Financial bootstrapping : Motivation and usage of bootstrapping methods among SMEs in the tourism sector

Abstract: Bootstrapping plays a vital role in the life of small and medium-sized enter-prises. By providing a large variety of financing alternatives bootstrapping ensures the existence of entrepreneurship, even though, too less attention is paid to bootstrapping in the specific literature. Therefore, the master thesis strives to eliminate the gaps in the theory by bringing new insights in the field of bootstrapping.The purpose of the master thesis is to investigate the usage of boot-strapping methods and understand the main motives for using these methods from a sectorial and cross-national point of view.In order to accomplish the purpose, the research has been carried out among travel agencies and tour operators (both belonging to the tourism sector) from Sweden, Latvia and Romania by conducting 11 semi-structured interviews, as well as by collecting 50 internet-mediated questionnaires.Empirical findings were analyzed and interpreted through the 4-category Model that was created for gaining a deeper understanding of the phenom-ena of bootstrapping. Results showed that there is a certain trend in the usage of bootstrapping methods within the tourism sector. Thus, seek-ing out best conditions possible with supplier/s and obtaining payments in advance from customer are recognized to be the most important bootstrap-ping techniques for the travel agencies and tour operators. Moreover, it was found that the main motive for bootstrapping is cost reduction. In addi-tion, the results revealed that there are no significant differences in the usage of bootstrapping methods and in the motivation that lay behind bootstrapping from a cross-national point of view.