Research on the Competitive Dimension of Travel Agencies Based on
the Marketing Dynamic Capabilities Theory
Na Han1, Jian Li2, Jian-mei Liu3
1
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China;
2
School of Social Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China;
3
College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China
(93788228@qq.com)
Abstract - Complex, dynamic and competitive
environment has posed many challenges to travel agencies
regarding maintaining competitive advantages and it is
imperative that the Travel agencies must have the
marketing dynamic capabilities to quickly respond the
changes taking place in the market. Based on the theory of
marketing dynamic capabilities and the problems being
faced by the travel agencies, this paper applies factor
analysis to analyze the various dimensions of travel
agencies’ competitiveness. The results shows that the
dimensions included five categories: market information
management; social network resources; travel agencies
human resources; brand management and travel agency
innovation, and the roles of different dimensions to enhance
the competitiveness were different.
Key words - dynamic capabilities, marketing dynamic
capabilities, travel agencies, factor analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
Proposals of State Council on Accelerating
Development of the Tourism inter-alia focus on making
this industry as a pillar industry with strategic
significance in national economy. However, due to the
changing customer demands and fierce market
competition, the uncertainty and complexity grows
increasingly which cause frustrations to many travel
agencies while some more factors such as sharp increase
in the number of firms; similarity of the products; price
competition; damage to corporate reputation etc also add
to it. So, because of such high uncertainty, companies
must have the dynamic capabilities to quickly adapt to
changes in the industry. However, travel agencies usually
focus on price competition. Therefore, obtaining a
competitive advantage becomes the disadvantage of many
travel agencies.
During last a few years, the theory of dynamic
capabilities has becomes a hot topic among the scholars
in the field of marketing. The concept of this theory was
first time put forward by Fang & Zou (2009), which
reflected the ability of facing the rapidly changing market
demand, the speed and efficiency of inter-departmental
business processes for the creation and delivery of
customer value. Although scholars have proposed the
concept of marketing dynamic capabilities, without
in-depth research, there are considerable different
opinions on the dimensions of marketing dynamic
capabilities[1]. Even, the theory of marketing dynamic
capabilities for travel agency has not yet been evolved,
and this is undoubtedly the most critical capacity for
travel agency to respond to dynamic environment. Based
on this, Qinhuangdao travel agencies were taken as
sample for this research. This paper applies statistics
methods to analyze the dimensions of travel agencies and
to solve the problem that how to build the marketing
dynamic capabilities for travel agencies in dynamic
environment which will be helpful for travel agencies to
enhance the competitiveness from the perspective of
marketing strategy.
II. REVIEW OF THE THEORY
Although the literature about dynamic capabilities is
available in abundance，however, the current research of
marketing dynamic capabilities is still at its infancy
stage[2,3] and the study focused on travel agency
marketing dynamic capabilities is almost nil. This paper
aims to enhance travel agencies competitiveness,
therefore, review of the theory will include the dynamic
capabilities, marketing dynamic capabilities and travel
agencies competitiveness.
A. Application of dynamic capabilities in the marketing
field
Resource based view(RBV) explains the source of
corporate competitiveness, it points out that the
heterogeneity of resource is critical to the corporation to
obtain sustained competitive advantage. As, this theory
focuses on the internal resources, ignoring impact of
external environment on business, therefore, RBV can’t
explain how to gain competitiveness in highly
competitive environment [4,5].
Dynamic capability focuses on exploring how to
create competitive advantages in highly competitive
environment. If an enterprise could learn from customers,
better than competitors, to change its core business
processes and practices, ongoing reconstruction,
upgrading and allocation of resources [6,7], it will create
customer value better than competitors, finally gaining
excellent performance in the market (the Stan Maklan et
al, 2009). By means of dynamic capabilities, enterprise
could respond rapidly to market change.
B. The Concept and Dimensions of Marketing Dynamic
Capability
Research on dynamic capability has formed a
relatively complete system in academics, however, study
of marketing dynamic capability has not attained enough
attention[3]. Before concept of marketing dynamic
capability officially proposed, marketing scholars have
discussed marketing specific capacity [8,9] or market-based
dynamic capabilities [10,11] instead of marketing dynamic
capability. Bruni et al. defined marketing dynamic
capability from the perspective of resources and
knowledge [12], they thought that marketing dynamic
capability was the basis of long-term building, integrating
and reconstructing enterprises capabilities for managers.
