EXPLORING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TOURISM INDUSTRY AND ANTECENDENTS TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE CREATION

Abstract

The tourism sectors comprises a wide range of industries in order to serve domestic and international visitors from business to leisure purposes. The aim of this paper is to explore on the topic of tourism, highlighting the characteristics of tourism industry and the antecedents to Competitive Advantage Creation (CAC). This paper uses exploratory study from 46 articles published in journals as well as conference proceedings. The result found that the characteristics of tourism product are adopted from service products. Service characteristics are based on IHIP (Inseparability, Heterogeneity, Intangibility, and Perishability). In the case of the tourism industry, competitive advantage could be created by providing an extraordinary experience which is the ultimate goal for travel and lead to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Therefore, this paper explains further the six competitive advantage creations through customer satisfaction. In conclusion, it is suggested that tourism industry should have collaboration between tourism players, in order to serve tourist better. Hence, exploring the tourism value chain activities will be advantageous.