Knowledge Management for Tourism Research Processes of Tourism Labor

Knowledge Management for Tourism Research Processes of Tourism Labor

DR KARAGIANNIS STEFANOS

DR KOPANAKIS IOANNIS

Applied Research at Market Services Lab.

Management and EconomicsSchool

Technological Educational Institute of Crete

P.O. Box 1939 Iraklio, Crete, GR 710 04

GREECE

Abstract: -Knowledge management can support tourism research processes. Indeed, these tourism research processes are situated between a system of operational units, requiring and using research results, and a system of technological providers and academic laboratories. The knowledge flow between these systems is exposed to certain industrial constraints. The research labor needs to optimize internal and external knowledge flows. In this purpose we identified a knowledge of researchers. Based on a research process model, the knowledge and a theoretical knowledge management model we propose a portal solution. This portal solution allows manipulating information and knowledge more flexible in order to assure a certain dynamic for the knowledge management system in tourism. In future work we will integrate a knowledge evaluation process to focus on this dynamical aspect. This article discusses the introduction of a knowledge management system for a labor research processes at the “Applied Research at market services”.

Key-Words: - Knowledge management, tourism research processes, knowledge management system in tourism

1. Introduction

For every tourism company the managing of knowledge constitutes a strategic perspective. If knowledge and know-how are not under control, they represent an element of weakness. On the other hand, if they are under control, they become a resource and a strategic factor for continues improvement of tourist product and process quality and for the development of new knowledge on tourism.

“Applied Research at market services” in Crete center stands between an external information provider system (e.g. technology suppliers, but also academic laboratories etc), and a tourism operational system in Crete, (operational units like the design office, the assembly factories etc). The tourism operational system represents the most important final user of the tourist research results and thus can be considered as the tourism research enterprises. An information exchange process takes place between the operational system and the external information provider system with the “Applied Research at market services” center in the middle of this process.

The role of tourism research, nowadays, is to experiment, illustrate and validate models with new technological and methodological solutions, to combine them in order to propose new possible solutions for the requirements coming from the operational system. The role consists of creating new technological and methodological competencies and knowledge and to transfer them into the tourism operational system.

The position of tourism research implies information and knowledge flows. These flows have to respect certain constraints. In the next chapters we will expose knowledge relevant problems for tourism research and show how we count to face these problems with a knowledge management solution.

Figure 1: Tourism research process - Christian Frank and Mickael Gardon, p.414

2. Problem Description in tourism research

The fact that tourism research activities are directly linked to the tourist customers’ environment and the information supplier environment causes external influences and constraints on the internal research processes. Products and processes of the customers are under constraints like costs, quality. These constraints have a direct influence on tourism research processes: the results of the tourism research processes are dedicated to improve products and processes of the customers and thus need to respect the customers constraints. The tourism research customer constraints become the tourism research constraints. These constraints on research processes affect the information flow between the different systems and the management of knowledge: the control of knowledge in tourism research processes under constraints gets a crucial factor.

Knowledge management relevant problems can concern (some examples coming from interviews with tourism researchers and research managers):

• The knowledge acquisition: find external knowledge to integrate in research projects, get access to new internal knowledge, be always informed about the needs of the tourism units.
• Knowledge distribution: reach and contact the right people, exchange new ideas with experts, inform operational units about new research results.
• Knowledge preservation: preserve knowledge when people are leaving, update rapidly new arrivals and assure knowledge continuity, formalize and keep feedback concerning the application of tourism research results.
• Knowledge evaluation: use the right and useful knowledge to produce new knowledge on tourism aspects, know the maturity of internal knowledge compared to external knowledge, etc.

These problems need to be addressed in order to improve the efficiency of research processes of the “Applied Research at market services” lab and to counter the existing constraints.

3. A Functional Tourism Analysis

To reach our objective, we first conducted a requirement analysis with a group of researchers and research managers. In several meetings we tried to identify potential and desired KM functions, which should be provided by a KM system. These desired functions represent an important part of the knowledge management requirements and complete the expressed problems of the chapter above.

Firstly is to determine the environment interfaces of a potential model. The environment interfaces should represent the environment of a tourism researcher: he is in interaction with external information suppliers, internal information suppliers, information resources concerning the customer requirements (operational units), and teams of researchers (Figure 1).

The potential functions of such a model, identified during our work sessions in Crete (paper about CournaLake), combine and link the different interfaces (Figure 1). The functions are described below:

• The model should help to identify external tourism problems comparable with the problems of the research customers. The objective is to identify external tourism problems, industrial requirements among industrial partners, competitors, etc. similar to the problems and requirements of internal research customers. Certain external problems could be equivalent to the implicit customer needs not yet identified. This model should help to identify external solution proposals (methods and technologies) on the research customer requirements. The objective here is to support the identification of technologies and external methods, which could support the solution development for customer problems.
• The model displays the gap between the research activities conducted by external research organizations and the internal research activities. This function allows the visualization of an evaluation of external research activities compared to internal research activities concerning a tourism subject. It could show in which way external tourism problems are treated. After such a comparison, it would be possible to decide whether to integrate external research activities and results and to orientate the internal research activities. The knowledge management model can thus contribute to an evaluation on for knowledge and supports to select between obsolete basic and new knowledge.
• The model helps to identify external elements (concepts, methods, technologies, tools, and competencies) in order to carry out internal research activities. The model should show in which way the research activities cover the tourists’ requirements. The objective here is to visualize the difference between the tourism customers’ research requirements and the requirements treated and covered with internal research on tourism enterprises. This difference indicates the need for future research activities and the need to deepen already existing research activities and initiates actions to create new knowledge.
• The model should support a sense of sharing among internal researchers working in the same research area. In order to create this sense of sharing between researchers, it will be necessary to develop competencies references, to rely similar professions, similar project environments, and perhaps transverse organizations. The model should help to identify internal elements (methods, technologies and competencies) that help to carry out internal research activities. These potential functions transform the requirements in wishes for a knowledge management system. They are the starting point for process analysis and solution development.

