Motivation remains one of the most popular and, yet, most controversial subjects in hospitality and tourism research. The concept of motivation in tourism and hospitality can be considered from the two different perspectives. On the one hand, managers in tourism should understand how tourists are motivated to purchase hospitality products and services. On the other hand, these managers must be aware of the most appropriate methods to motivate their employees. Researchers have developed several theoretical approaches to understand tourist and employee motivation in the hospitality industry. In cases of both tourists and employees, needs and motivations are claimed to be closely interrelated (Kozak 222). While tourists seek to satisfy their physiological and psychological needs when they choose to travel, employees also want to see that their physiological, social, and self-realization needs are satisfied. Consequently, managers in the tourism industry should develop a multifaceted and realistic view of the industry situation, to have the resources needed to keep tourists and employees motivated in the long run.
The conceptual development of motivation theories in tourism can be traced back to the beginning of the 1970s. According to Harrill and Potts, despite a number of developments in the field, the social psychological understanding of tourist motivation is yet to be achieved (105). Nevertheless, numerous theorists and empirical researchers have made their contribution to the development of motivation theories that would suit the theoretical and practical needs of the tourism sector. Although “no two individuals are alike, and differences in attitudes, perceptions and motivation have an important influence on travel decisions” (Page 60), some generalisations can still be made.
When it comes to motivation in tourism, Pearce remains one of the most popular motivation theorists. His travel career ladder theory is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Pearce 52). The career ladder theory describes motivation as consisting of five different stages: relaxation, safety, relationship, self-esteem, and self-actualisation (Pearce 53). As such, tourists choose to travel, when they want to satisfy a number of needs, starting with relaxation and up to self-actualisation and self-fulfilment (Pearce 54). This motivation theory can be used to explain the development of motivational aspects in hospitality employees. However, the basic intention of Pearce’s theory of motivation is to describe the evolution of purchasing and travelling intentions in tourists. This theory is important, at least because managers in the hospitality industry must be aware of the way consumers pass towards purchasing tourist and hospitality services.
Managers in the tourism industry must be ready to use their knowledge of motivation theories to keep their employees motivated and committed to their workplace tasks. Modern employees are exposed to a variety of motivation theories that can be successfully applied in the tourism industry. Lundberg, Gurmundson and Andersson used Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation to test and improve the level of motivation in seasonal hospitality workers (890). Herzberg’s two-factor theory is based on the needs approach to employee motivation and suggests that the factors responsible for job satisfaction differ from the factors leading to job dissatisfaction (Lundberg, Gurmundson & Andersson 890). The theory has profound implications for managers in the tourism sector, as they must be ready to treat job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction as two different categories. However, if they have no time or capacity to explore employee needs, they can apply to Theory Y, which provides the most general assumptions related to motivation in the workplace.
Based on Theory Y, the process of fulfilling workplace obligations can be easy and even pleasant, if the conditions of work favour the development of such attitudes (Lauby 4). In other words, according to Theory Y, the sources of employee motivation are mostly external. In these favourable conditions, when employees develop stronger job commitments, they also become more creative in the pursuit of strategic organisational objectives (Lauby 4). Rewards play one of the chief roles in making people committed to work and helping them satisfy their self-actualisation needs (Lauby 4). This theory of motivation provides managers in the tourism industry with a number of recommendations to improve the workplace environment and foster the development of stronger employee commitments at work.
Managers use a variety of techniques to motivate employees in the tourism industry. Some managers emphasise the importance of outcomes and re-orient their employees towards sharing the organisational results of their work. In this case, numerous incentives, including gain-sharing, are offered to employees to keep them motivated (Kusluvan 346). Other managers focus their efforts on increasing employee motivation by assigning meaningful tasks and providing workers with freedom and autonomy, which make it easier to raise employee satisfaction and improve their job performance (Janes & Wisnom 108).
Compensation and benefits keep playing one of the central roles in driving extrinsic employee motivation, but present-day managers also allow their workers choosing the benefits and compensation packages that appeal to them (Janes & Wisnom 108). Moreover, material benefits are no longer as important to employees as they used to be several years ago. Training, continuous learning, career advancement opportunities, and performance appraisals should be used to create and implement a balanced system of motivational factors to satisfy the unique motivational needs of employees (Janes & Wisnom 109).
In conclusion, motivation remains an essential topic in the tourism industry. Only motivated employees can ensure the success of the tourism industry and its effectiveness. However, no motivation recipe can be treated as universal. Employee needs are unique, and so are the conditions of their work. Consequently, managers must be ready to appraise critically the terms of employee performance, understand their individual needs, and develop strategies to ensure that these needs are consistently satisfied. The current state of theoretical and empirical literature offers great insight into various theories and approaches to motivation. Nevertheless, as the tourism industry continues to expand, managers must be ready to adopt innovative approaches to employee motivation in ways that fit into the unique conditions of performance in the tourism industry.
Works Cited
Harrill, Robert, and Terry Potts. “Social Psychological Theories of Tourist Motivation: Exploration, Debate and Transition.” Tourism Analysis 7.2 (2002): 105-114. Print.
