Business Administration of Tourism

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In economics, a distinction is made between economics and business administration . Business administration can be subdivided into general and special business administration. General business administration deals with issues that occur in the same form in all companies. Such questions would be e.g. B. Controlling, Marketing, Organization, Production, Finance, Investment, etc. Special business studies are z. B. the transport business administration, insurance and banking business administration or tourism business administration . In the special business administration courses, the problems and issues of particular branches of the economy that are not common to all companies are in the foreground.

definition

The business administration of tourism deals with the economic processes of the provision of services and the utilization of services in the tourist businesses, taking into account the economic sectors surrounding them.

The study of business administration in tourism covers a broad field. Business management fields such as marketing, organization, financial management, human resource management, planning / controlling and leadership are focused on tourism operations such as B. tour operators and agents, tourist airlines, hotel companies, destination agencies or businesses of tourist gastronomy. On the other hand, tourism business administration is still on an insecure basis. The discussion is to what extent the general economic approaches to tourism are an independent scientific area - a “tourism economy” - or just a special scientific approach within general economic science.

The main task of Business Administration of Tourism is to analyze the engaged in the provision of services and the tourism industry to describe. The tourism business administration is primarily interested in the procedures and processes in tourism companies. Basically, it's about the different organizational principles. How is the tourism business organized? How does the structure and process organization work in the company? It is also about the decisions of companies and company sub-areas or functions that are involved in the creation of tourist services.

Tourism-specific businesses include, for example, touristic carriers , accommodation businesses , tour operators , travel agents, tourist offices , tourist offices , etc. Most of the services provided by tourism businesses are services . In this respect, tourism business administration has a lot in common with business administration in service companies. What is special about the tourism service, however, is that this service is essentially a service that is provided by different touristic service providers (example package tour : travel agency (sales), flight (transfer), bus to hotel (transfer), hotel (accommodation), Excursion ( tour guide )).

"Business economics in tourism deals with the economic behavior and structures of the companies involved in tourism" (K. Brauer, Betriebswirtschaftliche Touristik 1985).

The special business administration of tourism can in turn be divided into special business administration. Business administration relevant to tourism is the business administration of the tour operator and the business administration of the travel agent / travel agency - these two special business administration courses could be generically referred to as tourism business administration. Also relevant are the business administration of tourist aviation, business administration of the destination agencies, business administration of the hotel company and, if applicable, the business administration of (tourist) gastronomy. What all these special business economics of tourism have in common is that they deal with economically relevant activities and aspects of travel services.

Freyer writes that the business view of tourism deals with all business processes that arise during the individual phases of travel. As relevant travel phases, he names travel preparation (at home), travel implementation and stay at the "foreign" location (in the target area). Also of interest for tourism business administration are the management processes (purchasing, production, sales ...) associated with the provision of services by the various tourism companies, as well as the special features of the individual types of tourism (such as tour operators, travel agents, hotels, spa and swimming pools). ..) (see Freyer, W .: Article ...; see references).

Tourism business administration can basically be divided into functional and institutional tourism business administration .

Functional business administration in tourism

The functional business administration of tourism includes functions such as purchasing , accounting , marketing , production , personnel ... The organizational allocation of the functional areas as well as the normative , strategic and operational design are the focus here. For tourism, this results in the functional sub-areas “Tourism Management ”, “ Human Resources in Tourism”, “Tourist Marketing” etc., which are analyzed independently of the individual types of tourism business. In the form of the functional business administration of tourism, the tourism-specific characteristics of the different operational functions are analyzed, such as B .:

- tourism business policy or tourism management
- Production in tourism or tourism services .....

Institutional business administration

The institutional business administration of tourism concentrates on the institutional characteristics of tourism businesses. It examines the particularities of the different types of tourism businesses. Examples: Hotel -BWL, business administration for tour operators , business administration for destinations . The difference to the functional business administration of tourism is that the institutional business administration of tourism, instead of analyzing the internal tasks (functions) of tourism enterprises within the framework of tourism management theory, explains the institutional characteristics (and similarities) of individual types of tourism enterprises in more detail. So z. B. Tour operators or hotel businesses are treated separately, so there is an independent "Tour Operator Business Administration" in addition to a "Hotel Business Administration". In practice, however, the institutional consideration is usually combined with a functional analysis, so that this leads to a further differentiation of tourism business administration: "Management for accommodation companies" or "Marketing for tour operators". The business administration of tourism is most likely to show parallels to the business administration of service companies , because most of the services in tourism are personal services. The business administration of tourism has to find answers to the specific problems that arise in the production / creation of services (e.g. problem of the presence of the external factor, immateriality , production of service and consumption coincide ...).

