Signifying Business Tourism Through Knowledge Sharing and Innovation Processes

Introduction Of Business Tourism

There are hundreds of people who are traveling around the globe for their business tours. A large number of business conferences and exhibitions have been held all over the world where the business organizers and managers come to attend such festivity. The millions of people around the globe are engaged in the different types of business tourism and this industry has been evolving rapidly with great prospects. The business tourism is known as the big industry, opening new horizons towards the leading destinations for the business people who have to embark all the time for the business trips. In the globalized world, the people are interacting with each other to have good business deals and the business tours are arranged by the tourism firms to facilitate businessmen to make their business tours more successful. To attract potential clients, business tourism firms are evolving day by day to ensure the quality of products and services.

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How To Define Business Tourism?

There is a great difference between these two terms, business tourism and business travel as the business tourism is defined in broader sense, encompassing the wide-ranged experiences of the business travelers or business tourists who have to stay away from the native land or homes for one night or more while business travel is related with the movement of the business travelers from one place to another place. Business Tourism relates to traveling of people who have to travel for the business, job-related work and trade.

According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), tourism is defined as the individuals are involved in traveling and staying out of the native homes or places for some specific period for some recreational or business activities (Tribe, 1999). While in the viewpoints of Smith, the tourist is a wandering person who visits different places for enjoying life to experience a change (Smith, 1989). According to Mathieson and Wall, tourism is defined as the short-term traveling towards the destinations out of the typical residence and workplace, the activities, performed during the stay and the facilities, developed for catering to the needs of the tourists (Mathieson & Wall, 1982).

In the context of tourism, the destination is termed as the very conception of place, undergoing the process of epistemological and historical changes. According to the literature of tourism, destinations are known as the places and territories in terms of administrative and spatial hierarchy (Framke, 2002). In the view of Mill and Morrison, the destination is a significant part of the tourism system, incorporation of interdependent elements to entertain the tourists with the satisfying vacation experience. In other words, the destination is defined as the unification of manifold elements which include infrastructure, attractions, transportation, facilities and hospitality (Mill & Morrison, 1985).

The concept of destination is based on economic and job-oriented factors that offer all-inclusive services from the perspective of a sales pitch (Jensen, Hansen, & Metz, 1993). The destination can be elaborated as a dynamic whole, comprising three main resource bases which include the attraction base, demand base and facility base (Jensen et al., 1993). This resource-based conception of destination develops understanding about the changing demands and supply of destinations according to the specific event management, having adaptive responsiveness to the new trends and demands and innovative development of the attractive products and services for the tourists (Framke, 2002).