Performance measurement in the value chain: manufacturing v. tourism

Purpose – This is a conceptual paper. Its purpose is to compare the performance measurement of manufacturing and tourism industries from a value chain perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The paper achieves its objective by reviewing the relevant literature from both manufacturing and tourism fields. It compares and contrasts the particular characteristics of both industries as well as the work done in these fields with respect to performance measurement and management in their value chains. Findings – The paper finds that in the manufacturing industry the latest thinking in supply chain management, and consequently value chain management, has led to the development of performance measurement frameworks for the entire supply chain – such as the SCOR model. The tourism industry, on the other hand, consists of various players and tourism demand is met by the joint efforts of these players. Consequently, the interdependency of tourism organizations is high. Although recent works demonstrate an increasing interest towards performance measurement in the tourism industry, it is still an immature area. The paper demonstrates the usability of SCOR‐like frameworks in the tourism industry to manage and measure the value chain processes. Research limitations/implications – The paper shows mapping of existing thinking on performance measurement against the proposed tourism value chain model reveals gaps for further research, such as: the need to study the tourism industry as an end‐to‐end value chain; the need for understanding and measuring the performance of front‐end win‐order and pre‐delivery‐support processes; and the need for managing the delivery process as a whole, rather than as two or three unrelated services. Originality/value – The paper demonstrates the potential benefits of taking a value‐chain approach to the tourism industry as well as conceptually demonstrating how performance of such a value chain may be managed through a framework of performance measures.