Title: Mass customising the tourism sector in Kerala

Authors: Suresh Subramoniam, Sindhu R. Babu

Addresses: Faculty of Business, Sohar University, P.O. Box 44, Sohar, PC 311, Sultanate of Oman. ' Department of Business Administration, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, 695016, India

Abstract: Mass customisation is an effective approach in strategic management that can definitely help improve competitiveness both in products and services. The most inevitable paradigm shift of the modern era is the transformation from mass production to mass customisation. Its conceptualisation, implementation approaches and their applications in the hospitality industry using suitable examples are discussed here. Continuous improvement is a potential forerunner for effective implementation of the mass customisation technique. In the tourism sector in Kerala, especially ecotourism, there exists ample scope for applying the mass customisation strategies to remain more competitive than other states in India/abroad. Modern e-business era is highly competitive due to the global reach made possible through the use of internet. A new business model based on the internet is proposed for the ecotourism industry of Kerala, to promote collaborative mass customisation, with synergistic B2B connectivity among the involved industries apart from B2C connectivity.

Keywords: mass customisation; tourism; B2B; business model; B2C; e-business; electronic business; business-to-business; business-to-consumer India; hospitality industry; ecotourism; tourism marketing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLTM.2010.032066

International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.392 - 405

Published online: 07 Mar 2010 *

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