Janes, Patty, and Mary Wisnom. “Changes in Tourism Industry Quality of Work Life Practices.” Journal of Tourism Insights 1.1 (2010): 107-113. Print.
Kusluvan, Salih. Managing Employee Attitudes and Behaviours in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry, New York: Nova Publishers, 2003. Print.
Lauby, Sharlyn J. Motivating Employees, Fort Lauderdale, FL: American Society for Training and Development, 2005. Print.
Lundberg, Christine, Anna Gudmundson, and Tommy D. Andersson. “Herzberg’s Two-Factor of Work Motivation Tested Empirically on Seasonal Workers in Hospitality and Tourism.” Tourism Management 30.6 (2009): 890-899. Print.
This paper explores Barcelona as a host destination in tourism. The portfolio is divided into six parts. The introduction section gives a general overview of Barcelona as a host destination. It briefly introduces the subject as well as marketing communication tools. The introduction further introduces a methodology used in the portfolio by briefly describing the micro and macro environment as well as future marketing strategy. The introduction concludes by describing the type research used in the portfolio.
In the second section of the paper of the paper is a background of history of tourism in Barcelona as well as Barcelona Tourist Board. The third section describes the destination environment- micro and macro environment with SWOT and PESTEL analysis respectively.
The fourth section gives a description of the marketing communication tools, different types of channel used by Barcelona Tourism Board as well as their strengths and weaknesses. The fifth section gives the future marketing strategy and remedies to these weaknesses while the sixth section concludes the portfolio.
Introduction
Tourism in Barcelona dates back in 1992. Earlier, the city was hardly known in spite of its rich culture, location and architecture. The Barcelona Olympic Games spearheaded this transformation. Hence a Barcelona has been held up globally as a major example of how a host destination can make use of Olympic Games to make a change in its tourism industry. There is need to be unique and distinguish oneself from other host destinations.
With the increase in tourist destinations there is an extreme need to develop the appropriate marketing communication tools and the best branding approaches. A winning branding creates distinctiveness which heightens the distinguished desirability of a destination (Hallett & Kaplan-Weinger, 2010).
This portfolio describes destination image and branding in Barcelona. It gives a clear description of the microenvironment and macro environment that define the success of a destination. There is a clear SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis. An assessment of marketing communication tools used to develop the branding of destinations has been provided.
A future marketing strategy has been proposed followed by a conclusion. The portfolio has gathered information from secondary sources. The data used has been collected from already existing materials. These include; journal content, magazines, statistical data, newspapers, periodicals, books and internet.
Barcelona Tourism Destination Background
Tourism in Barcelona
Barcelona has distinguished itself as a major tourism destination in Europe. Being the leading Spanish city in respect of sales to tourist overseas, 22% of Spain’s credit card transactions are carried out in Barcelona. An important feature that Barcelona showcases is Europe’s largest shopping centre-Barcelona Shopping Line which is a 5 Km fare stretching from the harbor to Diagonal district. Holiday makers account for 50% of Barcelona’s visitors.
Overnight stays have had a considerable growth rising from 14.0 million in 2010 to 15.5 million in 2011. Barcelona recorded an approximately 7.4 million tourists in 2011. Tourism accounts for 10% of Barcelona’s GDP (Barcelona Turisme, n.d).
Barcelona Tourist Board
Commonly referred to as Turisme De Barcelona, Barcelona Tourist Board was formed in 1993 after the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. This ideally followed a consortium between Barcelona City Council, Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and Barcelona Promotion Foundation. Its major aim was to promote tourism in Barcelona.
The Board’s core roles and functions include; coordinating tourism industry and marketing the board, carries out promotional communication and marketing campaigns targeting different world market segments, providing an arena for the tourism industry to showcase its products and services globally.
Barcelona Tourism Board has a mandate to carry out market research in regards to tourism. Turisme De Barcelona has created several department s one of them being a tour operator department that has ensured Barcelona appears in many brochures tour operator (See Appendix 1). Its press department has ensured journalists continue to flow in the city. This has led to an increased publication of Barcelona’s tourism in magazines (PEMB 2010, p.12).
Destination Environment
Micro Environment for Barcelona
Microenvironment refers to the factors in an Organization’s immediate operation area affecting its freedom in decision making and performance. It refers to all those controllable elements a marketing firm has (Laws, 1991, p.67).
Competition
Identifying competitors is of high importance as well as the level in which the destination is competing (Blythe 2005). Being a competitive tourist destination, Barcelona is compared with such tourist destinations as Madrid, Rome, London and Paris. All these are state capitals with long established tourist destinations (See Appendix 2). There are several segmentations of different kinds of tourism where Barcelona can compete in (Morgan & Pritchard, 2001). These include city breaks, cultural, fairs and business (See Appendix 3)
Customers
According to Ritchie and Crouch (2003) customers are the driving thrust of competition. Consumption in the perspective of tourism is divided into two levels. These are literal and symbolic. Literal consumption includes accommodations, purchase of entrance tickets to attraction sites, souvenirs and purchase of travel tickets.
