Investigating Travel and Tourism

Investigating travel and tourism industry

There are 8 main components of travel and tourism industry. They are : 1- Accommodation- this is the most important component in the travel and tourism industry. Accommodation may include hotels, guest-houses, lodging-houses, bed and breakfast, inns and motels. 2- Transport- a good transportation system is very important for a travel and tourism industry, whether people are on business, travelling for leisure or visiting friends and relatives. Transportation can be divided into road, rail, air and sea. 3- Attractions- this is the most important reason why people travel to a specific destination. There are both natural and man-made attractions. Among the natural attractions there are areas of National Parks, beaches, lake districts and beautiful landscapes. Man-made attractions include purpose built attractions such as theme parks, museums, heritage attractions, castles and etc… 4- Tour operations- these are the holiday companies that combines different parts of a holiday (airlines, accommodation, other travel services) into one package and sell them through travel agents or direct to the consumers. Tour operators are known to be the wholesales of the travel business. Types of tour operators are mass-market operators, specialist operators, domestic operators and incoming tour operators. 5- Travel agents- Travel agents sell transportation, lodging, and admission to entertainment activities to individuals and groups who are planning trips. They offer advice on destinations, plan trip itineraries, and make travel arrangements for clients. some of the famous travel agents in U.K are Thomson, Thomas cook, first choice and Barrhead travels. 6- Tourism development and promotion- tourism development and promotion are coordinated by the organizations in the public sector, such as tourist boards and local councils. The tourism developments refers to the all the activities that are related with providing needs of the tourist in a particular destination. Whereas the tourist promotion is all about how to promote a particular destination to the tourist so that there would be more visitors coming in to that destination. 7- Trade associations and regulatory bodies- these are the travel and tourism organizations in which members are privately owned. They represent the interest of companies operating in particular industries. The members are provided with set of rules through a code of practice. The key trade associations in travel and tourism are ABTA, THE TOURISM ALLIANCE, AITO, UKInbound. The British Hospitality Association and etc.. 8- Ancillary services- these are the extra services that a tourist need while they’re on vacation. These services include such as travel insurance, airport parking and money exchange * Domestic tourism- when people go for one day or short trips within their own country. According to Youell (1998) domestic tourism is involving residents of the giving country travelling only within their own country. E.g. a family from London visiting many theme parks other attractions of Black pool. Some of the known tour operators for domestic tourism in United Kingdom are Alfa travel, Bonaventure Tours, Busybus and etc. * When international visitors travel to a country other than their own, e.g. a couple from Russia visiting Maldives for their honeymoon is known as inbound tourism. Cox and Kings Travel and Kuoni are some famous inbound travel operators in United Kingdom and throughout the world. * Outbound tourism is when residents from a country travelling to other country. E.g. a group of students from Manchester travels to New York for a field trip. They choose to visit other countries for number of reasons. Some of them are visiting their friends and relatives, for leisure, to learn more about the history and culture of the country they are visiting etc… In travel tourism industry, all the components are interrelated through : Chain of distribution. Principals – hotels, airlines and other transport companies Tour operators

Travel agencies

Consumer

This chain of distribution shows how the travel and tourism products and services are provided to the consumers. Further research (Christopher, 1991; Gattorna, 1990; Stern and El-Ansary, 1992) showed that Distribution channels are increasingly regarded as one of the most critical elements in marketing, as they determine the competitiveness and profitability of organizations. However, this is not the only way of distributing travel and tourism products; customers could books directly buy these services from both the accommodation and transport providers through the internet or telephone. The upcoming technologies such as digital TV and call centre operations are altering the ways that the holidays are made and sold leaving out the travel agents or the tour operators. * Integration Recent years have seen many other changes to the structure of the travel and tourism industry. ‘Integration in the travel and tourism industry occurs when one company owns or controls more than one part of the distribution process.’ (Youell, 2011) There are two types of integration. They are: 1. Horizontal integration Horizontal integration is where an organization owns two or more companies, on the same level of the buying chain. An example of this is the First Choice Group; they own MyTravel. The main reason is to ensure the extended geographical spread of outlets to ensure representation in all regions 2. Vertical integration Organizations also merge with others on the different level in the chain of distribution. This is called vertical integration. For example TUI Travel UK owns Thomson and First Choice tour operating businesses, and the Thomson and First Choice Airline Thomsonfly

Tour operators Thomson Holiday

Travel agency
Thomson travel shops

* Interdependencies In travel and tourism, the companies combine their operations in certain area. This is done in a form of partnership. The development of ‘alliances’ in the airlines sector is a commonly used example of interdependencies in the travel and tourism industry.

