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Purpose: The Internet has encouraged rural tourism experience providers to develop a new management strategy that opts for disintermediation to access the market. In this context, incoming travel agencies (destination management companies [DMCs]), despite the local component, lose capacity to promote the rural tourism. The main question is what kind of relationship between stakeholders would enhance effective intermediation processes between them. The paper examines such constraints and limitations of existing relationships between small local rural tourism producers and DMCs. Design/methodology/approach: Using the Basque Country region of northern Spain as a case study, the authors used a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology based on semi-structured in-depth interviews and an online survey. The data analysis strategy used incorporated descriptive and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Findings: In this research, most of the tourism disintermediation factors identified in previous literature were reinforced when tested in the rural context. The results confirm that power, value, product differentiation, digitisation and stakeholder collaboration are key elements. The value provided in the international segment by DMCs, though, was found to be irrelevant. Originality/value: This article contributes to filling a gap in the literature on rural tourism destination management from a holistic view of the destination understanding the business-to-business (B2B) relationship among stakeholders in rural tourism. This paper focuses on those elements that create value for local producers to sell the products through intermediaries and provides a framework for understanding the factors involved in value creation in rural tourism intermediation, which is applicable to further empirical studies and provides interesting managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reexamine several issues about disintermediation from the perspectives of tourism product/service suppliers (hotels) and traditional intermediaries (travel agencies), considering the move of the current distribution landscape toward disintermediation. Internet and mobile technologies offer various tools for consumers to search and purchase products/services from suppliers directly. Consequently, the necessity and role of traditional intermediaries in the industry become questionable. Design/methodology/approach – In all, six focus group interviews were conducted to collect primary data from ten managers of three traditional travel agencies and 11 managers from three business hotels in Hong Kong, which is a major travel destination in Asia with many world-class hotels and tourism facilities. Findings – Despite their different business backgrounds, the interviewees agreed on the increasing importance of Internet technology in the distribution of tourism products. The interviewees also posited that traditional travel agencies are still needed to serve certain customer groups, albeit their role may have little importance. Practical implications – Practitioners should adapt to technologically induced changes to remain competitive in the e-business era. Originality/value – This paper provides several original contributions. First, this paper supplements the extant literature by revealing how modern practitioners perceive disintermediation in the tourism and hospitality industry. Second, this paper is the first to investigate the disintermediation issue from the perspectives of tourism product/service suppliers and intermediaries. Finally, this paper provides a reference for industry practitioners to establish adequate strategies that take advantage of Internet technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Many new businesses are being formed to offer shared products and services. The author describes this trend as an access economy, which offers customers the benefits of disintermediation - tourist accommodations without hotel chains, local transportation without taxi companies, peer-to-peer lending without banks, retail storefronts with brokers and leases. The paper aims to analyse the factors that are driving its growth. Design/methodology/approach – The author offers five strategies for success in the access economy and describes how firms are using them to gain competitive advantage. Findings – The sharing economy has produced three phenomena – the shredding of vertical value chains, the creation of vast new horizontal value chains, and the social change of people preferring access to ownership or accepting the benefits of access. Together they bring significant economic and social changes to business and society. Practical implications – Some companies are beginning to adjust to the generational shift from ownership to access by deemphasizing the sale of things and refocusing their business practices on managing every aspect of their client’s value chain – what they call being a “solution provider.” Social implications – Instead of planning their lives on the premise of acquiring and owning more private property, a new generation of web adventurers, mostly young people, is finding meaning and satisfaction in having shared access to things and interacting with other people in the process. Originality/value – Each business will likely have a unique take on the best way to compete is this emerging environment given how much its customers value access and accept sharing. The author’s five possible strategies provide a starting point for corporate competitive scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The apparel industry has acted as a microcosm of global industrial change, exemplified by changes in structure, relationships and technologies. The purpose of this paper is to identify the risk drivers, the changing supply strategies and the relationships suppliers are developing or exiting from, notably because of the increasing power of retailers in the fast fashion sector. Design/methodology/approach – The research adopts a qualitative, case study methodology of the Leicester (UK) based suppliers who operate in the fast fashion market. Findings – Rich narrative data shows that the apparel supply chain has changed. The small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) have had more success in managing the upstream rather than the downstream, supported by their move towards a more design driven system. This willingness has been motivated by their wish to “own” the relationship with the buyer but this has not always resulted in greater power or returns and relationships have continued to be fractious. Research limitations/implications – There is a lack of research on supply chains, especially, apparel supply chains that focus on reality rather than best practice. This paper addresses the power relationships that are exerted in the supply chain and the cultural aspects that influence them, which have hitherto lacked academic focus. Originality/value – Adds empirical data to the theoretical work in the area, specifically, the shape of SME supply chains and the nature of risk in supplying fast fashion. It identifies the unequal power base of the supply chain and SMEs’ strategies for coping, or not, to some extent dependent on their culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current thinking on intermediation and disintermediation, extract candidate drivers for this cycle, capture the expert opinions on what is driving the cycle and determine the quantitative and qualitative conclusions related to the electronics industry supply network integration and requirements for its success. Design/methodology/approach — A series of one-on-one expert interviews were conducted to establish the validity of the initial list of drivers and to add to this list based upon their expert knowledge. A web-based survey followed with the purpose of validating the final dimensions list and assessing the various alternative value propositions that intermediaries should be considering. Finally, a Delphi exercise concluded this research thrust by convening experts in the electronics supply network for a one-day review of the results and a distillation of the results into expert forecasts of directions and trends. Findings — Any supply chain intermediary must achieve ‘Operational Excellence’ in their chosen field of endeavor for them to remain competitive in the electronics industry. But this condition is a necessary but not sufficient predictor of business success. The intermediary service ‘Bundles’ bring more value than individual cash flow, material flow, information flow or knowledge flow alone. And unbundling one flow from the others does not seem to provide a successful disintermediation platform. Practical implications — The paper provides electronics industry firms an assessment of the fundamental conclusions that must be addressed for this industry to better withstand another industry downturn than it did in the previous recessionary period (2001-2002). Originality/value — This paper documents the first triangulated research project where knowledgeable experts within the electronics industry supply network were polled to determine the fundamental drivers for the intermediation/disintermediation cycle present in the electronics industry today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eku ring the 1990s the "information age" spawned a new breed of enterprises devising business models unheard of previously. One aspect of this changing business environment has been the trend in disintermediation observed in many industries. Where many recent papers see disintermediation as a phenomenon related to online transactions, this paper defines it more broadly as the removal or a weakening of an intermediary within a supply chain. This paper attempts to explain why disintermediation of distributors/import agents often occurs at the growth phase of a product's lifecycle, highlighting possible opportunities and outcomes for distributors threatened by disintermediation. The paper uses a downturn in a company's fortune to illustrate the case and to provide a potentially generic analytical tool for small distributors that will almost inevitably face a conflict of interests with their suppliers, which leads to disintermedia lion pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]