Understanding small firms in tourism: A perspective on research trends and challenges

Although small firms in tourism have featured on the agendas of policy-makers for several decades, academic interest over the same period has fluctuated. Certainly the flurry of activity that occurred during the early 1990s became a steady flow of somewhat fragmented output rather than the ambitious and coherent programme of research that was anticipated at the time. The paper traces progress in this field by reviewing inter-, multi- and disciplinary studies that contribute to current understanding of small firms in tourism and how this understanding articulates with wider debates within tourism studies. In so doing, it challenges some conventional wisdom and provides an agenda for future research.