The reality of financing small tourism firms: The case of Indian tourism SMEs

Abstract

Small tourist firms occupy an important place within the Indian tourism industry and make a significant contribution towards gross domestic production. This study investigates access to and finance preferences of SME tourism firms in the Punjab area, India. The study employed a post-positivist research approach depending on semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. The findings confirmed that tourism firms relied on pecking order trajectory, drawing capital from own savings, family and informal lenders, which is consistent with the literature. The study provides a unique insight into issues related to tourism firms and benchmarks findings with SME literature to identify the salient points.