Conversely symbolic consumption refers to the sense attached to. Symbolic consumption level includes scenes enjoyed, holiday type, and accommodation type. Barcelona experienced a total of 7,133,524 of tourist visits in 2010 (See Appendix 4). Usually 27.7 % of these tourists are Spanish while the rest are from United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany and U.S.A. (See Appendix 5). There are more male visitors than females. (See Appendix 6).
Suppliers and Intermediaries
Suppliers complete the tourism chain by providing necessary factors such as toiletries, facilities, human capital and equipment that are used in the manufacture of the consumer’s end product. Intermediaries contrariwise, complete the chain by bridging the gap between tourists and the service providers. A tour consultant is an example of intermediary (McCabe 2009, p.71).
Publics
Blythe (2005) defines publics as groups that affect and have influence on a company. In Barcelona, publics include; Turisme De Barcelona, The Barcelona Shopping Line and Barceloneta Cuina
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
With its strategic location at the Mediterranean Sea, Barcelona receives an advantage over other destinations. The sea connects Barcelona to other cities in Spain as well as other nations in Europe and all over the globe. With its sportive ports, Barcelona receives more attention than its competing tourists’ destinations (Drummond & Ensor, 2005). Its major port- Port of Barcelona is situated at the heart of the city. Barcelona has unique features such as” The nine World Heritage sites”.
Weaknesses
The major weakness of Barcelona as a tourist destination is the long shifting times from one airport to another. This is due to long distances between the ports. Increased cost in short-pull air travel makes it difficult for those travelling for a short time. Barcelona’s water resources are irregularly distributed making transport by sea difficult (Pearce, 2005, p.22). The rate of unemployment in Barcelona is 17.8%. This brings risks associated with unemployment such as crime.
Opportunities
Improved transportation in Barcelona brought about by availability of cabs, buses, and tram. This has led to flexibility as tourists don’t have to stay in the heart of the city. The entry of new swift trains plying between Paris and Barcelona will also improve the transport links.
Gastronomy has had a high impact on tourism in Barcelona (Chon, 1990). Most chefs such as Ferran Adria have been brought up in the city. The strategic plan of tourism of Barcelona will provide a kick off point to enable the reflection process of the tourism model of the city. The triumph of FC Barcelona in football leagues is likely to place Barcelona’s tourism on a higher arena (Baker & Cameron 2008, p.80).
Threats
Due to the high influx of journalists in Barcelona every single detail of news is gathered. This includes bad coverage such as that of crime in the city. Economic crisis in Spain has affected Barcelona’s tourism industry causing dormancy in its economy (Pike, 2008). This has seen Barcelona suffer relocation problems. Water shortage is a common phenomenon during summer; this may send away tourists.
Macro Environment for BARCELONA
This term is used to denote the elements we are in control of but affect the operation of an organization. Macroenvironment is usually evaluated by the acronym PESTEL (Kotler, Haider & Rein, 2002).
Political
Firms involved in global operations are faced by developments in politics. Tourism in Barcelona is one of the industries affected by these developments due to the high influx of consumers (tourists).
Hence tourism companies operating in the region have to keep an eye on the situation of politics throughout (Catalonia Tours, n.d, par.7). The political factors that impact on the stability of an industry are state and regulations that define a firm’s formal and informal operating rules. Some of these political factors include;
A tax policy: In Barcelona, a large number of shops have signed up for a Tax Free Shopping Policy. This attracts more tourists to the city since they can claim back the BAT tax on the items they’ve already bought.
Political stability: This has a great impact on the tourism industry of Barcelona. Wars, conflicts and upheavals may lead to lower number of visitors coming to the city due to security reasons.
Economic factors
These affect customers’ purchasing power as well as an organization’s capital cost (Rose, 2007). Economic factors include:
Economic growth: Basically, higher economic growth corresponds to higher purchasing power of consumers. Barcelona records a high economic growth rate due to the high rate of tourism growth. The rate of immigration has risen from 1.9% to 7.6% of its total population. 39.7% of all the homes have internet connection.
Interest rates: Spain is heavily dependent upon borrowing (Hudson, 2007). As a result it is paying high interest rates, a factor that impacts the economy negatively and scares away investors.
Social factors
These are factors that impact on the needs of a customer and the range of prospective markets. They include the cultural and the population aspects of the macro environment. Social factors include; rate of population growth, distribution of age and attitudes on career.
Technological factors
Technological factors tend to affect outsourcing decisions, reduce barriers to entry and the least competent production levels (Copley, 2004). These factors include automation, technological incentives and rate of change in technology. Barcelona’s technology has advanced.
Hostels have been fitted with websites and systems to enable online reservations. A great technology is that of an mp3 player with multiple languages. The Mp3 player works by keying in any code on an exhibit for an explanation of the item in any language as selected.
Environmental factors
These are natural factors that affect the tourism in a region. They include the type of weather, season of the year and climate of an area. For example during summer there is a high flow of tourists in Barcelona as compared to winter season. October is usually sunny with some few overcast days and average temperatures at 240C making it the best month to travel as it is also an off peak season (Douglas & Derret, 2001).
