Which Future for Traditional Travel Agencies? A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

The advent of the digital age seems to have displaced brick-and-mortar travel agencies. This implies that to be competitive, traditional travel agencies must reconfigure their business processes. Using the resource-based view as a theoretical paradigm predicting performance differentials, this article investigates the impact of dynamic capabilities on operational capabilities, and the way network resources, generally deriving from interfirm connections, moderate this relationship. The empirical research design uses a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis approach on a sample of traditional travel agencies. The findings, corroborated by a subsequent qualitative analysis, suggest that the dynamic capabilities unfolding from shifting the business processes from the outgoing to the incoming market segment, and from retailing to packaging tourism products, boost the competitiveness of brick-and-mortar travel agencies. However, while network resources positively support the shift from outgoing to incoming processes, they may hinder the shift from retailing to packaging processes.