Source: China Paper Download Center [07-03-1215: 37: 00] Editor: studa20 Abstract: Supply chain management is an advanced operation management mode at present, and the concept of supply chain management is consistent with the characteristics of the service system linked by the tourism industry to meet the different needs of tourists. Therefore, to develop tourism, we must study supply chain management. This paper first introduces the basic meaning and significance of tourism service supply chain, then discusses the research status of tourism service supply chain management, and finally introduces the further research content of tourism service supply chain.
Keywords: supply chain management of tourism service system
The research of supply chain management rose in the United States in 1980s and was successfully applied in western developed countries. The idea of chain operation originally originated from manufacturing industry. High quality, low cost and immediate response to customer demand are the core ideas of supply chain. In manufacturing industry, quality, cost and time are the three core elements of an enterprise since its establishment. Around these three aspects, enterprises are always looking for the most effective management methods, aiming at reducing costs, improving quality and shortening production cycle. The method of producing products (i.e. production mode) has different development and changes in different periods.
In the 1980s, a large number of new manufacturing technologies, management strategies (ideas) and means appeared in the manufacturing industry, which gave manufacturers the opportunity to improve their market competitiveness by reducing costs, such as lean manufacturing (LP), total quality management (TQM), just-in-time production (JIT), kanban and so on. , very popular in business and management. In order to implement and improve these strategies, enterprises have invested a lot of resources.
However, after entering the 1990s, people found that these management concepts seemed to have come to an end in reducing costs and improving competitiveness. Because simply considering the optimization of internal resources can not meet the needs of time-based competition, enterprises must make full use of external resources and cooperate with partners to really reduce the response time from the whole supply chain. More and more enterprises realize that effective supply chain management is their next step to increase profits and increase market share. At the same time, the rapid development of information technology represented by the Internet and the wide application of ERP in enterprises provide unprecedented opportunities for supply chain management. For example, in 1997, American manufacturing enterprises spent $862 billion on activities related to supply chain management (accounting for 10% of the GNP of the United States that year). Some famous multinational groups, such as Dell and P & amp； G, Hewlett-Packard and Wal-Mart, as successful cases of supply chain management, have been widely praised in the business community, which has also aroused people's great enthusiasm for supply chain management.
The meaning of tourism service supply chain
But there is no accepted definition of what a supply chain is. Many scholars have given many different definitions from different angles.
Commonly used are "supply chain is a network system composed of all participating enterprises (directly or indirectly) in the process of meeting a customer's needs" and "supply chain includes not only suppliers and manufacturers, but also carriers, warehouses, wholesalers (distributors), retailers and customers themselves. In every enterprise (such as a manufacturer), the supply chain includes all its activities, such as research and development, marketing, production, distribution, capital and customer service of new products. "
Lee and Billington (1992) gave a more intuitive description. "Supply chain is a system composed of several facilities, which respectively complete the procurement of materials, the processing of parts or products until the products are provided to the final consumers."
Although there is no complete and unified definition of supply chain so far, there is a unified core idea in supply chain management, which emphasizes that each enterprise focuses on its own core business and entrusts other non-core businesses to advantageous partners to form stronger competitiveness through the organization and coordination of supply chain. Adopting supply chain management mode can enable enterprises to find the best partners in the shortest time and win the market with the lowest cost, the fastest speed and the best quality. The supply chain management model is facing a global and fierce competition in the buyer's market. It replaces mass production with multi-variety and variable batch production.
With the continuous development of economy and the improvement of people's living standards, traveling abroad has become an indispensable part of people's lives. Tourists consume tourism products to meet the needs of food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, shopping and travel in their tourism life. The quality of tourism products depends on the difference between tourists' overall expectations and perceptions of combined products, which determines the satisfaction of tourists and the success of tourism services.
Under the traditional operation mode, travel agencies undertake a lot of organization and coordination among enterprises in the tourism industry, and play a role as a link between various components. Usually, travel agencies form integrated combined service products that meet the needs of tourists by purchasing related services, and then sell the combined products to customers. The integrity and coordination of the service combination products provided to travelers depend on the organization and coordination ability of travel agencies.