Legal factors
These are rules and regulations that affect a firm’s behavior in its location (Kozak & Andreu, 2006). They include such laws as consumer laws which protect the consumer from misleading product descriptions, competition laws that protect small tour companies from being intimidated by bigger firms and employment laws that protect workers from abusive employers. The law affects the number of employees and type of contract in the hiring process (Baloglu & mccleary, 1999).
Firms operating in the tourism industry have to consider this element to understand when and how to hire. Some of the employment norms in Barcelona include forty working hours a week, 21 business days off from work for every complete year worked. However, there are no sick off days, instead a sick employee is supposed to see a doctor who signs a verifying they can’t work (De Moragas et al., n.d, p.45).
Marketing communication tools
This refers to all the marketing promotional elements that entail interaction between an establishment and the audience it targets on all matters that impact marketing performance (Kotler, Bowen & Mackens, 2005). Marketing communication channels include; advertising, Television, Video, internet, magazines and newspapers.
Brand and image logo
Branding has three steps, these include; identifying the brand identity, its Mission, Values and culture and the desired brand image. The second step involves positioning the brand while the third step involves imaging the brand (Morrison, 2002).
Advertising
Advertisements stimulate aspired images of brands in consumers’ minds leading to an action. Hence various factors should be considered before selecting the media. Barcelona Tourism Board ensures this is possible by adhering to the six stage process (Middleton et al., 2009). These stages are:
Creation of awareness: Ensures the clientele knows the product existence in the market
Comprehension: The board ensures the clientele understands the benefits of the tourism package
Acceptance: The board ensures that tourists find what they expected in their destination
Preference: The board ensures tourists desire their products
Purchase: The board ensures tourists obtain the package it offers
Reinforcement: The board ensures clients are contented with what they purchased
Most advertisements are made in color making them more appealing to a wider clientele including children. However, high advertisement costs associated with advertising make it a less preferred marketing communication tool (Cooper & Fletcher, 2008).
Advertising channels used by the Board include:
Television
TV plays a great role in advertising as it airs the adverts in audio-visual. It reaches a wider target group as compared to other channels such as newspaper. The audio-visual element makes it more effective as it is easy to comprehend. The adverts keep on repeating making it more imprinted on a customer’s mind (Crouch, Jackson & Thompson, 2005).
Radio
Unlike TV, radio has only the audio effect. However, it is a less costly channel of advertisement. Secondly, it reaches a wider clientele than TV as almost every home has a radio.
Outdoor
This involves erection of billboards, posters and banners in the streets and strategic locations (Kolb, 2006). It serves a wider clientele as the number of people who walk, drive or ride past the channel is unlimited.
Magazines
These advertisements are made in print form and serve the least number of clientele. This is because only the people who read a certain magazine will have the chance to see the advert. It is also limited to those who can read and write (Morgan, Pritchard, & Pride, 2004).
Public Relations
Public Relations refer to the arranged and continued endeavor to start and maintain benevolence and common understanding between a firm and the public. It simply involves remaining in the public eye and minds throughout (Long & Robinson, 2004). The Tourism Board does this by creating press releases with media houses in regard to tourist destination in Barcelona.
Strength
It reaches a global clientele is was anticipated
Weakness
It is commonly confused for advertising or marketing
Personal Selling
This involves a one-on one interaction between a seller and a buyer. It occurs mostly where a tourist visits a site and pays entrance fee or buys a cultural artifact. Turisme De Barcelona links the customers with its members by holding workshops and seminars.
Strength
It involves eye contact hence the two (buyer and seller) will be at a mutual understanding
Weakness
There may be wastage of time due to haggling
Events and exhibitions
An event is a significant incidence. An exhibition alternatively, is a display of drawings, art work, bead work, photos and other artifacts during an event. Turisme De Barcelona arranges events for its members to showcase their products.
Strengths
A customer will have a look and even a touch of the real product.
Weaknesses
Members of the Tourism Board are charged an entrance fee to participate in an event. The fee may sometimes be too high for small firms.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion refers to any scheme adopted by a seller to increase product usage, trials or sales. This includes merchandising and issuance of free gifts. In Barcelona, Tourism De Barcelona is using a strategy known as segmented promotion. The campaign centers on activity subdivisions subject to numerous tourism typologies.
Segmented campaign similarly works on such arrangements as errands, extravagance travel summits and symposia sightseeing as well as Epicureanism. Segmented promotion focuses on the precedence given to each international tourism market (Kabul Youthostel, n.d, par.5).
Thus the countries are more likely to send additional tourists to the city. Strategic promotion has also adopted an initiative that focuses on its end users- this is done by using interest groups formed by these consumers. A major strength of this strategy is its diversity. This is because it segments promotional events according to the various market niches as well as by nation.
The use of interest groups is likely to work to the advantage of the Board as it will be easier to bring together different groups of consumers. However, the method has swallowed up all the board’s attention and it seems to forget other tools such as advertising (Davidson & Rogers, 2006).
Direct Marketing
In this channel the seller of product deals with the consumer directly. This includes the promotion of the product. The producer develops the product, advertises, request for orders and issues out directly to the customers. The tourism Board helps its members locate these customers.
