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Supply chain integration and firm performance in the tourism sector

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

Supply Chain Integration and Firm Performance

in the Tourism Sector

Dejan DRAGAN1*, Tomaž Kramberger2, and Darja TOPOLŠEK3

1University of Maribor/Faculty of Logistics, Celje, Slovenia
2University of Maribor/Faculty of Logistics, Celje, Slovenia
3University of Maribor/Faculty of Logistics, Celje, Slovenia

Abstract — The paper addresses the supply chain Integration (SCI) and firm performance in the tourism sector.
The main aim is the systematic review of the current research in this research field. The design of a
comprehensive modeling framework for explaining the complex interrelations of the tourism supply chain (SC)
integration is still a great challenge for many researchers. In this spirit, the paper also shortly introduces the
main issues, concepts, and models, which are related to the tourism supply chains, SC management, and SC
integration. Hopefully, these explanations will help the less experienced researchers or students to better
understand the complexity of this research field. There exist several modeling approaches to analyze the
relationships between the constructs of the supply chain integration. For this purpose, the so-called structural
equation models (SEM) are often used since they characterize a very powerful statistical tool to explain the
complex causal relations between the involved factors. Unfortunately, this kind of models has been much less
examined in the tourism sector than in the other industries. In order to show the importance of SEM models in
relation with SCI in the tourism industry, some case studies are also presented in this paper.

Key words — Supply Chain Integration, Firm Performance, Tourism Sector, Structural Equation Modeling.

I. INTRODUCTION

The research on supply chain collaboration (SCC) and supply chain integration (SCI) has gained
in the popularity during the last two decades [1]. Many supply chain (SC) studies have been
dedicated to this research area, particularly those which included the impact of SCC and SCI on
firms’ performance. As it turns out, the awareness about the strategic importance of integrating
with the suppliers, manufacturers, and customers, is still growing [2, 3, 4]. As a consequence, the
investigation of SCC and SCI has become one of the main focuses of research in the area of supply
chain management (SCM) [1].
Many studies show that the supply chain collaboration can enrich the firm performance [5, 6].
By collaborating with partners in supply chains, companies are anticipated to multiply the results of

their common efforts [7]. Such results can include an enhanced level of responsiveness and

advancement of service levels from their SC collaborative programs [5, 8].

Another commonly used term, which also refers to a tight joined process between SC partners, is
a supply chain integration [9]. Naturally, there are certain differences between SCC and SCI. On
one side, the SC integration puts more emphasis on centralized control and process integration
directed by the contract means. On the other hand, collaboration is an intermediary form of hybrid
governance via the interactive means in addition to the governance through the contract means
[9, 10]. Or, as Moharana and his colleagues claim, in collaboration, two or more entities work
together, share their resources, and seek to reach the collective goals. Conversely, integration
refers to a seamless material and information flow of all SC members with the objective to maximize
competitive advantage [11].

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

The impact of supply chain integration on the firm’s performance has been studied in the field of
the tourism sector as well, but much less intense [12]. The reason is probably a quite complicated
nature of tourism supply chains. There are two main characteristics of the tourism industry, which
make it different from the other industries. First, on the supply side, the tourism industry cannot be
treated as a pure manufacturing industry neither as a pure service industry. On the contrary, it is a
mixture of products, which represent a combination of services and goods [13, 14].
Second, on the demand side, tourism demand is characterized as being quite complex due to
high volatility and sensitivity to the disturbances. So, it requires a subtle knowledge to manage
efficiently the tourism operations [15, 16]. Since tourism supply chains comprise various entities,
which are highly interrelated, the cooperation is necessary to ensure the consistent flows of goods
and services [12].
The primary aim of this paper is the review of the current research on supply chain integration
and its relations to firms’ performance, with emphasis on the tourism sector. The development of a
comprehensive conceptual modeling framework for explaining the interactions and behavioral
aspects of SC integration remains a great challenge for SCM researchers. This is particularly true for
the tourism industry since the tourism SCM, and the tourism SCI are still not consistently defined yet
due to their complicated nature [12].
The paper also shortly discusses the main issues, concepts, and models, related to the tourism
supply chains, their management, and their integration. Hopefully, these short explanations will give
certain understanding to the less experienced researcher or student in the corresponding research
field. We also believe that the paper will contribute in addressing the need for further theory
building in tourism SCM and SCI.
There are several modeling approaches to analyzing the relationships in supply chain
integration. In the manufacturing industry, the so-called structural equation models (SEM) are often
used since they represent a very strong statistical tools to explain the complex causal relations
between the integration constructs. Conversely, this kind of models has been much less studied in
the tourism sector. In order to show the importance of SEM models in relation with SCI of the tourism
sector, some case studies will be also presented at the end of the paper.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Supply chain collaboration and performance of firms

