Developing underground heritage business models: creative tourism as a strategy for the UBH promotion

Abstract

This article crosses two themes: the development of business models and the creative tourism, with the objective of presenting a framework to increase the competitiveness of an underground heritage site competitiveness. A business model incorporates a plan for the successful operation of a business, detailing the core elements, such as, the value proposition, sources of revenue, target segments, products, and financing. Amit and Zott [1] define business model as the design of transactions conducted by an organization, represented by the content, structure and governance of all the organization activities and processes to create value through the exploration of business opportunities. This model can be combined with the NICE framework, a mnemonic referring to Novelty, Lock-in, Complementarities and Efficiency, considered as the four value-generating dimensions of a business model [2].