The related enterprises in the tourism industry take the travel agency as the core and connect into a service system for travelers. This kind of travel service system for travelers is actually a service supply chain for travelers based on the sequence of travel activities arranged by travel agencies. Although the tourism service supply chain exists objectively, at present, the academic circles have not conducted in-depth research on its operation mechanism and management mode.
How to provide high-quality, distinctive and all-round tourism services, keep pace with the development of other mature service industries in China, and connect with the process of modern tourism services in the world is an important topic worthy of close attention and in-depth study in the future tourism service supply chain.
The Importance of Establishing Tourism Service Supply Chain Management Model
It is conducive to enhancing the core competitiveness of China's tourism enterprises.
After China's entry into WTO, foreign-funded travel agencies can set up wholly-owned companies in China to directly deal with transport and hotel operators. There is still a big gap between China tourism enterprises and international tourism enterprises in terms of scale, experience and management concept. Therefore, it is necessary to establish and improve the tourism service supply chain system, form a vertical division of labor system between tourism wholesalers and tourism retailers, optimize resource allocation, realize economies of scale and scope, and enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises.
It can better meet the diverse needs of tourists.
With the development of the world economy and the application of information technology, the knowledge level of customers is constantly improving, and it is more and more convenient for them to obtain information. In the fierce market competition, more and more products are getting better and better, and customers' expectations and requirements are getting higher and higher. In this consumer-oriented era, the traditional vertical integration model can no longer meet the needs of the market. How to cope with the rapid changes in the market environment, grasp the needs of tourists in time, innovate the management of tourism service system and provide services that satisfy tourists has become the main responsibilities of tourism management enterprises. At present, China's tourism enterprises are large in number but small in scale, belonging to different departments. It is difficult to meet the diversified needs of customers on our own. Only by cooperating with each other and using the operation mode of supply chain management can tourism enterprises meet the ever-changing needs of customers today.
It can enable tourism enterprises to carry out division of labor and cooperation and promote economic growth.
The comprehensiveness of tourism and the extensiveness of social contacts determine that the development of tourism has a broad driving effect on other sectors of the national economy and has become an important pillar of economic growth. In the past twenty years, China's tourism service industry has experienced a rapid development process. Nowadays, tourism service industry has become a new economic growth point to increase the country's foreign exchange income, stimulate residents' consumption and accelerate economic development. Since China joined WTO, it has promised to gradually liberalize the tourism service industry, which makes China tourism enterprises face both opportunities and great challenges. The decades-long experience of China's tourism industry shows that strengthening the coordinated management across departments and regions is the basic guarantee for the smooth operation and healthy development of the tourism industry. However, at present, the coordination ability of China's tourism industry is very limited, the relevant coordination policies can not meet the needs of the rapid development of tourism, the relationship is not smooth, the policies are not clear, and there are still many frictions and collisions among stakeholders, so a brand-new management model is needed to coordinate the relationship between tourism enterprises.
To sum up, it can be seen that the application prospect of tourism service supply chain management operation mode is very broad.
Therefore, it is very necessary and urgent to study the operation mechanism of tourism service supply chain management systematically and deeply, which is also of great guiding significance to the transformation of tourism enterprises' business philosophy and business model. The operation mode of tourism service supply chain management is suitable for tourism enterprises, especially for some old revolutionary areas and western tourism enterprises. For example, in 2006, the State Tourism Administration put forward the concept of "red" tourism, which aims to help the old revolutionary base areas develop tourism resources and promote local economic development. However, if there is no advanced management and operation mode as a guide, it may destroy local tourism resources and cause counterproductive consequences.
Research Status of Tourism Service Supply Chain Management
foreign research status
Western developed countries have a relatively high economic level, and their tourism industry started earlier. So far, a relatively perfect market development system has been established. At present, the research on tourism services in western developed countries mainly focuses on four aspects: basic research on tourism services, which studies the characteristics and functions of tourism services from different industries and departments; The study of tourism service perception mainly analyzes consumers' expectations and satisfaction with tourism services from the perspective of consumers, and studies the perceived factors affecting tourism services; The study of tourism service quality mainly studies how to measure and improve the quality of tourism service; E-tourism service research and tourism e-commerce mainly study how to use e-commerce to promote the future development direction of tourism. The perspectives of these studies are mostly focused on tourists' perception and satisfaction, and the research methods are mostly from the perspectives of psychology, sociology and geography. Most of these contents talk about the problems existing in the service from the perspective of service, which is not macro enough, and less systematically diagnose the defects of the tourism service system or tourism industry from the perspective of service. However, there is relatively little theoretical research on tourism service supply chain abroad.