It has been shown in many papers that the efficiency of an individual entity of the supply chain
can have a significant impact on the performance and efficiency of the other SC members [11,
12]. Consequently, increasing emphasis is placed on the cooperation, collaboration, and
integration of corporate functions between the individual SC members [17]. Also, the investigation
of possible relationships between the performance of the individual SC player and its integration
with the other SC members represents a persistent challenge for the research community [17, 18].
Many studies have been conducted in this direction, particularly those related to the
manufacturing industries. The common clue of these studies implies that the increased degree of
integration can contribute significantly to better performance, efficiency, quality, delivery and
flexibility of the whole supply chain in most cases [12, 19, 20, 21].
It turned out that the SEM modeling approach has been used in most cases to reveal causal
relations between different types of integration and/or collaboration on one side, and firm’s
performance and/or efficiency on the other side [22]. Table 1 depicts the brief excerpt of some
significant works considering the integration and performance measurement in the SC
management, which have applied the SEM modeling approach [22]. As it can be seen from table
1, most studies are dedicated to the research of the impact of firm’s integration components on
different measures of the corresponding firm’s performance.

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Table 1. Some relevant studies in the field of SC integration and performance measurement, which
have conducted the SEM modeling approach

Authors Year Subject Purpose

Impact of Internal and External Integration on

Wong et al [23] 2013 Supply Chain
Product Innovation

Impact of External Green Collaboration on Firm

Yang et al [24] 2013 Supply Chain
Competitiveness

Impact of Extent of Managerial IT Usage on

Maiga et al [25] 2013 Company
Profitability

Port Logistics Impact of Internal and External Integration on

Hee-Sung Bae [26] 2012
Firms Service Performance

Gimenez and Ventura Impact of Internal and External Integration on

2005 Supply Chain
[27] Performance

Medina-Munoz and Impact of Relationships between Hotels and Travel

2000 Tourism Industry
Garcia-Falcon [28] Agencies on Performance
Impact of different types of Integration on
Manufacturing
Swink et all [29] 2007 Manufacturing Capabilities, Business Performance,
Industry
Cost Efficiency and Quality
Impact of Electronic Integration on Absorptive
Fayard et al [30] 2012 Supply Chains
Capacity and Cost Management

Van der Vaart and Impact of Business Conditions on Performance of

2008 Supply Chains
Van Donk [31] Buyer-Supplier Relationships

Impact of Supply Chain Integration on Customer

Vickery et al [32] 2003 Supply Chains
Service and Financial Performance

Impact of Integration on Product Innovation and

Koufteros et al [33] 2006 Company
External Quality

Braunscheidel and Impact of Internal and External Integration on

2009 Supply Chain
Suresh [34] Firm’s Agility

Impact of Internal and External Integration on

Narayanan et al [35] 2011 Firm
Firm’s Performance

Wiengarten et al [36] 2014 Country Impact of Integration on Operational Performance

Hospital Supply Impact of Hospital-Supplier Integration on

Chen et al [37] 2013
Chain Performance

Koufteros and Impact of Concurrent Engineering on Product

2006 Industry
Marcoulides [38] Innovation and Quality

Impact of System and Process Integration on

Huo et al [39] 2013 Supply Chains
Financial Performance

Manufacturing Impact of Supplier and Customer Integration on

He et al [40] 2014
Industry New Product Performance

Impact of Supplier and Customer Integration on

Yu et al [41] 2013 Supply Chain
Financial Performance

Perols et al [42] 2013 Firms Impact of Supplier Integration on Time-to-Market

Impact of Supply Chain Integration on Firm’s

Kim et al [43] 2009 Supply Chain
Performance

Impact of Market Orientation on Perceived

Bigne et al [44] 2005 Tourist Agencies
Performance and Service Quality of the Agency

Schmidt et al [45] 2008 Hotel Industry Impact of Hotel Websites Quality on Effectiveness