Rudolph writes in his book Tourismuswirtschaftswirtschaftslehre on business administration or on special business administration in general:

" Special business economics or economic branch doctrines examine the implementation of the knowledge of general business administration in the individual sciences of the branches at a low level of abstraction . For this purpose, the branch of the economy to be examined must be as unambiguous as possible the same subject creates a variety of new concepts, the preference of which can usually only be explained historically. " (RUDOLPH, Tourism Business Administration 1999 p. 2)

Rudolph adds that the above-mentioned circumstance applies particularly to the object of investigation of tourism business administration.

Development of business administration in tourism

The first publications on tourism businesses focused mainly on the hospitality industry . Thus, as early as 1825, the book by J. Abel was written: The inns and inns as they should be; In addition to a description of the rights and obligations of the innkeeper and their guests , the bookkeeping in the hospitality industry was written in 1902 by H. Gierke: Hotelbuchführung and in 1906 by AlF. The hot publication: The accounting of the hospitality industry .

There were also attempts at overall representations, representations of connections to the hospitality industry, at the beginning of the 19th century. To be mentioned are e.g. BP Damm-Etienne: Hotel Industry and Tourism and: The Hotel Industry . Although these publications are not an all-encompassing business administration course for the hospitality industry, a considerable economic advantage can be ascertained in the literature compared to the publications that were written for other tourism businesses. From 1910 to 1932, the development of business administration in the hospitality industry was continuously advanced. Example of written books:

  • E. Müller: International hotel bookkeeping . 1907
  • R. Glücksmann: Private Economics in the Hotel Industry . 1917
  • R. Schwarz: Scientific management in the hotel industry . 1926

From 1929 onwards, business administration in the hospitality industry was taught at the academic level by Robert Glücksmann in Berlin at the former research institute for tourism. Glückmann's book or the 2nd edition, which appeared under the name of the restaurant's business theory , were probably used . However, as early as 1928, at the first tourism training course, Glücksmann gave a lecture on the subject of "Hotel business management". This and other lectures in the course were published in 1929 in an anthology of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce. The book by Traugott Münch: The Hotel Company in the Light of Business Management Teaching and Practice (1930) represents a very interesting attempt at applied, practical business management in the hotel industry . He tries to develop a business management system for the hotel by developing a system of procedural rules. The second edition of the book "Rational Hotelbetriebsführung" 1954 is described in the author's foreword as a comprehensive work on business administration in the hospitality industry, but the book cannot meet this requirement. Certainly, the field of bookkeeping in the hospitality industry has been significantly advanced, but no self-contained comprehensive business administration of the hospitality industry has been created. It took fifteen years from this point in time until the hotel business administration could develop further in terms of quality. In 1969 it was G. Walterspiel who wrote a comprehensive system for the hotel's business administration ( introduction to the hotel's business administration ). So it was Walterspiel who wrote three articles as early as 1956 with the name Die Betriebswirtschaftslehre des Tourismus (published in the yearbook for tourism, year 1 to 3 1956). In terms of content, an intensive epistemological discussion of the business administration of tourism took place in these articles . In 1973 Franz Ruchti published the book "Introduction to Business Management for the Hospitality Industry"

After Freyer (in Fischer / Laesser: theory and practice of tourism and transport economy in changing values page 59) is the emergence of a business management of tourism, particularly influenced by the contributions of Hunziker and Bernecker. At that time, Hunziker and K. Krapf wrote one of the first business books on tourism ( Grundriß der Allgemeine Tourismuslehre 1942), and in 1959 his book Betriebswirtschaftslehre des Tourismus was published. The Austrian tourism researcher Prof. Bernecker also contributed with his book The position of tourism in the service system of the economy in 1956 and with the book Fundamentals of Tourism (1962) to the establishment of business economics in tourism. It is noticeable that books on general tourism management or tourism business administration are very rare; rather, special business management topics such as tourism management or marketing, human resources, organization, etc. are dealt with.