Strength
It is a quick marketing communication tool as no intermediaries are involved. Besides, it creates harmony between the buyer and the seller.
Weakness
The seller sets the price independently; this may be a disadvantage to the buyer as some sellers have a tendency to over-price (Fyall & Garrod, 2005)
Corporate sponsorship
This refers to an advertising form in which corporations or organizations pay to be incorporated in certain events, such as sporting activities, park clean ups and charity events. This improves a company’s visibility in the public eye. Corporate sponsorship enables an organization to; showcase the items it offers, create better links with its clientele, distinguish the organization from its competitors and improve company representation.
The strategy also helps an organization achieve better community relations. Turisme de Barcelona therefore works to achieve equilibrium between the general life and holiday actions in the city (BBC, 2011). It also provides valuable information to tourists regarding the landmarks in Barcelona.
A major strength of this strategy is that Turisme de Barcelona improves the global image of Barcelona’s tourism. However, the strategy suffers a weakness in that Turisme De Barcelona lacks autonomy. This is due to its affiliations to the Barcelona Municipal Council which controls its social responsibility (Holloway, 2004).
Recommendations
Marketing communication tools are important elements of tourism. However, they may be ineffective if not properly chosen. Thorough planning ought to be considered before selecting a communication marketing tool. The Barcelona Tourism Board ought to take into consideration several factors, including availability, cost, and the target clientele before embarking on the use of a marketing communication tool.
The board should carry out its Corporate Social Responsibility independently without interference from the Municipal Council (CNN Travel, 2011). The Board should also balance on the use of the communication marketing tools, by ensuring it makes use of all the available tools such as advertisements, T.V, corporate sponsorship, direct marketing and public relations.
This will improve its image as well as ensure all its customers are aware of all the products being offered by its members. The customers will also be aware of changes and improvements in the products.
The Board should arrange free events and exhibitions for its members so as even the small companies can afford to showcase their products.
The board should assist its members and the public to differentiate Public Relations from other communication marketing tools such as advertising and marketing this will enhance the effectiveness of public relations of public relations as a marketing communication tool. This will enhance the effectiveness of public relations as communication marketing tool. The Board should invest highly in advertisements in order to showcase its members’ products. The Board should also filter what goes into the media.
The Board should have watchdogs in all the media houses interested in airing their stories and adverts. Journalists and media houses which give lies and portray a bad image of Barcelona as a tourist destination should be denied visas to the country. A journalist whether local or expatriate found covering a bad image of Barcelona as a host destination should be accused of a criminal offence in a court of law. The Board should work hand in hand with the government in regards to minimum charges of such an offense.
The Board should price regulatory measures to ensure all the tourists visiting the city are not overcharged in any of the products they are interested in. This will further improve its image. Finally the Board should make its magazines more attractive by giving it more color and including a wider variety of products being offered in its market. This will increase the number of people it serves.
Conclusion
Barcelona is a privileged assortment of culture, structural design, harmony and climate. With the 1992 Olympic Games Barcelona was placed on the arena for viewing by the whole world (Beatthebrochure.com, n.d.). The event enabled Barcelona to showcase it s personality made up of multiple dimensions as well as bring about modernization.
The Olympic Games catalyzed Barcelona’s leadership in tourism. Its reputation has been as a consequence of its constant existence on the global stage. It is a preferred destination site by most travelers. It is for this reason that Conde Nast Traveller in 2001, named the city as the world’s best urban destination. It is for this reason that International Congress Convention Association (ICCA) has ranked the city as the global leader in scheduled congresses.
References
Baker, M. J. & Cameron, E. 2008, “Critical success factors in destination marketing”, Tourism and Hospitality Research Journal, vol.8 no.2, pp. 79–95.
Baloglu, S. & mccleary, K. W. 1999, “A model of destination image formation”, Annals of Tourism Research, vol.26, pp.868 – 897. Barcelona Turisme. Web.
Beatthebrochure, Barcelona Internet Brochure. Web.
Catalonia Tours, Barcelona Brochure. Web.
Chon, K. S. 1990, “The role of destination image in tourism”, Tourist Review, vol.45, pp.2–9.
CNN Travel 2011, World top destinations 2011. Web.
Cooper, C. & Fletcher, J. 2008, Tourism: Principles and practice, Pearson Education, Harlow.
Copley, P. 2004, Marketing communications management, Elsevier, London.
Crouch, D., Jackson, R. & Thompson, F. 2005, The media and the tourist imagination: Convergent cultures, Routledge, London and New York.
Davidson, R. & Rogers, T. 2006, Marketing destinations and venues for conferences, conventions and business events, Elsevier, London.
De Moragas, M., Rivenburgh, N. & Garcia, M., Television and the construction of identity: Barcelona Olympic host, John Libbey, London.
Douglas, N. & Derret, D. 2001, Special interest tourism: context and cases, John Wiley, Brisbane.
Drummond, G. & Ensor, J. 2005, An introduction to marketing concepts, Elsevier, Oxford.