Marketing dynamic capability reflect the ability of,
creating, using and integrating human resources, social
capital and managers’ cognitive on market knowledge in
order to adopt the change in market and technology.
Eisenhardt and Martin analyzed marketing dynamic
capability from the aspect of business process and they
consider that dynamic capability is reflected in a series of
business process to respond to the market changes and
managers could integrate and use resources to form a
strategy of value creation through this process [4]. On
basis of earlier achievements.
Scholars have put forward different views on
dimensions of marketing dynamic capability. Maklan
divided marketing dynamic capability into four following
dimensions from the aspect of customer relationship
management [13]: (1) demand management; (2) creation of
marketing knowledge; (3) establishing brand; (4)
customer relationship management. Bruni divided
marketing dynamic capabilities into following three
dimensions [12]: (1) management belief; (2) human
resource; (3) social capital.
C.
Travel Agencies Competitiveness
Two major research schools of thoughts on
enterprises competitiveness are related to Resource Based
View and theory of industrial organization. These two
theories studies corporate competitiveness and
influencing factors from different angles. RBV proposes
that heterogeneous resources are the source of enterprises
capabilities. Theory of industrial organization considers
that external environment has an important impact on
competitive advantage. These theories have different
emphases, in addition to risk in the market competition,
which includes many opportunities, so, the authors
believe that enterprises should combine resources with
external environment, to creatively enhance the
enterprises competitiveness.
Scholars choose price competition as the starting
point to solve the problems of travel agencies , involving
price-making, industry division, market structure, product
innovation and so on. Chang Dejun (2004) established the
core competitiveness of travel agency from five aspects[14]
i.e: strategic policy, brand operation, application of
modern information technology, human resources
management and corporate culture. Fang Dongcheng
(2004) thought that we should build core competitiveness
from six aspects[15], such as industry management system,
corporate credit rating, brand management, corporate
culture, customer loyalty and product innovation.
D.
Literature Review and Research Framework
Presently academic circles have diversified views on
the concept and dimensions of the marketing dynamic
capability and there are many problems in the
development process for travel agency, therefore, it is
necessary to apply marketing dynamic capability for
travel agencies to explore the key factors. Based on this
logic combined with the marketing dynamic capability,
this paper explores the following questions: Firstly, what
are the dimensions of marketing dynamic capabilities for
travel agencies? Secondly, whether the different
dimensions play the same function or not?
III. STUDY DESIGN
A. Defining of Marketing Dynamic Capability for Travel
Agencies
Based on the problems of travel agencies and views
of scholars in the past, this paper planned to analyze
marketing dynamic capability for travel agencies from
five aspects i,e: (1) market information management; (2)
human resource; (3) product development management;
(4) brand development; (5) social relations resources.
B. Marketing Research and Analysis
Qinhuangdao travel agencies have been chosen for
research for this paper. Out of total 116 Qinhuangdao
travel agencies, 88 agencies are chosen randomly for our
study, however, 75 questionnaires were delivered
successfully i.e 85.2% and 64 received back from, i.e
85.3%. We have determined 15 variables namely: level of
attention to market research(X1), collection and collation
of market information(X2), market research(X3),
information technology application(X4), keeping abreast
of market and adjusting business(X5), innovation(X6),
establishing advanced products Group(X7), cooperation
with other travel agencies(X8), relationship with hotels
and scenic spots(X9), relationship with the authorities and
important customer(X10), training of employees (X11),
employees development(X12), corporate team-building
(X13), developing brand(X14), customer loyalty (X15). The
score is assigned from 1 to 7, higher the score the more
attention and application.