(a) The roles and responsibilities of travel and tourism organizations from different sectors. The travel and tourism organization have responsibilities towards: * Consumers: the organizations should make sure that they provide good services to the consumers. All the services and products should be up to date so that consumers would be satisfied. * Government: this includes the government policies and the follow the rules and regulations set for the organizations. The travel and tourism organizations have two primary roles and responsibilities: * To meet the organizational aims; * To provide services and products The majority of organizations in the travel and tourism industry belong to the private sector. The main objective of these organizations is to make profit. For example, Alton Towers and Hilton Hotels. The public sector, the nonprofit organizations aims to provide services and products to the consumers. These organizations sell shares to the general public. For example: Thomas Cook Introduction Thomas Cook UK AND Ireland is the second largest leisure travel group in the UK with around 19,000 employees. It is a part of Thomas Cook plc, which was formed in 2007 by the merger of Thomas Cook AG and MyTravel Group plc.
Thomas Cook Mission Statement * Exceptional Service From Exceptional People
Their Values * Taking Personal Responsibility For Achieving the Mission * Pursuing Excellence in Everything We Do
 Displaying Honesty and Trust in all our Relations with Customers to deliver outstanding service to them at all times  Recognizing and Respecting the Needs of Individuals Thomas Cook Group plc has got 7 shareholders. Shares are issued 875.0m Euro as at the last close. (http://www.thomascookgroup.com/significant-shareholders). (a) Recent developments (from the 1960s onwards) that have shaped the present day travel and tourism industry. In the past, people had different reasons to travel. At the same time, they even had to face plenty of difficulties while travelling. In the last 50 years, the travel and tourism industry has developed and improved its products and services. The main factors that influenced the development of tourism after the Second World War (1939-45) were money, time and technology. Legislation: Since the 1060s the key legislation affecting travel and tourism has included the development of Tourism Act (1969) confirmed the public sector’s involvement in tourism and the role it was going to play. This was the first piece of UK legislation on tourism, now more than 30 years and scale of industries have changed drastically. At the same time, other legislations were made. Package Travel Regulations was made in 1 january 1993 within 12 countries that were members of European Union. Air Passenger Duty (APD) was introduced by the UK government in 1997 as a way of helping reduce the growth of air travel and its environmental impacts. One of the recent legislation was made to increase the accessibility for disabled customers. This was the Disability Discrimination Act 2004 had a great impact on travel and tourism organizations. Product development: As the tourism industry developed, the organizations had to improve their products and services in order to meet the ever-changing expectations of their customers. The first sector which improved was the airline industry. Introduction of inexpensive flights to many European cities and low-cost airlines were the development in airline industry. New fast trains and other mode of transport became a part of the product development later on. Nowadays, the most productive development was the online booking. This way the consumers can book online all inclusive packages that includes all the needs for the holiday. With this development, there was a boom of people travelling different countries. Destination development The rapid growth of package holidays since the 1960s led many businesses to build holidays more rapidly. This resulted in many high-rise hotel and resorts to satisfy the customers. There have been improvements in infrastructure, facilities and attractions on offer making visitors stay easier, more enjoyable and providing more opportunities. Technology developments Booking systems were developed which accelerated communication between organizations and the customers and improve the distribution of services to them. Some of the developments were: * ViewData (used by travel agents and tour operators) * CRSs ( used by airlines ) * Global Distribution System( used by travel agents, tour operators ,airlines, car-hire companies and ferry operators). Other technological advance was the online booking. Companies such as airlines, hotels and tour operators offer online booking facilities on secure websites. This helped the organizations reduce its operational costs and reduce the number of staffs in the business. Lifestyle changes Lifestyles had changed in the last 50 years within the whole world. This change has a huge impact on the travel and tourism industry. The needs and wants of the tourists were changing every year as technology has also developed. The hotels and resorts needed to update their services as the visitors carried gadgets and electronics so that they could work while they are on vacation. Different types of visitors (couples, divorced people, and old aged people) increased every year. In the recent years, the number of older people visiting increased because they have more spare time and are more willing to travel then other types of travelers. There is now growing number of companies offering travel and tourism services to the old age people, e.g. Saga holidays and Page & Moy (b) 3 key trends and 3 factors that will affect the development of travel and tourism TRENDS

Frequency of holidays
New destinations

Adventure travel

Increased frequency of holidays People have started travelling more frequently as the travel and tourism organizations have developed more attracting features. France is the most popular destination for short breaks, with Paris being the leading short break destinations. There was a 13 per cent increase in the consumer expenditure from 2005 to 2011. The accessibility of low cost airlines and cheap flights also became a reason for the people to travel. During winter times, the numbers of travelers are more than the other seasons. If the organizations develop more attractions, products and services in a particular destination, the frequency of holidaymakers would increase every year. Adventure travel This is the growth area of the travel and tourism for the more adventurous and fun experience in their leisure time. These travelers enjoy more of trek in the mountains, snorkeling, diving or enjoying a bungee jump. The tour operators could make packages that includes more fun activities and adventures to the consumers so that they would like to visit more. This way the destination would be better known to the customers and the number of return customers would increase. This would help the economy of that country as the number of visitors visiting would be higher. New destinations Destinations play an important role in the travel and tourism industry. The growth of world travel introduced tourists to many new destinations. People became familiar with travelling far away countries without any fear. Demand for destinations also brings out lots of others responsibilities to that particular destination. With a growth of new n attractive destinations, the rates and prices of the packages has also increased rapidly. Further research has proved that the number of visitors would increase if they could travel to their dream destinations at a lower rate. Factors * Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, floods and hurricanes can cause a huge decline in the travel and tourism industry. The tsunami incident in 2004, resulted a huge drop in the travel and tourism industry. When such incidents occur, the organizations has to offer the tourists with choice of destinations which are not affected by the disaster. This is something which cannot be avoided so this creates a huge chaos within the organizations and the customers * Environmental issues – this is factor that is now the key issue today. The people are becoming more aware of the environment and the hotels and resorts are trying to become more eco friendly. Carbon emissions from aircrafts, the excessive usage of cars and environmental damage to resorts have become higher in the recent years. In Maldives, the damage to the coral reefs is one disadvantage for the tourism industry. * Terrorism – this is one factor which brought a decline drastically to the travel and tourism industry in the United States. This incident did not only bring a change in the States, it also had a huge effect on the tourism worldwide. People feared to travel and during these days, the tourism organizations faced financial problems. The only people people visited was within the country or business travelers.