Business performance of small tourism enterprises: a comparison among three sub-sectors of the industry

Although numerous studies have evaluated the performance of small tourism businesses (STBs), most of them have neglected to take into account the unique characteristics of various sectors within the industry and limited the study within a specific type of location. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge pool on STBs through an analysis of differences in performance among three subsectors of the industry in an urban setting. The study attempts to understand the unique characteristics of each of these types of STBs and differences in their operation patterns by comparing their performance. The findings revealed that food and beverage ventures and tourist attraction ventures performed better than accommodation businesses on a considerable part of the variables while food and beverage ventures had the highest mean scores. The study indicates the significance of dividing the industry into subsectors for evaluating the business performance.