Critical Theories and Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events - Assessment 1

Critical Theories and Methods in Tourism, Hospitality and Events
CHTM 36
Assessment 1
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Introduction
This report is a critical assessment of two selected journal articles, namely – “Cuba in
transition: Tourism industry perceptions of entrepreneurial change” (Hingtgen et al., 2015)
and “Impacts and implications of an annual major sport event: A host community
perspective” (Yao and Schwarz, 2018) in terms of their theoretical, philosophical and
methodological adoption of approaches for the studies conducted. Both of these journals are
centric to hospitality and tourism sector and present perspectives of stakeholders both direct
and indirect in the tourism industry owing to private entrepreneurship initiations, a sports
events in one case and rising privatization to engage a boost in sector in another. In the
upcoming sections, each of the article would be analysed from all three stated perspectives to
critically examine the effectiveness of the study.
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Analysis 1 - Cuba in transition: Tourism industry insights of commercial change
This study conducted by a group of scholars (Hingtgen et al., 2015) is focussed towards
establishing a firm connection between Entrepreneurial Climate or EC and the perceived
barriers to creation of Private Enterprises or PE. According to the scholars, for any
developing economy, it is very important to give a conducive environment to small
businesses in any economy (Gnyawali and Fogel, 1994; Porter and Kramer, 2011) to enrol
them as partakers to building a strong economy. Cuban economy is on a recovery path and
there is still a lot to achieve (Kolodko, 2000). However, owing to certain changes in trade
horizons such as allowing joint ventures with foreign investments up to 49% in sectors such
as mining, hotel industry and so on gave a boost to economy (Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-
López, 2005). As a result, the number of visitor footfalls increased and tourism got a boost.
The scholars ventured into this study to seek answers to two specific research questions. First
– the perceived barriers to people who planned to engage in PE activities involving tourism
and secondly, the most perceived factors which facilitated the engagement from residents in
such types of tourism related PEs.
For this, the scholars first delved into examination of what an actual Entrepreneurial
Environment or Climate could be. Entrepreneurial Climate is a conducive business
environment where business can thrive. Often, it could consist of trade norms, governmental
policies, competition and such other factors. Following cue from various scholars, some of
whom who supported that mostly it is the culture of people, the nation and the commerce
environment provided which largely helps build entrepreneurial traits in any entrepreneur.
Alongside, the government backed policies, trade norms also form the macro elements of this
climate to function appropriately but largely they agreed that it was the culture that
contributed a lion’s share to building a proper entrepreneurial environment. The study
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thereafter explores the history of Cuban tourism and economic downfalls, rise of dual
currencies (Díaz-Briquets and Pérez-López, 2005), trade restrictions by US to showcase the
tumultuous challenges faced by this small nation which valued family connections and
networking and held it close to heart. It also showcases the devotion of Cuban administration
to making tourism its strong economic pillar and support it has lent to the robust
establishment of the tourism sector. The Cuban Entrepreneurial Climate was a major
amalgamation of Cuban culture, administrative strategies, natural resources, historical
movements and the infrastructure in the nation (Staten, 2015) which have all in all assisted
the small time entrepreneurs to take creative steps to fulfil the gaps still present in a smooth
operative flow. The study is significant according to the scholars, as it helped outline the
present barriers and the favourable conditions encouraging or even discouraging the nationals
from engaging in Private Enterprise activities in the tourism sector.
As far as the theoretical approach goes, it looks like the scholars took the functionalism
approach where their level of analysis was macro. They tried to study the relationship among
different participants in the sector to draw inferences that could assist them to reach a
conclusion to point out the facilitators and the barriers to creation of the proper EC for the
private enterprises. The thought of this approach seems right it as it helps draw out the inner
workings of the industry that give a glimpse of its functioning to the reader. This is evident
through the varied job descriptions of the participants in the study which ranges from a
university faculty, employed in State, a taxi driver in State to a Paladar owner as a private
ownership, a café waiter in state employment, a Casa Particular owner, again in private. The
scholars had attempted to present a large picture. Here, the problem lied in the fact that the
participants were not equally distributed. Among the 14 participants, just 3 of them were in
Private ownership. The study is about getting perspectives from residents that influenced or
blocked them from entering PE activities in tourism sector and hence, they should have
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