Fyall, A. & Garrod, B. 2005, Tourism marketing: a collaborative approach, Channel View Publications, Clevedon.
Hallett, R. W. & Kaplan-Weinger, J. 2010, Official tourism websites: A discourse analysis perspective, Channel View Publications, Bristol.
Holloway, C. J. 2004, Marketing for tourism, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow.
Hudson, S. 2007, Tourism and hospitality marketing: A global perspective, Sage, London.
Kabul Youthostel, Barcelona Brochure. Web.
Kolb, B. M. 2006, Tourism marketing for cities and towns: Using branding and events to attract tourists, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Kotler, P., Bowen, J. T. & Mackens, J. C. 2005, Marketing for hospitality and tourism, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow.
Kotler, P., Haider, D. H. & Rein, I. 2002, Marketing places: Attracting investment, industry, and tourism to cities, states and nations, Simon & Schuster, UK.
Kozak, M. & Andreu, L. 2006, Progress in tourism marketing, Elsevier, Oxford.
Laws, E. 1991, Tourism marketing: Service and quality management perspectives, Stanley Thornes, Cheltenham.
Long, P. & Robinson, M. 2004, Festivals and tourism: marketing, management and evaluation, Business Education Publishers Limited, Sunderland.
McCabe, S. 2009, Marketing communications in tourism and hospitality: Concepts, strategies and cases, Butterworth-Heinemann, London.
Middleton, C., Fyall, A., Morgan, M. & Ranchod, A. 2009, Marketing in travel and tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Morgan, N. & Pritchard, A. 2001, Advertising in tourism and leisure, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Morgan, N., Pritchard, A. & Pride, R. 2004, Destination branding: Creating the unique destination proposition, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Morrison, A. M. 2002, Hospitality and travel marketing, Cengage Learning, New York.
Pearce, P. L. 2005, Tourist behavior: Themes and conceptual schemes, Channel View Publications, London.
PEMB 2010, Strategic metropolitan plan of Barcelona – Vision 2020. Web.
Pike, S. 2008, Destination marketing: An integrated marketing communication approach, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Ritchie, J. R. & Crouch, G. I. 2003, The competitive destination: A sustainable tourism perspective, Cabi Publishing, Oxon, UK.
Rose, G. 2007, Visual methodologies: An introduction to the interpretation of visual materials, Sage, London.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Adapted from the Barcelona Turisme Convention Bureau
Tourism is a major economic driver in Singapore. According to the 2011 report from the Tourism Board, the country attracted 13,171,303 tourists, which was over twice the total country’s population (Singapore Tourism Board 2013).
According to economists, Singapore economy has grown at a fast rate in the past few decades due to tourism, which also has grown tremendously in the same period. Therefore, the economic growth can be linked to the growth of tourism.
The Singaporean tourism board has been in the forefront in developing plans and strategies for improving the sector with regard to the type of tourism in question in a bid to incorporate other economic sectors in the planning exercise (Carrigan 2010). Consequently, the implemented plans over the past few years have earned Singapore a rise in the population of tourists that are received annually.
In addition, the Singaporean government has been in the forefront in environmental conservation exercises, thus creating one the best environments across the world, which has enabled the county to earn a good reputation as a major tourist attraction site. The country has four official languages that enable the locals to communicate effectively with visitors.
However, English is the main language used in the shopping and transport sector, which increases convenience to visitors. The government has enhanced basic infrastructural facilities in the country, which enable tourists to access and fully enjoy the major tourist attraction sites.
Major Types of Tourism in Singapore
The major types of tourism in Singapore include environmental, business, sports, and cultural tourism. To begin with environmental tourism, as aforementioned, the Singaporean government has policies that enhance environmental conservation in the country.
There is a direct relationship between tourism and environmental conservation, as many tourists prefer visiting regions that have good environments for leisure. Singapore is a small country and the growth of its urban centres was achieved after clearing natural vegetation in large parts of the country.
In order to regain environmental advantage, the government of Singapore introduced a network of greenery in the urban centres as a way of improving urban environments (YuChen 2010). This move has enabled the country to have one of the greenest cities in the world.
The existing policies aim at enhancing environmental tourism in Singapore such as environmental friendly waste disposal mechanisms, which allow the country to improve its environmental serenity.
This move has enabled Singapore to be ranked among the most visited countries for ecotourism together with Costa Rica, Thailand, and Nepal, as they are endowed with natural environments. The ability to conserve the environment led to the introduction of zoos in urban greenery centres that have been in the forefront in attracting both local and foreign tourists (Tse 2001).
Business tourism is also a major tourist sector in Singapore. The country’s small landmass has been developed into cities, which make the country to be referred as “Asian city state” as the entire country is an urban centre. The country’s population is located in the cities due to lack of space for rural settlements.
The government has introduced economic policies that have allowed the country to attract business tourists ever since the 1985 economic recession. The main goal of the Singaporean government is to make the country a major business hub in southern Asia.
The country has major business infrastructures such as shopping malls, which attract millions of tourists from the region. For instance, the Orchard Road district is home for the many multi-storey shopping malls that have many hotels and serves as the main tourist centre in the country.
