Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Ms. Linghan Zhang, a doctoral candidate of Hiroshima University, Japan. Her research topics are sustainable tourism development and tourist behavior analysis. She is especially interested in tourism experience and behavior in disadvantage areas, small tourism enterprises under tourism policy and destination management, especially in rural regions.

Dr. Junyi Zhang is a professor of Hiroshima University, Japan. His research fields cover urban and regional planning, transportation planning and engineering, environmental and energy policy, and tourism policy. His research emphasizes life-oriented and systematic approaches. As of December 2016, he published more than 360 refereed academic papers.

Abstract (150 Words)

In many developing countries, small tourism enterprises took the central role in tourism development from economic, social and cultural perspectives. This study clarifies, (1) what kinds of firms are more concerned about such sustainable tourism development, (2) what factors are associated with these types of firms, and (3) how to encourage more firms to be engaged in promoting sustainable tourism. For this purpose, we conducted a questionnaire survey in two major tourist destinations, Luang Prabang and Pakse in Lao PDR, to tourism-related business owners, and obtained 177 valid questionnaires. This is the first study in literature to target Lao PDR in the above context. Lao and foreign enterprises were first compared from some of the above perspectives and then a generalized structural equation model (GSEM) is adopted to capture complicated cause-effect relationships in answering the above questions by reflecting original features of data included in a more scientific way.

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Small tourism enterprises (STMs) and sustainable tourism development in Lao PDR: a GSEM-based analysis

In many developing countries, small tourism enterprises took the central role in tourism development from economic, social and cultural perspectives. This study clarifies, (1) what kinds of firms are more concerned about such sustainable tourism development, (2) what factors are associated with these types of firms, and (3) how to encourage more firms to be engaged in promoting sustainable tourism. For this purpose, we conducted a questionnaire survey in two major tourist destinations, Luang Prabang and Pakse in Lao PDR, to tourism-related business owners, and obtained 177 valid questionnaires. This is the first study in literature to target Lao PDR in the above context. Lao and foreign enterprises were first compared from some of the above perspectives and then a generalized structural equation model (GSEM) is adopted to capture complicated cause-effect relationships in answering the above questions by reflecting original features of data included in a more scientific way.