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Impact of Internet Service, Customer Support, and

Wu and Lu [46] 2012 Hotel Industry Marketing Support Function on Business
Performance
Hotel and Motel Impact of Customer Relationship Management
Wu and Chen [47] 2012
Industry Strategy on Business Performance

Hotels and
Shi and Liao [48] 2013 Impact of Joint Teamwork on Relationship Quality
Restaurants

B. Supply chain integration in the tourism supply chains

The key properties of the tourism supply chains are slightly different than those of other supply
chains. Tourism supply chains (TSC) are defined as a whole network of tourism entities, which are
engaged in various tourism-based activities. Further, these activities are associated to the supply of
tourism services /products, as well as to the marketing and distribution of these services /products
to a specific tourism destination [12]. The main tourism entities can be classified into:
accommodation firms, transportation companies, beverage and food firms, shopping and
recreation companies, tour operators, and, finally, the travel agencies [12, 49, 50].
The tourism supply chains concentrate on coordination, collaboration, and integration of very
complex heterogeneous components and activities (e.g. transportation, accommodations) in
uncertain dynamic environments [51]. They are often confronted with aggressive opposition and
big variations of the demand, to whom must be well equipped [12].
Furthermore, tourism supply chains must rely on adequate and consistent corporate relationships
between all entities engaged while the management should contribute significantly to different
performance enhancements [12, 51]. In order to achieve all these goals, constant improvement of
business operations by each SC member is needed, and sustainability based collaboration is
looked-for [52, 53].
There have been several definitions of integration in the supply chains with emphasis on the
tourism sector given. For instance, if so-called external integration (EI) is taken into consideration,
the latter can be defined as a set of fluid business relationships between different SC members.
Sometimes the external integration is also addressed as a form of interaction, collaboration, and
communication beyond the borders of the main organization [54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59].
Many researchers treat SC integration as a degree of strategic collaboration of an SC member
with its partners in the framework of intra-organizational and inter-organizational process
management. In this context, the main purpose of integration is to achieve such effective flows of
services/products, information, decisions, and money, so that the maximal quality of services at the
lowest possible costs and highest possible speed is delivered to the customer [17, 18, 60]. Some
other authors also agree that integration assists the companies to achieve competitive
advantages, generate obstacles to their competitors, and ensure greater safety of contracts [15].
Besides, the EI in the tourism supply chains is inspired by the goal of transaction costs reduction,
providing service at lower prices, guaranteeing priority access to the top destinations, and growing
of presence in the market [61, 62]. As it turns out, many tourism firms have already employed SC
integration strategies [62, 63]. Among the latter, particularly significant are those which concern
relations between service providers (e.g. hotels and airlines) and intermediaries (e.g. tour operators
or travel agencies), within the same level or among different levels [12].
It would be too space costly to discuss about detailed analysis of all relevant studies reported
about tourism supply chain integration and management. Instead, a brief taxonomy of the
important literature is given in table 2 [12].

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Table 2. Review of the relevant tourism SCI and SCM literature (adopted from Zhang et al., 2009
[12].)

C. Performance measurement in the tourism sector

Careful examination of existing research shows a relatively big gap in the literature on the
analysis of relationships between any kind of integration and the performance of tourism entities.
The identified studies are mostly restricted to a specific sector, for instance, to the hotel sector [64,
65, 66, 67].
The efficient performance of tourism entities is of particular importance for creditors, investors,
and business partners [68]. This issue implies a great need for all tourism organizations to collaborate
together as a value chain in order to create and deliver timely a sustainable and quality products
and services to the customer [50, 69].

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In many cases, the external integration in tourism supply chains has been found to be dispersed
and inadequate, which caused insufficient firms’ performance [70, 71, 72, 73]. Poor personal and
professional mutual communication has been detected, where the relationships between the
tourism SC members have been relatively unsettled and unorganized. The working personnel should
cooperate more timely and precisely to attain a better coordination and performance. For
instance, the study of Alamdari [71] shows that the upper level of collaboration between travel
agents and airline companies has undoubtedly resulted in faster and more effective ways of
purchasing airline tickets.

III. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF SUPPLY CHAIN COLLABORATION AND INTEGRATION

In the context of regime for managing organizations, it is believed that SC collaboration could
produce incredible benefits [74]. There exist several forms of collaboration, such as information
sharing, decision synchronization, incentive alignment, and so [75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81].
Collaboration practices, such as SC integration and joint planning, are developed from
coordination (e.g. information sharing), which is evolved from cooperation (e.g. longer-term
contracts) [81]. This evolution is depicted in Fig. 1. [81].

Fig. 1. Evolution of supply chain collaboration (adopted from Speakman [81])

Investigation of scholarly literature shows that higher level of SC collaboration can improve [5,8,
82, 83]:

 logistics performance,
 service quality,
 risk mitigation,
 Bullwhip effect reduction, and
 the reduction of supply chain costs.

Moreover, SC collaboration can help entities to access relevant resources, share risks, improve
productivity and profit performance, and heighten competitive benefits over time [9]. Fig. 2 shows

different types of collaborative approaches and dimensions, which are the most significant in the

SC management [6, 9, 77, 80, 81].

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Fig. 2. Different types of approaches and dimensions of supply chain collaboration (SCC)

As it is shown in several studies [6, 9], the features shown in Fig. 2 are essential to help experts
improve collaboration via the reflection upon the often uninvestigated practice of the existing
relationships. These features interrelate with each other regarding the overall performance. Thus,
the SC members need to occupy each other in a dialogue about these key collaboration features,
as well as to educate each other to their needs in the reciprocal development of a mutually
profitable collaboration process [6].
Some authors (e.g. Simatupang and Sridharan [84]) agree that there exist five main features
(disciplines), which represent the core of the collaborative supply chain framework (see Fig. 3). The
framework in Fig. 3 was justified and supported on the basis of the theoretical background and
empirical evidence [6, 84]. The five key disciplines include a collaborative performance system
(CPS), decision synchronization (DS), incentive alignment (IA), information sharing (IS), and
integrated supply chain processes. Each discipline can be seen as the supporting factor that
simplifies collaborative actions. Arrows in Fig. 3 characterize an effort to capture the dynamic
nature of the reciprocal relationships among multiple connecting disciplines of the framework.
A collaborative performance system can be defined as the process of planning and employing
performance metrics that direct the SC members how to increase the overall performance. This
process also comprises the resolving of two related issues. The first one describes who should be
engaged in defining the mutual objective while the second one explains what performance
metrics should be applied with respect to this mutual objective.
The mutual objective determines the competitive factors that can be achieved if the SC
members build the collaboration. In this context, competitive factors can be represented in the
form of product/service advantages, such as quality, price, customer service, supply chain costs,
and responsiveness if compared to competitors. These factors are expected to increase each SC
member’s return-on-investment, profit, and cash flow [84].
The composition in Fig. 3 explains how the CPS effect on the other collaborative disciplines, and
how each discipline affects the others in contributing to the accomplishment of collaborative
performance. For instance, this kind of reciprocal approach implies, if information sharing is
capable to provide accurate, relevant, and timely data useful for effective decision making, then
the efficient two-way correspondence has been reached between IS and DS disciplines.

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Fig. 3. The core of the collaborative supply chain framework (adopted from Simatupang and
Sridharan [84])

A. Information sharing

Information sharing refers to the entree to private data in all partners’ systems, which enables
the monitoring of the progress of products/services in the supply chain [86]. This kind of activity
includes data processing, representation, dissemination, acquisition, and storage of end-to-end
inventory status and locations, order status, demand conditions, cost-related data, and
performance status. Visibility of key process data enables the SC members to take into account
important actions in making effective decisions. This way, the SC members can address the
product flow issues more speedily, which results in more responsive demand planning [84].
The interaction of information sharing with other disciplines of the framework in Fig. 3 plays a key
role in integrating other disciplines into a whole. Furthermore, the information sharing, in general,
simplifies the decision synchronization via providing a timely, relevant, and accurate information
required to take efficient decisions on SC planning [84].

B. Decision synchronization

Decision synchronization can be defined as the range to which the SC members are capable to
coordinate serious decisions at planning levels for the optimization of SC profitability [85]. This
activity includes the formulating of joint decision-making processes and allocating of decision rights
to synchronize SC planning, which tries to achieve the matching of demand with supply.
The significance of decision synchronization is reflected in the fact that the SC members have
different decision rights about the supply chain operations. For instance, a retailer can have the
decision right to determine the order quantity, but does not have a right to determine the order
delivery [84]. Thus, quite often the SC members have conflicts in the making of decisions, which can
result in non-optimal solutions for the overall supply chain [86]. Consequently, the chain members
need to coordinate serious decisions, which can affect the way of achieving better performance.