Hunziker's contribution

1943 (system and main problems of scientific tourism teaching)

In his publication "System and main problems of a scientific tourism education", Hunziker was the first to try to integrate the business administration of tourism into the teaching building of general tourism education. The tourism business (as a generic term) is the subject of knowledge in Hunziker's business administration theory of tourism. The tourist business in turn combines the elements of the tourist industry, i. H. the provision of goods to satisfy the needs of tourism, with the operational elements of the events that are necessary to put into practice what the tourism industry aims to achieve (Hunziker 1943). According to Hunziker, the tourism businesses cannot be classified in the service categories used in the business literature of the time. The service categories used in business literature at the time (according to Hunziker 1943) were unsuitable for identifying the types of tourism businesses. Based on the handling of tourism in its travel and residence sectors, Hunziker forms two main groups of companies - companies that organize stay and companies that organize travel. Hunziker makes a further subdivision according to the acquisition principle of businesses, profitable businesses , public businesses and cooperatives are differentiated according to this principle. From this point of view, Hunziker names different types of tourism businesses such as B. Accommodation establishments, educational institutes, special trading companies, travel agencies, special service companies, etc. These different types of tourism companies are both so-called actual tourism companies and so-called indirect tourism companies. The actual tourism businesses are those that serve tourism and would be inconceivable without it. Indirect tourism businesses are those businesses that are either only indirectly connected to tourism or are only affected by it because they are located in the tourist area (see Hunziker 1943). Hunziker mentions the task of business administration in tourism: to recognize the intentions and goals of tourism companies, to find out what they are and how they operate, to determine their successes and failures and to explain their connection with the tourism industry (see Hunziker 1943). On the other hand, the business administration of tourism not only wants to explain, describe and materialize the phenomena, processes and procedures scientifically, but also to assess them and steer them into certain paths (cf. Hunziker 1943). Business economics in tourism also lays down rules as to how something should be and how something should be done, so it deliberately stands out from the ground of actual science, in this respect it is also an art teaching at the same time.

Hunziker suggests the business administration of tourism to be split up into a general and a special business administration of tourism. The general business administration of tourism has the character of a general overview of the business administration problems of tourism (see Hunziker 1943). The task of the special business administration of tourism is to deepen the presentation of the general business administration of tourism. As such special business administration, Hunziker names the business administration of the hotel or travel agency, which in turn can be subdivided again. Hunziker suggests the following scheme as a structure for business administration in tourism:

  • A. Tourism and business administration
  • B. The stay
  • 1. The tourist destination
  • 2. The hotel business
  • 3. The sanatorium
  • 4. The educational institute
  • C. The trip
  • 1. Forms of travel - travel instruments
  • 2. Carriage prices
  • 3. The travel agency

D. The advertising '

1952 (On the problems and systematics of business administration in tourism)

