recent years. Both quality management and KM are inextricably linked. From both a practical and theoretical stance, enterprises which fail to deliver quality products and services will not remain competitive in the long term. Knowledge management and sharing have powerful effects on quality, and thus influence important competitive factors (Probst, Raub and Romhardt, 2000). The vast majority of people working in tourism are knowledge workers. It is the combination of their skills and know-how rather than a reliance on physical effort alone, that drives business success. Awad and Ghaziri (2004: 28) define KM as ‘the process of gathering and making use of a firm’s collective expertise wherever it resides–on paper, in databases or in people’s heads,’ and knowledge-sharing as ‘a process of transferring human knowledge about a process or a procedure to others in the organisation; ability and willingness of people to exchange specialised experience with others for the common good of the organisation.’

In Joseph M. Firestone’s foreword to ‘The New Knowledge Management: Complexity, Learning and Sustainable Innovation’ (McElroy, 2003), he discusses a number of theories which each offer explanations for the way in which KM is changing. Common to each of these theories is the recognition that KM is a socially driven process as opposed to a technology driven process. As McElroy (2003: 58) himself pithily expresses it, ‘It’s not always about technology.’ KM is fundamentally a social process that can be supported by technology, but that is also susceptible to improvements in its operating dynamics, independent of technology. ‘What must come first in the improvement of knowledge production and integration are improvements in the ways people work together to create and to share knowledge’ (McElroy, 2003: 58). The link between people and knowledge management is summed up by Allee (2003: 113) as follows:

Knowledge cannot be separated from the human networks and communities that create it, use it, and transform it. In all types of knowledge work, even where technology is very helpful, people require conversation, experimentation, and experiences shared with other people who do what they do… Our personal knowledge evolves as the conversations we are part of shift and change. Every conversation is an experiment in knowledge creation–testing ideas, trying out words and concepts, continuously creating and re-creating our experience of life itself.

To demonstrate the point, Allee (2003) cites the example of Xerox’s technical field representatives documented in the book, ‘The Social Life of Information’ (Brown and Duguid: 2000). In the Xerox case study, the system of error codes, intended to facilitate problem identification and resolution in the machine documentation, was found to be inadequate by the representatives. Much more effective problem solving arose from the informal get-togethers during breakfast, coffee breaks and lunches. Interspersed with social activities and gossip, they talked about work continuously. In this way, they kept each other abreast of what they were doing, the problems they were encountering and how they were resolving them. In addition, because of the social ties which built up, they felt comfortable calling on each other for suggestions and advice.

Central to the social aspect of KM is the way tacit knowledge is made explicit. It has been highlighted that given the roots of the concept of tacit knowledge–philosopher Michael Polanyi’s (1958) construct of innate intelligence, perception, and capacities for reasoning–it is impossible to make it explicit nor does one need to (Allee, 2003). Tacit and explicit knowledge are two aspects of the one process of knowing: there is no linear progression from one form to the other. However, many researchers’ misinterpretation of the Polanyi’s tacit knowledge as meaning ‘stored memory, experience or content that simply hasn’t been articulated’ (Allee, 2003: 97) but that allows itself to be extracted, codified and shared with others, has proven a useful construct for examining the area of knowledge sharing. One model which describes the way in which tacit knowledge, as it is often interpreted, is translated into explicit knowledge is Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) spiral of knowledge creation. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi, the process of knowing is a social process whereby tacit knowledge–that which is embedded in people’s experience–is socialised or shared through direct experience. That shared experience can be articulated into explicit concepts that can then be systemised into a knowledge system. Once systematised, that now-explicit knowledge can be learned by others and once again become embedded in experience as tacit knowledge.

The stages of the knowledge spiral are as follows. Socialisation is the direct conveyance of tacit knowledge through shared experience. Externalisation constitutes the process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts. Combination is the process of systematising concepts into a knowledge s...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• About The Editors
• Knowledge Sharing in Tourism and Hospitality
• Transferring Tourism Knowledge: The Role of Higher Education Institutions
• Benchmarking, Usable Knowledge and Tourist Attractions
• Response Quality of E-Mail Inquiries–A Driver for Knowledge Management in the Tourism Organization?
• The Fuchsia Destination Quality Brand: Low on Quality Assurance, High on Knowledge Sharing
• Understanding and Sharing Knowledge of New Tourism Markets: The Example of Australia’s Inbound Chinese Tourism
• Managing Knowledge in Tourism Planning: And How to Assess Your Capability
• European Spa World: Chances for the Project’s Sustainability Through Application of Knowledge Management
• The Tourism Intelligence Network: The Quebec Source for Information on the Evolving Tourism Industry
• Index