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C. Incentive alignment

Incentive alignment refers to the process of sharing risks, costs and benefits among the SC
members [85]. This discipline motivates the members to act in a way consistent with their reciprocal
strategic objectives, which also includes the making of decisions that are optimal for the overall
supply chain. Incentive alignment includes the calculation of costs, risks, and benefits as well as the
formulation of incentive arrangements, such as pay-for-effort and pay-for-performance [84]. The
impact of incentive alignment can be arbitrated on the basis of self-enforcement and
compensation fairness. On one side, self-enforcement refers to self-limitation of SC members for the
purpose of alignment of their individual decisions with the reciprocal objective of improving the
total profits. On the other hand, compensation fairness guarantees that aligned incentives
stimulate the SC members to share equally the loads and benefits, which are a result of
collaborative efforts.

D. Trust

Trust is also an important feature in SC collaboration [87, 88, 89]. Many researchers agree that a
significantly high level of trust between SC members can noticeably improve the supply chain
performance [90]. One of the main reasons is that the enlargement of inter-firm trust might exclude
many redundant activities, which are needed to recognize the opportunistic behavior [91]. When
SC members rely on the honesty of their partners, the transaction costs (e.g. for the monitoring and
quality control) can be significantly decreased [92].

IV. SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION IN THE TOURISM SECTOR

A. Defining the tourism industry

Defining the tourism industry is one of the key steps in the concept and definition of tourism
supply chains [93]. The terms travel, tourism, and hospitality are often twisted around each other,
but caution must be taken to avoid missed view. On one side, services ensured by the travel and
hospitality industry are partly employed for tourism purposes. On the other side, there also exist non-
tourist customers, which use the services of hospitality and travel industry. If we want to be precise,
we can isolate activities in the tourism industry by taking into consideration whether they serve
tourists (see Fig. 4) [93, 94].

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

Fig. 4. The relationships between the hospitality, tourism, and travel industry (adopted from
Piboonrungroj [93] and Pizam [94])

Identifying tourism SC components are another key step in the concept and definition of tourism
supply chains. For this purpose, the correlation matrix approach derived from the tourism SC links
can be adopted (see Fig. 5) [52, 93].

Fig. 5. Correlation matrix, which represents the components in the tourism supply chain (adopted
from Piboonrungro [93] and Tapper and Font [52])

With respect to Fig. 5, tourism supply chains contain several components, which are linked to
each other. They can be classified by their functions as follows [93]:

1. Input providers (Raw materials),

2. Service providers,
3. Intermediaries (travel agencies and tour operators),
4. Freight transport (physical flow),
5. Passenger transport (customer flow), and
6. Supportive sectors.

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Input providers (second tier suppliers) care about supplying the resources and materials for
service providers in the first tier [12]. Here, the food suppliers are particularly important. Service
providers represent a core components of the tourism supply chains. These providers, such as for
example hotels and airlines, are in direct contact with the customers. They deliver services to the
customers and are the most responsible for the tourists’ satisfaction [69]. Intermediaries have an
enormous influence on the tourism supply chains. Namely, they are the architects of the SC design
since they control the flow of the tourists and are considered as the “gatekeepers of the tourism
supply chain” [95]. The role of the intermediaries is illustrated in Fig. 6 [93]. The freight transport has
an important role in the sense of ensuring the seamless transactions between the first tier and
second tier suppliers. They are integrators of the physical flows and responsible for efficient transport
operations. Considering the passenger transport, the main issue here is to move seamlessly the
tourists along their trips [93, 96]. Finally, the primary role of supportive sectors is to support the major
operations of the tourism supply chain (for example, souvenirs, waste management, and energy).

Fig. 6. The role of the intermediaries in the tourism supply chains (adopted from Piboonrungroj [93])

B. Model of the typical tourism supply chain

Good understanding of the tourism SC network configuration is a prerequisite to analyze

successfully and manage the SC operations. Many different network topologies have been
proposed, but, as Zhang and his colleagues say, the structure developed by Page [97] is the most
suitable and representative. This structure has been further generalized by [12] and is shown in Fig.
7.

