Organization mergers, integration of activities in two or more organizations, have always attracted the attention of policy makers as well as decision makers. The merger of the three organizations of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts into one organization named the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts organization which took place in two stages between 2003 and 2005, is among the biggest mergers of the past few years in our country. This paper analyzes the effects of this merger on the competitiveness of tourism destinations. The model proposed by Ritchie and Crouch (2003), which is the most comprehensive model in this area is used. This model considers five main factors: core resources and attractors, destination management, destination policy, planning and development, qualifying and amplifying determinants, and supporting factors and resources. The effects of the merger on these factors were studied using two questionnaires verified by experts in the field. 47 of the total 62 questions were put in the first questionnaire and the other 15 were put in the second. Since the merger was completed in 2005, the statistical population is comprised of managers and staff at the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts organization in the province of Hamedan who had worked in one of the three separate organizations prior to the merger and tourists who had made a visit to the province then. 74 participants i.e. employees with over seven years of experience on the job responded to the first questionnaire and 219 responded to the second questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software package and single or multi-variant t-test. The results indicate that by considering 3 as the significance level all the hypotheses will be proven wrong. However, by considering 2 as the significance level all the hypotheses will be proven. This shows that not many changes may have taken place after the merger and it has only had a fair effect on competitiveness. Overall, we can conclude that the merger of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts organizations has not had a positive effect.
In order to overcome the mentioned challenges we make the following recommendations:
- Creating and improving international booking systems and using statistics and foreign travel research to attract foreign visitors.
- Setting up a crisis management committee in the organization to respond in unexpected situations. This is because destinations sometimes face crises that not only affect visitors directly but also sometimes face crises that not only affect visitors directly, but also may have indirect consequences that influence their perception of the destination.
- Holding more workshops and conferences on destination tourism, improving employment opportunities in order to ease shortages in human resources of the industry and related businesses.
- Identifying successful destination and their experiences and attractions as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the province compared to successful destinations. Modeling their successful experiences and using the resources of the province more efficiently.
- Utilizing information technology in the organization, giving more value to research projects related to the industry in order to develop the destination and using research in planning.
- Paying more attention to historical sites and attractions by renovating and expanding them as well as providing side-services near the sites. Using expert ideas and creating plans to preserve natural attractions.
- Improving the conditions for and investment in developing the city airport and the west-side railway of the country plus repairing the roads that lead to tourist attractions of the province.
- Planning for increasing tourism activities that the organization is responsible for.
- Improving conditions for investments in order to create unique recreational centers and providing unique services (e.g. using the climate and capacities of the province to build a winter sports resort since there are no such resorts in the country and the province is located in a mountainous area).
References
- Baher, H, 1377, “Thoughts on tourism: Iran and the World”, Management Publications, Management Studies Quarterly, Issue 20, Management Faculty of Alame Tabatabei University, Page 94.
- Dasville, R, translated by Arabi, Seyed Mohammed and Izadi, Davood, 1379, “Tourism management strategies and effects: the basics”, Cultural Research Office, Second Print, Tehran, Page 190.
- Kazemi S.A. and Rokuei Iman, 2001, “Destining a situational model for mergers of large government organizations in Iran”, Human Studies Publications, Volume 6, Issue 1.
- Kazemi A, Sanayei Ali, Ranjbaran Bahram, Azarbayejani Karim, 2010, “Identifying competitive advantages in the tourism industry in order to attract foreign visitors case study: the province of Isfahan”, Urban and Regional Studies, Volume 2, Issue 5.
- Nadali pour, Zahra, 2011. “Factors affecting competitive advantage of cities in urban tourism development”, Tourism management and development: challenges and solutions”, Technology Study Center at Sharif University, Tehran.
Copyright: © 2013 The Author(s)
Published by Human Resource Management Academic Research Society (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