According to Singapore Tourism Board (2013, par. 6), Vivo-City is ‘the largest shopping centre in the country and it has served millions of tourists ever since it was opened in 2006’. Economists termed its opening as a great milestone towards the economic growth and development in Singapore.
Singapore Tourism Board (2013, par. 7) notes that in order to enhance business tourism in the country, ‘the tourism board and other partners organise annual Great Singapore Sale that comprises great discounts and promotions in participating malls across the country’.
Other policies that enhance business tourism include tax holidays and extended trade hours in the shopping malls in order to attract and accommodate foreign tourists.
Sport tourism is also a major form of tourism in Singapore. The country is an island, hence a suitable location for marine sporting. In 2008, the country hosted the Singapore Grand Prix, which is a Formula 1 World Championship because it has modernised racing tracts at Marine Bay.
In addition, the race is on record to have been the first take place at night in the history of Formula 1 racing. The government, together with the Singapore Tourist Board, were credited for the success of the race due to the diligence dedicated towards the success of the event.
In 2010, the country hosted the inaugural Youth Olympic Games that attracted over 180,000 tourists from across the world.
Lastly, Singapore also has cultural tourism events that have formed a major tourism sector in the economy. Cultural tourism involves a variety of events that are promoted all year round by the Singapore Tourism Board. Singapore is one of the economies made up of mixed cultures with foreign acculturations dominating the locals.
Some of the major cultural tourism events include Chingay Parade, Singapore Arts Festival, and Singapore Garden Festival, which attract millions of tourists into the country. Other annual cultural events include Singapore Sun Festival and Christmas Light Up and Jewel Festival.
In addition, a majority in the population view cuisine of Singapore as an exhibit of country’s cultural diversity, whereby different hawker centres sell food of different cultures such as Chinese food or traditional Tamil food (Ardahaey 2011).
Some stalls have Malay food, Indian ingredients, and others incorporate dishes from Asia and Western cultures. Much of the food is made available at the hawkers’ stores rather than in restaurants in order to boost job creation in the economy and avail affordable food for everyone in order to encourage large consumer base at the hawker stores.
The tourism boards realised that food serves as a major tourist attraction ingredient, and thus pushed the government to introduce the Singapore Food festival, which takes place annually in July. In addition to cultural tourism, a majority of Singaporean restaurants and pubs have Indian and Chinese dancers who attract customers into the businesses.
Policy Planning and Analysis of Tourism in Singapore
In order to achieve the desired goals and objectives in the tourism sector, the Singaporean government in collaboration with Singapore Tourism Board have policies and plans in place geared towards enhancing the tourism sector in the country.
The government’s active role is to plan for the future of the tourism sector, ensure the development of modern infrastructures, and encourage entrepreneurial activities in the economy.
The Singaporean government takes the tourism industry with the seriousness that it deserves, as it is a major driver of economic development in the country. The government has plans for the future of the industry whereby it focuses on introducing tourist attraction sites and events in the future to increase the population of tourists that the country receives yearly.
With regard to planning for the future of the tourism industry, the government has established ecotourism sites where visitors can enjoy the environmental friendly garden sites that have zoos, which enable tourists to enjoy wildlife viewing at close range.
In addition, the government has plans to modernise the infrastructures, which bring convenience of tourism in the economy. The government has played a major role in enhancing the tourism industry by ensuring modern transport infrastructures in road, airports, and rail networks sectors.
The Singaporean cities and suburbs are well interconnected with modernised road and rail networks that enable tourists to travel conveniently across the country.
Sporting facilities have also been modernised to reach the international standardised levels as exhibited by facilities such as the Singapore Grand Prix racing course and stadia used for hosting the 2008 World Youth Olympic Games.
Furthermore, the Singaporean government has been in the forefront in trying to encourage entrepreneurship in the tourism sector. Entrepreneurship is a key factor of economic growth and development, hence an essential organ in the tourism sector.
The country has business policies that encourage entrepreneurship in the economy and this move has largely boosted growth in the tourism sector. The country has both local and foreign entrepreneurs who have invested heavily in the hospitality industry whereby many hotels and hospitality joints aimed at serving tourists in the country (Reisinger 2009).
In addition, international business organisations have invested in the Singaporean economy in the transport sector such as the airline industry, hotel, and chain store businesses (Hall & Page 2012). The ability of the Singaporean government to encourage entrepreneurship has played a major role in enhancing the growth and development of the tourism industry.
On planning and analysis of tourism in Singapore, it is evident that the sector is flexible in terms of being open to changes. The tourism industry is a delicate sector where personal interests and feelings play a major role in determining success in the industry.
Hence, the Singaporean government and tourism board have to implement flexible policies and shun the implementation of rigid policies. Tourists like places where the authorities recognise and respect them as such gesture breeds a sense of pride. Hence, the Singaporean government has come up with policies that encourage tourists to feel secure and highly appreciated whenever they visit the country.
Some of the policies include the establishment of international standardised accommodation facilities, which are well secured and vulnerable to changes in the international standards for improvement purposes (Balaguer & Cantavell-Jorda 2002).
