An establishment of long-term partnerships with travel agencies is an important way of geographical expansion of large tour operators. Such a relationship is a strategic alternative for tour operators' interaction with independent travel agents through market transactions. We have investigated the influence of certain characteristics of Russian tour operators working in the field of outbound tourism on their ability to develop a partnership model of geographical expansion. The results show that tour operators with a high brand reputation, having a high index of geographical concentration of its agent network are more likely to create partnerships with travel agencies, rather than other tour operators.
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