Strategic Alliances in Ontario Culinary Tourism, Canada

摘要

Although strategic alliances in general business settings have received increasing attention and been well studied by scholars, to the best of our knowledge, research on strategic alliances in culinary tourism has been sparse. The researchers conduct a meta-analysis of strategic alliances in Ontario culinary tourism, Canada for a better understanding of the success or failure of these alliances by using the guidelines from the Ontario Culinary Tourism Strategy Report (2005) and Michael Porter's "Cluster Theory." The literature review was based on the studies of strategic alliances in the cases of "Tastes of Niagara," the Waterloo-Wellington Ale Trail, "Taste of the County" (Prince Edward County) and "Savour Muskoka." This study presents the lessons learned from these Canadian practices with regards to their leadership, trust, funding as well as communication and information sharing. These lessons could be beneficial to the strategic alliances including the established, new comers and future ones in implementing their culinary tourism strategies.