Future of SMEs in tourism Dimitrij Piciga M.Sc. Director of Slovenian Tourist Board

Role of SMEs in tourism  Mix of small number of large (often multinational) businesses and large number of SME´s (often family run);  SME’s are of strategic importance to economies like Macedonia and Slovenia: Contribute to growth in employment at higher rate than larger companies; Help in the restructuring and streamlining of large state-owned enterprises; Provide Economy with greater flexibility

SMEs in EU tourism  European tourism is largely an SME-dominated sector  99% of firms employing fewer than 250 employees  92,4% employing fewer than 10 employees  Tourism SMEs represented 7,4% of total SMEs in Europe  6,5% of total turnover of European SMEs is generated by tourism SMEs

 Funding applications  Skills gap – how to market products  Sense of isolation post business start-up phase  Suitably qualified staff  E-Commerce facilities - Merchant accounts  Lack of cohesive multi-agency approach to planning and development of small scale tourism projects  Lower profitability – absence of economies of scale Hurdles for tourism SMEs

 Development of e-commerce for SMEs – Macedonian government portal  Opportunities for new Regional Tourism Partnerships  Training – Need to be flexible, focus on Mentoring and Coaching. Examples: E-Biz Online Management Training Center - TWIGS Initiative - Solutions E-Marketing Toolkits, Familiarisation visits, and customised marketing partnerships are valued by Tourism SMEs” Canadian Tourism Commission Feb 2005

“Tourism does not function in a vacuum” (Mintza & Pappadopolus 1985) Destination Perspective - Leadership, partnership, ownership! How can the objectives of developing and marketing natural resource tourism opportunities be best met and balanced with the needs of small communities, individual businesses and regional bodies within the region? Simple! Only an integrated multi-agency approach will work - facilitated by partners, BUT coordinated locally. Partnership represents a more complex way of doing business moving from competition to cooperation to collaboration and the task is not an easy one.

Business Perspective - Partnership is the key to sustainability and success  Co-operation and clusters key to competitiveness – product linkages.  Opportunity to develop and present clusters of offer such as Spa and Tourism farms under umbrella of Macedonian national tourist portal - (  EXAMPLES: KraleMarkoCult ( USAID – Tourism Cluster Health Farms of Ireland ( Horse Holidays in Cumbria ( Comment: In regions where niche tourism has worked – partnership, networking, collaboration and innovation abound

 Form value chain built on linkages and interdependencies among players  Achieve synergy and economic advantage in terms of market entry, access and penetration  Shopping analogy So why do clusters work?

Potential for Natural Resource Tourism  Macedonia is an ideal environment for developing compelling NRT product offerings  Macedonia needs to develop plans for sustainable marketing and product development  Need for real help to find ‘best fit’ for bringing product-to- market  Political will & inertia combined with vision & leadership

Thank you for your attention!