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Efficiency of travel agency franchises: a study in Spain

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Abstract

Efficiency in a firm is important because it ensures that the economy’s scarce resources are not being wasted. It produces something else of value—profits or the continued existence of the organisation. This work contributes to the literature on efficiency in franchising. Specifically, it is focused on the sector of travel agencies which operate in the franchising system in Spain. This fact is an original contribution and is very important because until now there have not been any studies about efficiency in this sector of franchising. The results show that the number of brand names which are efficient is around 50%. This means that many chains are not efficient. This result may be, to a great extent, a result of the dynamics of this sector in recent years. A Tobit model is also used in order to characterise the franchisors’ efficiency. Some important findings are showed.

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Notes

  1. More than one censoring point can be considered (higher or lower censoring simultaneously).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their relevant comments that have contributed to significantly improve the paper. This research has been partially financed by the Consejería de Innovación de la Junta de Andalucía, Projects P11-SEJ-7782 and P11-SEJ-7042.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods and Economic History, Faculty of Business, Pablo de Olavide University, ctra. de Utrera, km.1, s/n, 41013, Seville, Spain

    José M. Ramírez-Hurtado & Ignacio Contreras

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  1. José M. Ramírez-Hurtado
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  2. Ignacio Contreras
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Correspondence to José M. Ramírez-Hurtado.

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Ramírez-Hurtado, J.M., Contreras, I. Efficiency of travel agency franchises: a study in Spain. Serv Bus 11, 717–739 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-016-0326-1

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