Hunziker wrote (Jb. F. Tourism) in 1952 that the previous activities of the tourism research institutes had so far been limited to the clarification of special problems and the investigation of sub-areas of business administration. Overall presentations of business administration for all tourism businesses were not yet available, or at least only in rudimentary form. B. the article by Hunziker "The tourist company" which appeared in 1946. As a problem of business administration in tourism, Hunziker saw the object of knowledge in business administration, namely to grasp the tourism business itself and to discuss the questions that business administration has to ask of such a tourism company. For Hunziker it was important to determine the so-called location of the business administration of tourism, since at that time the concept of tourism was a controversial factor. Even the term "company" was not defined uniformly at that time and even general business administration had to fight for its status as an independent science. Hunziker classified the tourism companies in the group of service companies, so that a first important aspect for the characterization of the nature of the tourism companies was found. Second, Hunziker differentiated tourism businesses into businesses that organize travel (e.g. travel agencies) and businesses that organize stays (e.g. accommodation businesses). Hunziker also excluded companies that were involved in the organization of the trip and the stay, but also fulfill other functions. To be mentioned here z. B. the restaurant, although people are entertained here, but these can be both locals and tourists. The restaurant is therefore not a tourist company according to Hunziker, it would only fulfill this status if only tourists are catered there. Based on the system he developed, Hunziker determined different types of tourism businesses. The tourism businesses were divided into three classes, accommodation businesses (as well as health and medical facilities and educational institutes), travel agencies and tourist advertising businesses. For the apprenticeship, it was now a matter of examining those tourism companies that could be considered for a business administration course in tourism. Those tourism businesses should be excluded that have already been dealt with in other branches of business administration. So were z. For example, the transport companies in Hunziker's systematic are excluded from the fact that the business administration of transport already dealt with them. Another task of business administration in tourism was the clarification of the economic facts and relationships in the so-called economic units of tourism companies = business performance, business function and business organization, capital and asset structuring. The economic efficiency and profitability of the tourism industry was one of the most important tasks of tourism business administration. Questions of a psychological and work psychological character were excluded and defined as the task of so-called business sciences. For Hunziker, business administration in tourism is a science and must not be confused with business administration in tourism, as this is limited to the imparting of technical and commercial expertise. Hunziker does not consider the differentiation of business administration in tourism into a "general" and a "special" business administration in tourism, in the sense of a qualitative differentiation of the subject, to be feasible, although it would still be conceivable to use such a term. Such a separation would be an advantage, especially in university teaching. In the general business administration of tourism, general facts that do not explicitly relate to the tourism business could also be dealt with. So could z. B. General knowledge from company organization or accounting can be used or made usable for tourism companies.

In the context of general tourism studies, Hunziker classified the business administration of tourism as follows:

  • Tourism education
  • General tourism education
  • Special tourism education
  • Doctrine of tourism economics
  • Tourism business administration
  • General tourism business administration
  • Special business administration in tourism

1954 (contemporary tasks in tourism science)

Hunziker saw answering questions of a business management nature as one of the current tasks of general tourism science, especially business management of tourism. Because according to Hunziker, these questions are of most interest in practice. From this it becomes understandable if, on the one hand, research into problems of tourism of a more general nature had to take a back seat to business studies, while these in turn only remain fragmentary given the size of the field to be trodden (Hunziker 1954). In particular, the accounting for tourism companies was treated scientifically and results that could be used in practice were provided. Business research at that time was particularly oriented towards practical issues, with topics such as cost structure and cost dependency, company organization, etc. in the foreground.

If you compare the period from 1943 to 1954, you can see that Hunziker made some additions to his original concept of business administration in tourism. So he keeps z. B. the original division into general and special tourism, no longer appropriate. He also now speaks of the fact that business administration in tourism is a pure science, that it combines elements of science with those of art theory (such as technology), is now no longer a matter of fact. The new task of business administration in tourism was to answer specific practical questions and to provide concepts for solving problems.

The contribution by Georg Walterspiel

In the first part of his work, Walterspiel tried to organizationally combine the concept of tourism with the tourism business, because this seemed necessary to him in order to create a prerequisite for the business administration of tourism at all. According to Walterspiel (1956), scientific research into tourism and especially into business life in tourism is only at the beginning of its development. Walterspiel's ideas were based on the thoughts mentioned by Hunziker above. Hunziker's definition was used as the basis: Tourism companies are those economic units, special and individual farms that use the provision of tourism goods and services in an economic way through a permanent combination of suitable means of production . According to Walterspiel, Hunziker's definition does not yet say much about the special character of tourism businesses, so Walterspiel tries to define the tourism businesses more precisely according to the components of tourism management: stay and travel. Hunziker's division of tourism businesses into just five business groups (see above) appears to Walterspiel to be too narrow. The tourism businesses have different characteristics with regard to their type of production and their characteristics, the only thing in common, according to Walterspiel, is that the services are sold to "foreigners" (customers). From the point of view of the business, tourism expresses itself in the sale of goods and services to local strangers. Walterspiel now differentiates that the acceptance of economic goods by local residents (locals) does not count as tourism, the same applies to people who are not present (dispatch), the acceptance of economic goods by non-local residents (foreigners) counts as tourism. It follows that tourism companies are only those companies that sell their products and services to foreigners who are present. Another criterion of Walterspiel is that the products and services of the tourism company are suitable for the personal use and consumption of the stranger. The stranger thus represents a group of people that is generally referred to as the "final consumer". According to Walterspiel, those businesses that cannot sell their goods directly to the end consumer, that is to say to the foreigner, are not among the tourism businesses. According to Walterspiel, a tourism company can only be a company that sells goods and services ready for consumption and, secondly, to the end consumer.