IV. TESTING FOR DIMENSIONS OF TRAVEL
AGENCY MARKETING DYNAMIC CAPABILITY
Among these 15 variables, there might be some
interaction effects on each other, so, in order to analyze
more scientifically, the authors applied factor analysis to
this problem. This paper adopted factor analysis to turn
15 variables into fewer common factors F=(f1, f2,…,fp),
(the number of common factor<15), and then got
comprehensive factor value Z=b1f1+b2f2+…+bpfp, bi=λi/
Σλi, i=1,2,3,4,5, bi is the weight for the i th common
factor. Common factors extracted were the dimensions of
travel agencies marketing dynamic capabilities, bi
determined the roles of the dimensions on travel agencies
competitiveness.
information management, therefore, first principal
component F1 is named as “Market information
management”; Similarly，the second principal component
F2 is named “Social network resources”; The third
principal component F3 is named as “Travel Agency
Human Resources”; The fourth principal component F4
named as “Travel Agency Brand Management”; The fifth
principal component F5 is named as “Travel Agency
innovation”.
TABLE II. Rotated Component Matrix
Component
A. Extracting Common Factors
F1
Extracting common factors by SPSS 16.0 (Table1).
As can be seen from the table 1, the contribution rate of
five former characteristic roots was 87.11%.
0.910
F3
F4
F5
X2
0.881
Total Variance Explained
X3
0.858
Initial Eigenvalues
X4
0.870
Total
% Variance
Cumulative %
X5
0.896
X1
4.553
30.352
30.352
X6
0.976
X2
3.172
21.145
51.497
X7
0.970
X3
2.127
14.182
65.679
X8
0.925
X4
1.708
11.388
77.067
X9
0.871
X5
1.506
10.043
87.110
X10
0.877
X6
0.783
5.217
92.327
X11
0.786
X7
0.464
3.096
95.423
X12
0.887
X8
0.309
2.060
97.483
X13
0.859
X9
0.144
0.959
98.442
X14
0.984
X10
0.080
0.530
98.972
X15
0.985
X11
0.059
0.395
99.367
X12
0.036
0.241
99.608
X13
0.026
0.175
99.783
X14
0.020
0.136
99.919
X15
0.012
0.081
100.000
TABLE I
B.
X1
F2
Naming for principal component
However, the meaning of five common factors is not
clear, so it is difficult to name for common factor
extracted. The factor loading matrix is not unique,
therefore, rotating them by the method of varimax, it is
feasible to name for the rotated principal component
factor(Table 2).
As can be seen from Table 2, X1, X2, X3, X4, X5 had
higher load on the first principal component, these five
variables described market research attitude and its
implementation, which reflected external market
C. The Dimensions of Travel Agencies Marketing
Dynamic Capabilities
According to the table 2, we could get the function
which comprised of principal components and original
index variables. We could obtain bi from variance
contribution in table 1, and then get evaluation model of
travel marketing dynamic capability: Z = 0.348F1
+0.243F2 +0.163F3 +0.131 F4 +0.115F5.
As can be seen from the evaluation model, b1 is the
biggest weight in the five common factors, so F1 (market
information management) plays the most vital role, and
this dimension has an impact of 0.348 on travel agency
competitiveness; Social network resources has an impact
of 0.243 on travel agency competitiveness, ranking
second in the five dimensions, which suggests that travel
agencies pays more attention to external market
environment; However, band management has a little
impact on travel agency competitiveness, the weight is
0.131; The weight of product invention is only 0.115,
which is the least one, so travel agencies hasn’t pay much
attention to product invention.
Marketing Capability
basis
generating
market information management
integrating
Travel
Agencies
Marketing
Dynamic
Capabilities
Marketing Resource
Static Capability
Fig.1
social network resources
travel agencies human resources
Enhancing travel
agencies
competitiveness
brand management
travel agency innovation
Dynamic Capability
Model of Travel Agencies Marketing Dynamic Capabilities
V. CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECT
A. Conclusions
Based on marketing dynamic capability, this paper
used factor analysis to study Qinhuangdao travel agencies,
obtaining the dimensions of marketing dynamic
capability for travel agencies, and finding that different
dimensions
had
different
impact
on
travel
competitiveness.
B. Study limitations and future research directions
This study only selected Qinhuangdao travel agency
as research sample. In future, scholars should select
different areas and different types of travel agencies to
analyze and to ascertain whether there are differences in
travel agencies marketing dynamic capabilities.
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