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This article focuses on ecological innovations as basis of sustainable competitive advantages for destinations. First of all it outlines the growing demand on eco-friendly travel offers, however, there is only limited supply of really innovative and sustainable products in the tourism market. To cope with the fearce competition within destinations, ecological innovations could be a tool to establish competitive advantages. The authors therefore are choosing the corecompetence based view of management. The basis of consistent, sustainable competitive advantages are the resources and the core competencies of a destination. The public authorities do have a leadership role in this process, where the private sector of a destination is the driving force of the innovation efforts. As a result of this paper, concrete operation guidelines will be outlined, which are necessary for a successful management of innovations within a destination, in order to set up strong and effective ecological competitive advantages.

Volunteer tourism is a growing market, already having been recognised by several travel guides. Only limited research has yet been undertaken to create an understanding of this phenomenon. In order to analyse the international volunteer sector in Namibia, a survey via standardised questionnaire was carried out amongst 341 international volunteers in 2007/08. Following a five point criteria catalogue three volunteer tourism-projects were identified, employing 92 of the interviewed volunteers. Furthermore 20 expert interviews were conducted. Between these projects the degree of commercialisation varied widely. Volunteer tourism combines elements of single-, adventure-, nature- and activity vacations. It addresses primarily young adults who request a special, intensive and exotic adventure abroad. In contrast to the basic altruistic idea of volunteering, the motivation of volunteer tourists often arises from hedonistic aims.

Innovations are often not taken into consideration when analysing the effects of major sport events. This paper provides an analysis of the innovative power caused by such events, using the example of the UEFA EURO 2008. A system of categories is developed to classify the innovations implemented in Switzerland in context of the EURO 2008. On the basis of 59 innovations the EURO 2008 is considered to have a certain innovative power. At least a few innovations do have a long term impact and can be characterized as sustainable.

Small and medium sized hotels (SMHs) are considered to be the backbone of tourism in many countries, including Switzerland. Despite their importance, there is little knowledge about management issues and challenges associated to SMHs. Based on an extensive survey with more than 500 hotels, this paper develops and discusses an ex-post data-driven structurisation approach on challenges of SMH management. The results - somewhat challenging previous results - indicate that management challenges in SMHs can be structured into the following dimensions: (1) Finance and renewal, (2) Personnel and processes, (3) Collaboration, (4) Market presence (Pull), (5) Quality issues, and (6) Market development and -penetration (push). The analysis further reveals that differences in the above structurisation are basically driven by size of the hotel, location as well as business model. Innovation could not be identified as own type of challenge but rather antecedes the majority of the above dimensions.

The real estate and financial crisis has hit the international tourism industry hard. As a result, its principal standard-bearer, the hotel industry, is currently suffering from a severe performance downturn. Against the backdrop of this current, crisis-related process of change, the present paper addresses the research issue of whether international hotel chains, who are currently being presented as innocent victims of the real estate and financial crisis, are not in fact themselves implicated in the onset of that crisis in their capacity as hotel sellers on the international real estate and capital markets. Conclusions confirming this hypothesis are set out below, based on the theory of efficient capital markets and backed up by selected practical developments thereof.

Zusammenfassung Der Tourismus als „Leitindustrie des 21. Jahrhunderts“ gilt heute als einer der am stärksten globalisierten Wirtschaftszweige der Weltwirtschaft. Touristische Produkte werden global und trotz hin und wieder auftretender Krisen in großer und weiterhin stark ansteigender Menge und Intensität produziert und konsumiert. Es sind moderne Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT), die mitunter als Motor diese Entwicklung vorantreiben: „Information is the lifeblood of the travel industry. It connects travellers, tour operators, travel agents and tourism industry suppliers” (zit. Vanhove 2001, S. 137). Vormals vor allem für den Betrieb von internationen Distributions- und Reservierungssystemen der Reiseindustrie eingesetzt gewinnen IKT seit seit einigen Jahren auch im Tourismusmarketing an Bedeutung. So ist Onlinemarketing zu einem wichtigen Bestandteil im Marketing-Mix von Tourismusanbietern geworden (vgl. Möhler, Schmücker 2005). Hintergrund ist, dass die Zahl der Internetnutzer stetig ansteigt; momentan gibt es 1,2 Milliarden Internetnutzer weltweit (UNWTO 2008). Als Konsequenz davon wächst auch die Bedeutung von IKT für das Tourismusmarketing weiter an. Ihre Nutzung entwickelt sich zu einem der zentralen Erfolgsfaktoren im Tourismusmarketing (vgl. Salzburg Research 2007), denn das Internet spielt bei der Reiseentscheidung von Gästen eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle (vgl. UNWTO 2008).