Towards Change Management in Tourism: the Evidence from North Macedonia

This paper investigates the perceptions and practices of managers of the tourism sector with regards to change management. It has been suggested that change management is an inevitable element for tourism businesses to increase their speed of response to market and competitive changes. Logically, it can be argued that tourism managers are best placed to initiate and facilitate this change. The primary data were obtained through a survey, carried out in tourist agencies in the Republic of North Macedonia and evaluated by using the tools of descriptive statistics and the methods of comparison, induction, deduction and synthesis. The key findings indicate that the majority of the respondents were familiar with the term change management and they implemented the change management practices. However, work still needs to be done to help the remaining companies to understand the necessity of changing the paradigm. Regarding the practical implications, this paper can serve as a stepping stone for future research that can uncover the potential, experiences and outcomes of change management in the tourism sector in the country.

Disparities in Urban Tourism in the Czech Republic

There are not many European countries with such a significant share of the capital city on tourism (especially incoming tourism) as the Czech Republic. The number of foreign tourists grows significantly in the Czech Republic and so does the share of Prague. All marketing campaigns aiming to get foreign tourists beyond Prague ended inefficiently. The share of Prague on the number of tourists accommodated in standard accommodation facilities per the total number of tourists in the Czech Republic is 62%. Prague is also the only region with a higher number of foreign tourists in comparison with the number of the Czech tourists (85% of tourists in Prague are foreigners). Furthermore, the offer of sharing economy in the field of accommodation in Prague also exceeds the offer of other Czech cities. Prague is therefore struggling with overtourism in some attractive areas and must deal with unsustainable development.

Competitiveness of Travel and Tourism in Selected Countries

Competitiveness of the country is a very important factor, especially in the area of tourism. Tourism is one of the most important and most rapidly growing economy sectors, which faces the challenges and possibilities of globalization. The travel and tourism sector is widely recognized as an important factor for the regional development. This enables the country to be successful in the world market and for tourists. To measure the competitiveness of travel and tourism, we used various indexes. One of them is the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index, published by the World Economic Forum. The aim of this paper is to analyse the travel and tourism competitiveness in selected countries. According to their performance, we identified the best travel and tourism country. In addition, we focused on strengths and weaknesses of the analysed countries to improve their competitiveness position in the future.

Mobile Technologies as Support of Travelling of People with Disabilities

The purpose of this paper is to make conceptual analysis support of the travelling of people with disabilities by using mobile technologies. Based on the conducted qualitative research, an analysis of the requirements for LBSs (local based services) to support the safe travel of people with health disabilities in the context of price and energy consumption optimization has been done. It was accompanied by the conceptual analysis of the use of the LBS to support the safe travel for people with disabilities in both individual and collective tourism. The concept of the application, which will fulfil all discussed requirements, was created. It is based on the analysis of the requirements for safe travel of disabled persons, analysis of available mobile technologies, and analysis of dynamic health assessment options by using neural networks. The presented concept includes the key components of a solution: procedures for reactive and preventive care and individualization of the system settings according to the specific needs.

Special Interest Tourism in the Czech Republic: Introduction and Overview

The increasing importance of tourism and the growing number of tourists put pressure on tourist destinations. To support competitive and sustainable tourism development, it is advisable to focus on alternative forms of tourism in order to diversify tourism options in the destinations. From this point of view, it seems appropriate to deal with the issue of ‘Special Interest Tourism’ as a form of ‘alternative’, ‘ethical’, or ‘environmentally responsible’ tourism. The paper reflects the urgent need for sustainable tourism research. The aim of the paper is to provide the introduction and overview of the issue and outline perspectives that may open the way to future, more systematic research. The situation in the Czech Republic is based on the mapping of the current spatial distribution of selected special interest tourism attractions. The findings identify the possibilities for diversification of general (mass) tourism offers. The metadata from the Czech and foreign metainformation systems and databases are used.

The Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Voivodeship as an example of the regional tourism product enhancing tourism competitiveness of the region

The paper deals with the idea of destination competitiveness and its relations with competitiveness of spatial tourism products and competitiveness of entities catering tourism in the region. The case study method is used in the paper and the example of Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Province is analysed. The Route is a tourist product which presents the major and most interesting industrial facilities in the Silesian Region in terms of tourist, historic and architectonic values. The creation of the new spatial product - the Route by the regional authority - enhanced competitiveness of the Province as the image was improved, as well as a competitive advantage of operators of attractions within the Route was built. Some difficulties and challenges of such a way of enhancing destination competitiveness are discussed in the text.

Visitor management in protected areas

Visitor management is often too narrowly connected with mass/individual tourism in protected areas. Generally, visitor management can be used in any destination for mass and individual tourism also in connection with optimization of visitor flows, visitor concentration, and optimization of visitor impacts in a very broad sense. This paper focuses on the introduction of the theoretical concept of visitor management; it discusses different visitor management approaches and their principles, compares these approaches, and shortly describes typical visitor management tools. The discussion focuses on the appropriate use of chosen selected tools, mainly carrying capacity approaches, zoning and optimization of tourism infrastructure and monitoring, including tourism sustainability indicators. The computer simulation and prediction of qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the phenomena in destination is also shortly described. The typical application of visitor management in protected areas is described as a case study and a set of recommendations for visitor management are declared.

DMO – A dummy-made organ or a really working destination management organization

Destination management is considered as an advanced form of cooperation among tourism stakeholders who are associated in a destination management organization (DMO). In developed tourist destinations such as the Alpine regions, these institutions were formed spontaneously after a few years dealing with the socio-economic changes in demand to prove their competitiveness. This process strengthened their cooperation. In the Czech and Slovak Republic destination management does not have a long tradition. Although numerous tourism organizations have been established, their identification as DMOs is questionable especially considering the length of cooperation development in the Alpine regions. Therefore the article examines on an example of the Slovak Republic.