From the point of view of sales to the three customer groups mentioned, Walterspiel forms three large groups of tourist businesses:

  • Businesses where sales to two customers - i.e. the local strangers - are not even possible,
  • Companies that can sell to all three customer groups, including strangers,
  • Companies that only sell to locals and foreigners, i.e. cannot send their services.

Walterspiel believes that Hunziker's categorization of spa and sanatoriums as tourism operations is too broad, because, according to Hunziker, cripples and the mentally ill are also included in tourism. Whether these facilities are now part of the tourism industry, Walterspiel makes dependent on whether the establishment primarily has the structure of a hotel. Walterspiel excludes educational institutes from the group of tourist businesses, because the inmates of such institutions are primarily not "strangers". According to Walterpiel, Hunziker's classification of travel agencies and tourist advertising companies results from the fact that these companies are of extraordinary importance in tourism practice, although the actual classification as tourism companies is not readily established. From a business point of view, the travel agency (the prototype of the brokerage company) is a kind of representative function, since the travel agency is not paid by the stranger but by the company (e.g. hotel) in the context of commissions. If the travel agency only had this function, it would not count among the tourism companies according to Walterspiel. Since the travel agency itself acts as an organizer and entrepreneur, the classification as a tourism company according to Walterpiel is quite justified. The tourist advertising office would not actually be a tourism company if it did not take over the tasks of a travel agency, as was common at the time.

After considering the five business groups of tourism businesses, Walterspiel is able to follow the consequences for a special business administration of tourism. In contrast to other special business administration courses, special business administration has a special position. Because the previous special business studies had selected and summarized their objects of investigation according to points of view that were uniformly valid for business economics. According to Walterspiel, all special business economies are normally subordinate to the principle of exclusivity, which is why a craft business cannot be dealt with by the business administration of the banks and a bank business cannot be treated by the business administration of the craft either. The business administration of tourism must, however, grasp the objects of investigation according to fundamentally different points of view, whereby the same exclusivity principle cannot be applied here as with the other business administration. Because, according to Walterspiel, the business administration of tourism selects those businesses that are characterized as tourism businesses due to certain characteristics. However, most of these companies are members of a different company group and are therefore also covered by other business studies. This special business administration theory of tourism is not subordinate to the already existing business administration studies, it has a vertical character and to a certain extent "crosses" the other special business administration courses. So z. B. graphically speaking, the interface of the business administration of tourism with the business administration of the hotel be larger than z. B. with the business administration of the craft. However, this fact does not yet justify viewing the hotel's business administration as a sub-category of business administration in tourism. The result is that the special business administration of the tourism companies is able to record the tourism companies within a company group and to examine them scientifically, i.e. in particular such companies sell the local foreigners. Due to its vertical character, the business administration of tourism is not limited to just one business group, but is able to cover all tourism businesses and all relevant business categories. The special business economics of tourism companies developed by Walterspiel has the possibility of comparing companies between companies in different branches. Finding similarities and differences between the individual tourist businesses should lead to interesting results, according to Walterspiel.

"Tourism Business Administration" or "Tourism Business Administration"?

