THE PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE BUSINESS NETWORK OF TOURISM CLUSTER: A CASE OF PINGYAO ANCIENT CITY
FENG Wei-hong1,2, SHAO Xiu-ying2
1. The Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Taiyuan Normal University, Taiyuan 030012, China;
2. Management Department, Taiyuan Normal University, Taiyuan 030012, China
Abstract A tourism business network is defined as a collection of formal or informal relationship set up to serve tourism products and service for the tourists among tourism businesses and between tourism businesses and related institutions. It is different from the business network of the manufacturing industrial cluster,and more complex than that of the general tourism destination in the scale, characteristics, structure of the network. Business networks of the tourism cluster can be divided into four different types in the according to four standards. They are divided into the external and local networks according to the relation range, formal and informal network according to the relation way, vertical and level networks according to the relation direction and transaction and communication networks according to the relation content. Based on the investigation of tourism businesses in the Pingyao ancient city with the sampling survey method and the social network analysis, it is concluded that the business networks of tourism cluster have three characteristics. At first, the local network has important effects on the promotion of the competitiveness and innovation of tourism cluster. Secondly, informal networks with communication and informal cooperation as the main content are given priority to. Thirdly, the core departments and the businesses with certain status in the industry hold the center of the local network. Finally, the scope and netting object of local network is associated with the geographic space and the personal relationship. The innovation of the paper is that the attribute and characteristics of the business network of tourism cluster are analyzed at first and demonstrated by the case of Pingyao Ancient City. This lay the foundation for further deconstructing the business network of tourism cluster.
2015, Vol. 30 