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Fig. 7. The network structure proposed by Zhang et al. [12]

As can be seen from Fig. 7, the travel agencies are the retail divisions of tourism products and
operate with tourists and tour operators. Travel agencies and tour operators can be the equal or
separate corporate entities. Tour operators buy individual travel services (such as accommodation
and transport) from their suppliers (such as hotels and carriers) and accumulate them into holiday
packages. The latter are then sold to the tourists directly or via the travel agencies [98]. The first -tier
includes direct suppliers, which in a straight line supply tourism services to intermediaries. Typical
direct suppliers include hotels, bars, restaurants, theme parks, shopping centers, handicraft shops,
and transportation operators. Usually, more complex tourism supply chains also contain second-tier
suppliers, which supply services/products to the first-tier suppliers. As shown in Fig 7, the local
government is also another typical player in the tourism SC, which assists public and private sector
collaboration through policy intervention.

C. Tourism supply chain collaboration

Collaborative relationships have an essential influence on the successfulness of the tourism

supply chain [99]. Here, two kinds of supply chain collaboration are particularly important:

 intra-sector collaboration, and

 inter-sector collaboration.

A typical example of intra-sector collaboration is a collaboration between a hotel and another

hotel or other accommodation supplier [100]. Conversely, Inter- sector collaboration is the

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

collaboration between companies in the different sectors. However, this collaboration refers to the

same tier such as the collaboration between companies in the tourist attraction sector or the
accommodation sector [12]. Naturally, in this case, the mentioned two sectors are in the tier of
service providers. An example of a typical collaboration in the hotel sector is shown in Fig. 8
(Piboonrungroj).

Fig. 8. An example of a typical collaboration in the hotel sector (adopted from Piboonrungroj [93])

Naturally, there also exist several other classifications of collaboration in the tourism sector, such
as horizontal and vertical integration, downstream and upstream collaboration, and so. The details
about different types of collaboration’s classifications can be found in the literature [12, 93].

V. CASE STUDIES WITH TOURISM SCI AND SEM MODELING

Surprisingly, there has been quite a big gap detected in the tourism-based literature on applying
the SEM modeling for the purpose of investigating of relationships between relevant factors of SCI.
In this section, a typical case study of the manufacturing industry will be shown at first since its
conclusions are also important for the tourism supply chains [93]. Afterward, two relevant case
studies, which have conducted the structural equation modeling in the tourism industry, will be
shortly presented in the subsections B. and C.

A. Impact of SCC on collaborative advantage and firm performance (Manufacturing industry)

This study was carried out by authors Cao and Zhang [76], where the objective was to uncover
the nature of SCC and investigate its impact on firm performance. Here , the paradigm of
collaborative advantage was also involved. Fig. 9 shows the final result, which is the SEM model
representing the causal relations between the addressed constructs. The details about the
measured items (e.g. SCIS, SCGS, etc.) can be found in the corresponding paper [76].
From Fig. 9 it is evident that there exist significant positively directed causal paths related to the
observed constructs (SC collaboration, collaborative advantage, firm performance). These paths
were hypothesized by applying the hypotheses, and they carry the significant estimated weights
0.64, 0.50, and 0.35, respectively.
The achieved results show that the supply chain collaboration improves the collaborative
advantage and also has a positive influence on firm performance. Additionally, the collaborative

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

advantage, as an intermediate variable, also has a positive impact on firm performance. To

summarize, both findings imply that by amplifying the supply chain collaboration, SC partners can
achieve synergies and produce superior performance, which is ensured by the means of additional
collaborative advantage. As Piboonrungroj [93] shows in his work, the similar findings can be
concluded for the tourism industry.

Fig. 9: The developed SEM model for the manufacturing case study (adopted from Cao and Zhang
[76]).

B. The mediation impact of joint teamwork on the quality of relationship (Tourism industry)

This study was carried out by authors Shi and Liao [101], where the integration between
hospitality firms (hotels and restaurants in several Chinese cities) and their suppliers were studied.
The main objective was to investigate the impact of inter-organizational trust and interdependence
on the joint teamwork. Additionally, the mediation impact of joint teamwork on the quality of
relationship was involved as well. Fig. 10 shows the final result, which is the SEM model representing
the causal relations between the addressed constructs. The details about the measured variables
related to the constructs in Fig. 10 can be found in the corresponding paper [101].