Figure 2: VizMiner - Parallel Coordinates Visual Data Mining Model for Association Rules

Figure 3: VizMiner - Solar Plexus visual data mining model for Relevance Analysis

4. The flow of Tourism Research

In order to introduce our model, it is important to understand the functioning of processes and information flows. In this purpose we analyzed in more detail the organizational structure, the research processes, the information and knowledge flow and the knowledge structure of tourism researcher.

The research activities are embedded in our case in an organizational structure. The most important parts of this organizational structure concern a quality certification, a stable intranet structure with its document organization, a regularly reporting about the project advancements and regular project meetings and reviews.

The quality certification (ISO, HACCP) implied to introduce procedures describing and defining certain work processes and defining the production of certain documents. Documents have to be produced at the beginning of a research project (research programs) after every meeting concerning this project (minutes of meetings), at milestones and at the end of the projects (reports). This guarantees a minimum of information distribution and preservation. The quality framework is supported by an intranet, which helps to manage the different documents required by the quality procedures. The documents are structured according to the research project structure. This concerns also external relevant documents important for certain research projects. Regularly project reporting and review meetings are another mean to assure the distribution of the information concerning new research project results.

Of course, this structure is very specific to tourism environment. The fact of having quality certification for research processes might not be easy to accept for every researcher. The introduction of quality certification implies to respect certain organizational rules and predefined processes. This might be seen as a handicap for research activities. Nevertheless, the trend nowadays is to introduce quality certifications for more and more academic and tourism research organizations.

5. Research Processes

Tourism research processes are characterized by the anticipation of tourism operational unit requirements. This obliges the tourism research units to know and understand the tourism customers' problem environment. Providers of new external technologies and information constitute knowledge resources.

A research process is initiated by a need to improve processes and/or products of the operational system. A research process can also be initiated by the discovery of the importance of new innovative concepts (news types of tourism). According to the maturity degree of the researcher's knowledge, the research process can be decomposed into the following phases.

The activities concerning the investigation characterize the identification of new research domains (new types of tourism markets and new types of tourism form), the observation of new technological possibilities and activities and aims to constitute state-of-the-arts about new technologies and new methods. Therefore, the tourism researcher transfers and transforms external information or external knowledge into internal knowledge: a knowledge flow from the external environment to the internal environment. The monitoring activity is very important for this phase of the research process. Before transferring external knowledge into internal knowledge, the researcher evaluates the utility of the external knowledge for his future research activities.

•The objective of the next step is to focus on new technologies and methods and to acquire new knowledge and competencies. Experimenting and illustrating prototypes by using new technologies and methods help to acquire new knowledge and competencies. The activity allows combining internal and external knowledge with given problems. This combination is characterized by learning processes for researchers, by knowledge exchanges among researchers and initiatives of

innovations. Transfer driven research is directly related to the operational units requirements.

The objective is to experiment illustrators, prototypes and methods with concrete data corning from the operational units. By proposing improvements for the identified problems, the research units transfer their knowledge into the operational units. As in the "focalization" phase, researchers combine internal and external knowledge to come up with suitable solutions. However, the role of internal knowledge dominates the role of external knowledge. Internal knowledge, coming from exploratory research activities and the experimental phase has to be adapted to research tourism customer problems. This transfer of knowledge is also accompanied by learning processes for researchers: the feedback of the operational tourism units about implemented research solutions.

Managing knowledge in tourism research processes requires knowing which knowledge is manageable. Besides, it is also important to know which knowledge will be necessary to conduct research activities and to come up with research results. These aspects encouraged us to find a knowledge of tourism researchers necessary to develop research results.

6. Knowledge Management in Tourism

Our toolbox enables the execution of the different activities from the knowledge management model. Each toolbox contains an information input field, a specific toolbox area according to the activity of the knowledge management model and an information output field. The information input and output field are structured according to the knowledge typology model. As the typology model represents the necessary knowledge for research activities this structure assures the availability of critical knowledge. This model allows to coordinate the different knowledge management activities and to integrate a process view, an activity view and a knowledge management view.

For each research activity we define the different knowledge management activities with their different inputs, outputs and tool functions.

7. Conclusion and Perspectives

In order to realize a knowledge management solution for tourism research processes we first described the different research activities in a research process model and illustrated the knowledge of tourism researchers in our knowledge model. With a functional analysis we tried to describe, in a "systematic way", the demanded functions of a potential knowledge management system. Based on these models and the existing organization environment (ex. quality certification) and with an external theoretical knowledge management model we constructed a knowledge management solution for tourism research processes. For the different research activities we proposed different knowledge management solutions. All these solutions are integrated in a portal.

We try for a better structure of information and there exists a better overview of the different external and internal environments where the different information come from. The structure of information according to the knowledge typology of the tourism researchers allows manipulating information without manipulating whole documents. This facilitates comparing external information like information coming from technical suppliers with information coming from operational units.

As a perspective, we will now start working on knowledge evaluation (for CournaLake, Aestheticforest in Steni Euvoia). A knowledge evaluation process could constitute a basic framework for the functions included in a knowledge management system for tourism research processes. The evaluation process is important for innovative processes: considering external knowledge as important can lead to new research activities in order to obtain the same knowledge. The knowledge evaluation in specific research context and for given problems can initiate new research projects which can lead to the development of new knowledge. A knowledge evaluation mechanism is part of the basic functions for a knowledge management system for tourism research processes and gives a dynamic framework to knowledge management with the valuable assistance of “Applied Research at market services” n Crete lab.

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