Toward An Entrepreneurship Typology of Bed and Breakfasts in Taiwan

Abstract

In Taiwan, the tourism industry has grown prosperously and consists of various business sectors that serve the needs of tourists. One of the main components of the tourism industry is the accommodation sector, which offers a range of services and facilities the needs of traveling tourists. Many types of accommodations exists, such as hotels, motels, resorts, apartments, holiday houses, backpacker hostels, caravan parks, and camping grounds. Many "nontraditional" forms of accommodation also provide guests with personal service and a high level of host-guest interaction in a rural setting where the establishment is owner-operated and referred to as a Bed and Breakfast (B&B). In recent years, B&B operations have quickly grown popular in Taiwan (2001-2011). The official statistics as of December, 2010 from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau revealed that there were a total of 3,548 B&Bs (14,852 rooms) in Taiwan of which 3,158 were legalized and 390 were not. The purpose of this study is to conduct in-depth research into the typology of Taiwan’s B&Bs, and was conducted to understand the entrepreneurship of each type of B&B establishment in Taiwan. This research carries considerable novelty as it initially attempted to develop a categorization system in terms of B&B owner’s founding motive and operating motive to identify the categories of the B&B operational model. Transcription of the interview data with the B&B participants has provided a better understanding of the market niches and entrepreneurial risks perceived among B&B operations. This research presents empirical findings of the research objective aimed to categorize B&B properties in Miaoli County, Taiwan. This research derived different B&B entrepreneurial models from texts which were generated through an interpretation of narrative synthesis followed by in-depth interviewing with twenty-five B&B participants and used to support and illustrate conceived definition and conceptualization of each model. A typology of Taiwanese B&B properties was identified based on the criterion of an owner’s local identity, founding motive regarding the different cultural trait of a property, and operating motive with respect to eight different operational mode of a setting. There was a variety of research methods allowed due to triangulation, which increased the validity of the research. Future research into empirical testing on the entrepreneurial models by using a quantitative approach based on the economic performance of B&B settings are suggested to examine each model’s operational efficiency and effectiveness.