INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT IN TOURISM INDUSTRY: DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

Travelling abroad has become a trend in recent years. Tourism businesses offer various preparations for going abroad, such as visas, reservations, accommodation and other trip arrangements. After deregulation of traveling in 1988, tourism business in Taiwan has grown rapidly. However, as businesses consider turnover as business performance, malicious price competition at the travel market, low quality, and vicious closure have frequently occurred. At such a competitive travel market, how to enhance tourism quality and profit target with predominant innovative management has become a major issue for a tourism business. Based on the operational information of tourism industry in Taiwan in 2008-2010, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity analysis are combined to measure total efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) of 10 major tourism and travel agents in Taiwan. The research results would be the reference of innovative management efficiency improvement in tourism.