Fig. 10: The developed SEM model for the first tourism based case study; All interrelations and
causal paths are statistically significant (adopted from Shi and Liao [101]).

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The authors of this study have given their conclusions as follows [101]:

1. The joint teamwork leverages the impact of inter-organizational trust and interdependence on
the quality of the relationship.
2. If the teamwork operates efficiently, the interactive resources can be transformed into the
relationship quality in terms of long-term, satisfactory, and committed inter-organizational
relationship.
3. Joint team work successfully simplifies the accomplishment of relationship quality in the
hospitality supply chains.

C. E-business implementation and its impact on relational quality of interrelations between travel
agencies and their suppliers (Tourism industry)

This study was carried out by the authors [102], where it was analyzed how managers of retail
travel agencies recognize the backgrounds and the consequences of adopting e-business in the
relationship with their suppliers. The research was focused on Spanish travel agencies, where the
integration of antecedents and relational effects was modeled by the means of SEM modeling. Fig.
11 shows the final result, which is the SEM model representing the causal relations between the
addressed constructs. The details about the measured variables related to the constructs in Fig. 11
can be found in the corresponding paper [102].

Fig. 11: The developed SEM model for the second tourism based case study; The statistically
significant weights of causal paths are denoted with their values (adopted from Andreu et al.
[102]).

The authors of this study have given their conclusions as follows [102]:
1. Online enabled customers are the main forerunners of online communications since they expect
to be employed in e-business practices in supplier relationships.
2. If travel agencies do not adopt e-business for communication with their suppliers, they could not
be capable to offer some services to their customers (i.e., booking codes, online tickets, and
so). In this case, consumers might prefer other providers.
3. Normative pressures are the main driver of e-procurement. In general, travel agencies and tour
operators are much more frequent users of e-procurement if compared to other tourism
entities. The reason is to avoid isolation from their suppliers.
4. Investment in technology for e-communication may cause structural ties among partners, thus
improving the relational quality (commitment and trust). This is confirmed by a direct positive
relationship between e-communication construct and trust regarding the agencies’ suppliers.

The International Conference on Logistics & Sustainable Transport 2015, website: http://iclst.fl.uni-mb.si/
 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

5. The impact of e-procurement on trust has a negative character. The reason might be in the
strong competition among the travel agencies, where the adoption of e-procurement is largely
enforced by pressure from the suppliers. This dependency might cause a seeming loss of control
from the travel agencies’ perspective, and thus shedding some light into the negative
correlation between the trust and e-procurement.
6. Finally, the results demonstrate the necessity to raise the level of perceived reciprocity in
improving the relationships with a supplier. In the context of relationships between the travel
agencies and wholesalers, the trust in the wholesaler professionalism is not enough to amplify
the commitment to the travel agencies’ supplier (wholesaler). On the contrary, the findings
indicate only an indirect relationship between the trust and commitment through the construct
of perceived reciprocity.

VII. CONCLUSIONS

The paper addressed the supply chain Integration and firm performance with emphasis on the
tourism sector. Its major objective was to provide a systematic review on the topic. The theoretical
background of supply chain integration and collaboration was shortly introduced as well. Also,
several typical case studies were represented from the field, based on the structural equation
modeling. The SEM models are very convenient for studying the causal relationships between the
integration components related to the supply chain members. The reason is that they include all
needed sophisticated statistical mechanisms, which enable the capturing of complex interrelations
among the supply chain entities.
To the best of our knowledge, there have not been published a lot of scientific papers, which
would include the systematic review and additional short explanation of the issues related to the
tourism supply chain integration. So we hope that our review will contribute to the fastest possible
absorption of this exciting SC topic, particularly for those who are less experienced researchers or
students of SC management.

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AUTHORS

A. Dejan Dragan, Phd, is the Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor, Celje,
Slovenia (e-mail: dejan.dragan@um.si).
B. Tomaž Kramberger, Phd, is the Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor,
Celje, Slovenia (e-mail: tomaz.kramberger@um.si).
C. Darja Topolšek, PhD, is the Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Logistics, University of Maribor,
Celje, Slovenia (e-mail: darja.topolsek@ um.si).

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 11–13 June 2015 Celje, Slovenia

Manuscript received by 1 May 2015. [1 May 2015]

Published as submitted by the author(s).

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