Business strategies in the tourism sector : a new approach to understanding the hidden structure of the tourism industry

![CDATA[The traditional way of defining the tourism industry has been in terms of the circumstances of consumption, with a series of assumptions made about the suppliers of those goods and services used by tourists. The first assumption is that consumption of goods or services by tourists indicates the existence and presence of a ‘tourism industry’. The ultimate assumption is that all suppliers of goods or services used by tourists are components of this ‘tourism industry’. An implicit intermediate assumption is that all those suppliers have, or should have, a business relationship with tourists. This final assumption was explored in this paper, which discusses the findings of a qualitative study, which investigated the business strategies of marginal tourism firms (suppliers of routine consumable goods and services whose markets comprise both tourists and locals). In particular, the reasons why some of these firms target tourists and why others do not are analysed and the implications of the research findings for tourism coordination, policy and planning are considered.]]