Leapfrogging Business-to-Business Trade Contacts to Shorten Leisure and Entertainment Activities and Engender Tourism Innovation in EU Countries: A Resource-based Assessment

Previously the Authors devised the concept of intermediate market (or inter-firms) trade contacts (ITC) as a resource flow of transactional capital to assess business-to-business (B2B) purchase or sale contacts in Hotels and Restaurants industry. In the resource-based view of the firm (R-BV), only valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable resources can become useful source to defend firm competitive advantage. The objective of this research is to verify whether the frequency in EU countries of sale B2B, reached by Recreational, Sporting and cultural industry, could be a 'valuable' and 'rare' resources able leapfrogging sustained competitive development as Flywheel to engender EU countries tourism. Using Eurostat input-output tables and applying supply-driven mirror or input-output model, a systematic relationship has been found between the sale multiplier and the valuable (above normal) sale ITC that involves rare (concentrated) intermediate sale contacts. It follows the testability of R-BV on large scale also in heterogeneous industries.