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Today we find ourselves throughout many regions of Europe engaged in a lively debate as to the likely employment, education and training futures of the tourism industry. This debate owes its origins to the accelerating pace of technological change and market turbulance, which seems to have penetrated the entire industry.

This article develops a comprehensive cultural construct to explain and forecast tourists’ behaviour and quality judgements. A destination value chain is depicted to capture the possible influence of culture and cultural values on tourism behaviour. Cultural norms have an impact on both tourists’ expectations and their perceptions of received service quality for any of the six service elements frequently employed in tourism analyses. Tourism service encounters take place in the context of a tourism culture which is formed by four components: the national/regional settings of the tourist and the host region, the tourists’ various subcultures and the organisational culture of tourism enterprises in the tourism receiving region. A differentiated approach is developed which distinguishes between global, national and sub‐national cultural constructs.

This article investigates personal value systems in Iraq, in a sample of managers. The results indicate that the dominant values are those that compose the outward‐directed category: tribalistic, conformist and socio‐centred. In comparison American managers score high on manipulated values and the inner‐directed category is dominant. The results are discussed in relation to changes in Iraqi society and the functions of management.

The paper attempts to answer the question as to the determinants of the typical size configuration of firms in Central Europe's hospitality industry. In discussing the historically fragmented character of hospitality and tourism and the associated conduct and performance characters of this industry, the paper presents different possible growth scenarios and/or possibilities for the hotel accommodation sector including internationalisation. In the concluding section of the paper the consequences of the twin forces ofglobalisation and heightened competition and a quickened pace of technological change are analyzed with respect to the industry's pattern of growth and development.

The paper presents important measurement approaches in the field of costumer satisfaction with services and applies those empirically for service bundles at the level of the tourism destination. After working out the most prominent characteristics of existing satisfaction concepts according to the American and the Scandinavian school of thought, the latter will be critically evaluated for its potential practical use in measuring guest satisfaction. Based on this preparatory work, the Importance‐Performance Analysis, the Implicit Importance Analysis and the Penalty‐Reward‐Contrast Analysis are implemented and show that differing satisfaction models will lead to varying results and hence, ambiguous implications for destination management. However, due to its model parsimony and methodical stringency the Penalty‐Reward‐Contrast Analysis will be retained as the most valuable instrument for measuring tourist satisfaction. The paper concludes with implications for the management of destinations and a brief outlook for further research.

The paper is concerned with the tourism industry's increased demand for better educated and/or trained manpower and the general requirements of higher levels of know‐how on account of secular changes in the demand for higher quality tourism products, technological changes and a more competitive global environment. After discussing the general patterns of skill and know‐how acquisition in tourism in the context of today's labour markets and tourism schooling/training systems the paper speculates on possible causes for know‐how deficits assumed to be particularly prevalent in alpine tourism (section II and III). Following this section IV reports on qualification and know‐how deficits on the basis of a self‐assessment survey carried out among 144 tourism enterprises comprising the typical tourism value chain of alpine tourism. Conclusions are drawn up in V.

Post‐war tourism in the Swiss Alps developed in four distinct phases. The pioneering phase (1955 – 65) was led by small family businesses of an old‐fashioned patriarchal stamp: guided by ideals, ready to take risks, possessed of few qualifications. The next phase (1965 – 79) was a period of quantitative growth which saw tourism become an important sector of the national economy, and also prepared the way for mass tourism and the accompanying infrastructure and superstructure that appeared in the new alpine destinations. The so‐called consolidation phase (1980 – 89) brought the first ever downturn in the tourism growth curves.

The 47th Congress attempted to answer the following key questions: What exactly does quality mean in tourism? How can general and/or total quality be produced and marketed? How important is it to include the customer (tourist) in the process that leads to the provision of tourism services? In what way does quality create competitive advantages? How can the quality of a destination be assured in the same way as that of a corporation?

The article deals with factors that act as an incentive to internationalisation of the hotels in the small‐to‐medium‐sized enterprises (SME) category in the traditional tourism countries, and also discusses the obstacles to internationalisation. The “OLI” approach according to Dunning (ownership advantages, location‐specific advantages, advantages of internalisation) is tested against the results of a survey of hotelkeepers in the Alpine countries, particularly Austria. It is not just the size of the enterprise that acts as a limit on the extent of internationalisation of SMEs. Other factors that determine the attitude taken towards internationalisation include market intelligence, financing problems, the degree of entrepreneurial spirit, and the specific nature of tourism services.

This article shows first the problems of treating tourism as a product and analyses then the literature about information behavior of tourists, when they are making their decision for holidays. Empirical tests are dealing with data from eleven winter sport resorts, which were originally designed for purposes of service quality. However the results show that there are differences in information behavior due to personal and tourist status, due to the source of information and also whether tourist value the importance of skiing high or less.