Back of the Envelope: Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises' Approaches and Attitudes to Planning

Abstract

Small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) dominate New Zealand's tourism industry. They are important vehicles of economic development in rural areas and have a sizeable influence upon a tourist's experience. Literature has reported that SMTEs do not plan strategically, have an under-appreciation of planning and are disinclined to seek external planning assistance, despite planning being purported as a way that could help overcome their inherent difficulties. This points to a need to explore and understand the perceptions and approaches owner-managers have of planning. Based upon semi-structured interviews of owner-managers, this paper reveals that most operators are informal and ‘back of the envelope’ planners, with their experience allowing intuitive decisions instead. Considerable operational involvement results in a need for owner-managers to prioritize their time, and documenting plans is not considered necessary. Despite these findings, owner-managers reported that they value planning. This paper provides insight into the experiences of owner-managers from a peripheral, rural area of New Zealand and argues that business owners are indeed strategic planners, but are not recognized as such because they do not have the typical corporate or business strategies commonly prescribed in the management literature. Rather, they adopt unique lifestyle strategies such as the purposeful avoidance of business growth. Considering their informal planning methods, it is more pertinent to describe SMTEs as having ‘strategic intent’. The owner-managers' vision and intent are strategic, albeit unique, as they are driven by lifestyle motivations.

Keywords:

• Small and medium tourism enterprises
• strategic planning
• strategic intent
• strategic vision
• lifestyle
• growth