Promotion of the Strategic Capabilities of tourism Businesses through national Tourism Policies

The wider profile of qualifications that tourism businesses need to appropriate in the context of internationalization emphasizes the importance of strategic approaches. Thus, strategic capability of businesses is gaining a more critical role regarding public support through tourism policy. This article refers to a planning-oriented strategic management process model in order to explain strategic capability. Accordingly, tourism-specific foundations of strong strategic capability are discussed and derived in strategic processes. Based on that, instruments and measures of Swiss and Austrian tourism policies are pragmatically analyzed to uncover supportive effects on the strategic capability of businesses. Tourism policy has the power to promote strategic capability of tourism businesses in order to enhance industry competitiveness particularly through the application of incentive systems that support all three main processes of strategic management.