Strengthening Farmers-hotel Supply Chain Relationships: A Service Management Approach

This thesis is an investigation of inter-sectorial linkages between the tourism and agriculture sectors. Tourism presents an innate opportunity to create dynamic service systems that promote sustainable development in both developed and developing countries. The alternative development paradigm promotes tourism inter-sectoral linkages to achieve a more sustainable form of development. Agriculture and Tourism Linkages are generally subscribed to as a means of distributing tourism benefits to host communities in tourism dependent developing countries. The supply of local food to hotels is one channel in which these linkages can be facilitated. For decades, research has found farmer-hotel supply chain relationships to be weak resulting in economic leakages due to high food importation to support the tourism sector (Telfer & Wall, 1996; Torres, 2003). A framework within which these linkages can be strengthened is proposed. Instead of the traditional cost-driven transactional management of hotel supply chains, a service-oriented farmers-hotel supply chain is considered. This approach places greater value on local food as it becomes part of the visitors’ service experience. Investigations of two hotels’ local food supply chains indicated that the service oriented approach contributes to strengthening agriculture and tourism linkages. Strengthened linkages using local food are expected to contribute to solving socio-economic challenges such as; unemployment among the rural poor, low income of farmers, food insecurity and poverty. This research provides useful insights for development planners, policy makers, service sector managers, academics and futuristic thinkers in the tourism industry who are all in search of practical solutions to the tourism development challenge highlighted.