According to W. Freyer ( contribution of economics to tourism science ) one speaks today more of a "business administration of tourism" than of a "tourism business administration". If we were to speak of a tourism business administration course, independent methods and models would have to be developed in it, which in the field of tourism analysis went beyond the usual economic approaches. According to Freyer, however, this is not the case at the moment, rather an attempt is being made to transfer the traditional business management approaches to tourism, whereby the particularities of tourism are of course taken into account. If tourism business management were an independent discipline, one could call it a tourism management Speak business administration. However, since the independence of the mother discipline (business administration) predominates in tourism business administration, one must actually speak of business administration in tourism. Unfortunately, science has not dealt with this question any further, the last intensive epistemological debate on this topic comes from the 1950s (see section above). Even today, it is still a matter of dispute whether the business administration of tourism is an independent scientific area (a tourism business administration) or whether it is just a sub-area of ​​general business administration. However, even today there is still no agreement on whether economic tourism issues represent a separate scientific discipline, or whether and how they are to be classified in the existing system of business and economic issues (cf. H. Klopp). Business administration in tourism / tourism presents itself as a small universe of general business administration in the types of hotels and / or restaurants, tour operators and / or travel agents, sports facilities and special tourism companies (Ender / Fuhri / Mazanec / Steiner).

Business teaching and research at universities

The business administration of tourism is one of the most sought-after disciplines within the emerging tourism science. Institutional tourism science has remained tourism economics, more precisely: tourism management or tourism marketing science (Wöhler 2000). Since research is traditionally anchored at the universities, the universities that deal with business management issues of tourism in research and teaching in German-speaking countries should be briefly mentioned here. Tourism cannot be studied as a separate undergraduate degree at universities. Tourism is usually offered as a major, elective or compulsory elective as part of business studies. At the University of Trier, among other things, the subject "Strategic Management" or "Strategic Tourism Management" can be studied within the framework of the Business Administration course. In Dresden, the TU Dresden can study the subject of "tourism economics" as a special business administration course as part of the business administration course. Special mention should be made of the efforts of the University of Lüneburg. So far tourism management could only be studied as an elective in the main course, but since the winter semester 05/06 a master’s course "tourism management" has also been possible. In addition to the master’s degree (tourism management and regional tourism planning) at the University of Berlin, this master’s degree is the only university business administration postgraduate degree in tourism in Germany that leads to an internationally recognized master’s degree. At the LMU-Munich, business administration can take tourism economics as a compulsory subject and at the University of Rostock, tourism economics can be studied as SBWL. In Austria, too, tourism can be studied as a special business administration course at universities. Such a degree is possible at the WU-Vienna and the University of Innsbruck. Studies at Austrian universities are more economically pronounced than in Germany.

While at German universities within the framework of SBWL tourism, very general questions of tourism such as B. the role of tourism in business and society, tourism performance and service providers, the basics of the tourism industry, market strategies in tourism, strategic tourism management, regional economic aspects of tourism, leisure and tourism and communication policy, the tourism course at Austrian universities is more economically and research-oriented. So z. For example, the following courses can be attended at WU Vienna as part of SBWL Tourism:

  • Management and information needs
  • Theory-guided survey methods
  • Econometric explanatory and forecasting models
  • Analysis methods for primary studies
  • Multivariate method
  • Decision support systems
  • Tourism Marketing Planning: The Tourism Pole. u. Development concepts ..

The same applies roughly to the University of Innsbruck. B. Courses such as: Specialization course: Human Resource, Micro-Economic Approaches of Human Resource Management, The Tourism Marketing and Consumer Behavior and the basic course Service Management are attended.

Mainly, the business administration of tourism is taught strongly practice and application-related at the universities of applied sciences. Prof. K. Socher rightly criticizes: As a curiosity, it should be noted that the "Business Administration of Tourism / Tourism" has been taught at the commercial academies for a long time without the university teaching staff having been given a corresponding training like this is the case with other subjects (Socher in ITV 1991). This fact also applies to universities of applied sciences in Germany. Many of the teachers have had general business administration training. Many of these teachers have gained the ability to teach "Business Administration of Tourism" through their practical work in tourism. But if you compare the curriculum vitae of some professors, you are shocked to discover that many of them have never seen the inside of a tourism company.

literature

  • Freyer, Walter: Contribution of economics to tourism science ; In: Akademie Loocum (ed.): On the way to a theory of tourism
  • Hunziker, Walter: On the problems and systematics of business administration in tourism / in Jb. F. Tourism born 1 1952/53
  • Klopp, Helmut Tourism Economics in Hahn / Kagelmann: Tourism Psychology and Sociology 1993
  • Sölter Marc: "Business Administration of Tourism"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See W. FREYER: Tourismus-Marketing, 1997