However, some practices of tourism services in western developed countries are consistent with the concept of supply chain management. With the development of European and American tourism markets, the travel agency industry has carried out vertical division of labor between wholesale operators and retail agents, while wholesale operators and retail agents have carried out horizontal division of labor in their respective fields according to market conditions and enterprise strength, realizing professional management. In Australia, all kinds of tourism products are first sold to customers through numerous retail agents, and then wholesale to travel agencies. This decentralized and centralized management method can fully meet the individual needs of tourists. Western developed countries make full use of information technology to facilitate tourists to choose various tourism products. These practices are consistent with the concept of supply chain management.
Domestic research status
The development of China's tourism started late, so it can be said that only after the reform and opening up did China have a real tourism industry. Therefore, the understanding of how to improve the quality of tourism services and better meet the needs of customers is not deep enough. Domestic research on tourism services mostly focuses on the psychology, attitude and skills of service personnel of tourism enterprises towards tourists.
In our country, there are few research documents about tourism service system, which are lack of systematicness. Among them, Zou Huiping and others (1996) discussed the necessity, feasibility and conception of establishing a flexible and rapid response tourism service system ATSS. Zhao Jie (2002) built a tourism service system TSS based on browser/server, and analyzed its functions, characteristics, network structure, software structure and key technologies. Zhang Wenjian (200 1) put forward the model of tourism service system and the system of providing tourism service from the perspectives of tourism and service respectively. Wencai Du (2003) analyzed the information characteristics of tourism, the changes of tourism business environment caused by information technology and Internet technology, and put forward the concept of tourism service supply chain management and the process reengineering of tourism enterprises by using information technology. Zhang (2005) put forward the significance of constructing tourism service supply chain, but did not conduct in-depth analysis and research on its operating mechanism.
Feasibility analysis of tourism service supply chain management research
By analyzing the origin of supply chain management, we can find that it is mainly used in manufacturing industry, while tourism belongs to service industry. So can this advanced management model be used in tourism? The following article systematically analyzes its feasibility.
First of all, tourism (or tourism activities) is a process, which runs through the subject (tourists), the intermediary (tourism enterprises with travel agencies as the core) and the object (scenic spots or scenic spots), showing the unity of passenger flow (tourists' travel routes and arrangements), information flow (tourism development planning and marketing) and logistics (material supply and circulation). Passenger flow and information flow can be regarded as special logistics, so the theories and methods of modern logistics management and supply chain can be applied to the development and management of tourism.
Secondly, in the object-intermediary-subject tourism service supply chain, quality, cost and time are also three key elements. Quality factors determine tourists' satisfaction, and then determine tourists' consumption decisions, and then affect the tourist market of tourism enterprises; Cost factors determine the profitability of tourism, and ultimately affect the survival and development of enterprises; Time factor determines the speed of responding to tourists' demands, which is related to tourists' perception of product quality and the efficiency of tourism enterprises, thus affecting quality and cost. Therefore, the operation mode and management of tourism services that provide basic guarantee for quality, cost and time can not be ignored in the tourism industry.
Supply chain management is not only the most advanced operation mode to adapt to the current environment, but also a comprehensive integrated system view to coordinate the related activities of participants, emphasizing strong alliance, resource integration and overall operation, which can provide conceptual inspiration, theoretical guidance and methodological reference for the objective tourism service division and cooperation system and the operation management of tourism service supply chain.
Drawing lessons from the supply chain management model, the tourism industry can explore the specific operation mode of the tourism service supply chain according to the actual situation and around the study of effective cooperation ways to realize customer needs.
Further research direction of tourism service supply chain
According to the research status of tourism service supply chain at home and abroad and its important role in tourism, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on its operating mechanism in order to really play its role. Future research should mainly discuss how to coordinate among tourists, tour operators, scenic spots and scenic spots in order to achieve the goal of tourism service supply chain. This paper briefly introduces the main contents of each part of the research.
The main body of tourism service supply chain: tourists
Tourists are the main body of tourism service supply chain, and the purpose of tourism service supply chain is to meet the diversified needs of customers and maximize the profits of all enterprises in the supply chain. Therefore, in this part, we should focus on how to establish a tourist information system that can enjoy information.
Tourism service industry is a demand-oriented industry, especially the demand for information is very high. They provide intangible services instead of tangible products, with special emphasis on the relationship between customer service and information transmission. The most important thing in the service industry is to deliver or serve a large number of special products and experiences to customers in the form of information flow, which is essentially the same as the spirit of e-commerce.
The essence of e-commerce is efficiency, coordination, agility and rapidity, which not only helps the service industry to effectively improve efficiency, but also improves customer satisfaction and loyalty. The service industry can conduct timely and rich information exchange and communication through e-commerce. The bottleneck of logistics has little influence on the e-commerce of service industry, and geographically dispersed resources are very suitable for gathering and enjoying through the Internet. Therefore, how to build a tourism information system that can enjoy information is the key to the success or failure of tourism service supply.
The Core of Tourism Service Supply Chain: Tourism Operators
Travel agency is the core component of tourism service supply chain, and plays the role of coordinating related tourism service enterprises. The key to the stability of tourism service supply chain lies in the perfection of coordination, incentive and restraint mechanisms. This part should focus on how to solve the problem of coordination and integration among travel agencies, transportation, catering and accommodation. For example, as two independent stakeholders, airlines want travel agencies to buy more tickets in the off-season and less tickets in the peak season, but the actual situation as a travel agency is just the opposite. How to coordinate their relationship and make them form a stable interest relationship is the research focus of tourism service supply chain.
The node enterprises in the supply chain can coordinate and unite to deal with the threats and attacks of foreign supply chains, and each node enterprise in the supply chain should have an incentive and restraint mechanism. Through a reasonable incentive and restraint mechanism, the loyalty between upstream and downstream nodes of the tourism service supply chain can be consolidated, the enjoyment of risks and benefits can be ensured, and business integration can effectively reduce inefficient and repetitive operations of enterprises.
In the integration of tourism service supply chain, we should mainly study how to integrate information through network technology in e-commerce environment, so as to respond to the diversified needs of customers quickly, with high quality and low cost, which should also include how to choose supply chain partners and how to manage their performance.
The Foundation of Tourism Service Supply Chain: Tourism Resources and Environment
Scenic spots or scenic spots are the main attractions to attract tourists. In order to exert the attraction of scenic spots, it is necessary to develop and protect their tourism resources. Tourism resources here refer to natural existence, historical and cultural heritage or social phenomenon that objectively exists in a certain geographical space and makes tourists yearn for because of its aesthetic and pleasant value. There are two kinds of tourism resources: material and tangible, such as landscapes and gardens. There are intangible and intangible, such as folk culture and tourism services.
Tourism resources and environment are the premise and foundation for the survival and development of tourism, which includes not only protecting the tourism resources themselves from destruction and weakening their characteristics, but also protecting the natural ecology and social environment around them. Pay attention to protecting resources and environment, prevent destructive development, and pay special attention to protecting the fragile ecological environment of nature reserves. This part mainly studies how to develop the tourism resources of scenic spots or scenic spots through quantitative methods such as system dynamics method and economic analysis method, so as to realize the coordinated development of economic benefits and ecological benefits. As for the coordination of scenic spots, scenic spots and travel agencies, it is mainly to study the related issues of incentive and restraint mechanism under the conditions of multiple principals and agents. Because a travel agency will open several tourist routes at the same time, and a scenic spot and scenic spot will cooperate with several travel agencies at the same time, how to coordinate the relationship between them will not only destroy the local tourism ecological resources, but also make the travel agencies achieve better economic benefits, which is also a key point of future tourism service supply chain research.
. cn/news/lyg lw/
/travel/