In addition, the government, in partnership with Singapore Tourist Board and other stakeholders, has a strategic plan dubbed ‘Uniquely Singapore’, which is aimed at giving tourists unique and different experiences whenever they visit the country.
This policy is in line with flexibility of the industry policies with frequent rebranding exercises of major attraction sites and events in the country in a bid to make the country unique for every visit (Hitchcock et al. 2009). Looking into this strategy, it is expensive to do rebranding frequently in a bid to please tourists, but in some areas, rebranding can be done effectively.
Areas where rebranding can be done include the shopping mall areas where new merchandises are introduced frequently. In addition, museums, hotels, and other accommodation facilities can be advised to do rebranding annually in order to achieve this goal.
According to the Singapore Tourism Board (2013, par. 11), the board is playing a major role of ‘educating the locals on the unique features of the country in a bid to make them ambassadors to the tourists and the idea is a brilliant move as it will enable them to teach tourists about the country when in transit’. Critiques argue that the idea will make Singapore one of the countries with the most hospitable locals in the world such as Thailand.
The Singaporean government has been in the forefront in trying to ‘bring the world to the Singapore’ and in the past few years, the country seems to have achieved this dream. As aforementioned, the country is in the ranks of the countries where population of tourists exceed that of the locals implying that it has become a ‘must see’ location.
The New York Times has ranked Singapore among the best tourist attraction economies in the world due to its ability to accommodate various forms of tourism and the efforts by the government to enhance tourism in the country (YuChen 2010).
In addition, the government has partnered with other tourists’ attractive economies such as China, and India among others in the Asian region in order to create collective attractiveness that would enable collective economic growth of the region.
Singapore’s advantages
The Singaporean government has put measures in place that will see the country become a major innovation hub in the world. Major progresses have been made in ICT development, which is a key factor of technological development. The country’s industries use modern facilities that enable quality and efficient production.
Moreover, the country has modernised learning institutions, which together with modernised industries play a major role in attracting tourists and increasing the country’s competitiveness in the global economic arena. In addition, modernised infrastructures play a major role in enhancing the country’s attractiveness to people across the world.
The country has a strategic location that makes it attractive to tourists all year round due to good climate. Singapore’s small size makes it attractive as it is one of the few city nations in the world, and thus it serves as a business hub in the South Asian region.
Political stability is also a major determinant of the success of the tourism industry in the economy, as tourists prefer visiting regions with security assurance and guaranteed peace courtesy of political stability (Hitchcock et al. 2010).
Singapore’s disadvantages
Despite the many advantages that Singapore enjoys, few disadvantages accompany the country’s effort to become a leading tourist attraction site. The country experiences leakages as its trade secrets are known to the world for tourists are made to know how business is carried out in the country.
In addition, Singapore faces a high risk of increased crime due to diverse ethnicity and cultural heritages, which make a country vulnerable to crime. Hence, the government has to come up with tough security measures that enhance efficiency of security checks carried out against tourists while retaining their human dignity.
Another problem that the country faces is the risk of reconstructed ethnicity whereby locals may turn against tourists by claiming that foreigners deny them particular opportunities in the economy (Durbarry 2004).
Conclusion
Singapore is one of the most notable tourist attraction destinations across the world. The ability to become a perfect tourist destination hinges to its capacity to adapt to external demands whereby the Singaporean government has invested in modernising infrastructures to fit the internationally set standards.
In addition, the tourism sector demands large-scale human resources depending on demand and Singapore has proved to have enough human resource to cater for huge demands in the country’s tourism sector.
In addition, the success of the tourism sector in Singapore hinges on from the government’s effort to support and encourage entrepreneurial activities in the country as many investors have invested in the industry, hence attracting large tourist populations.
The Singaporean government’s plans and strategies coupled with the mandate of the tourist board will play a major role in enhancing steady growth of tourism in the country. Singapore enjoys several advantages, which are critical to the growth of tourism in the country.
They include ICT development among others; however, such merits come with demerits like insecurity as aforementioned. The threat of other countries copying Singapore’s ingenuity is also real. However, the plans and strategies noted in this paper are viable for improving the tourism sector in the Singaporean economy.
Reference List
Ardahaey, F 2011, ‘Economic Impacts of Tourism Industry’, International Journal of Business and Management, vol. 6 no. 8, pp. 123-145.
Balaguer, J & Cantavell-Jorda, M 2002, ‘Tourism as a Long-run Growth Factor: The Spanish Case’, Applied Economics, vo.34 no. 7, pp.877-884.
Carrigan, A 2010, Postcolonial Tourism: Literature, Culture, and Environment, Taylor & Francis, London.
Durbarry, R 2004, ‘Tourism and Economic Growth: The Case of Mauritius’, Tourism Economics, vol.10 no.3, pp. 389-401.
Hall, C & Page, S 2012, Tourism in South and Southeast Asia, Routledge, London.
Hitchcock, M, King, V & Parnwell, M 2009, Tourism in Southeast Asia: Challenges and New Directions, NIAS Press, Copenhagen.
Hitchcock, M, King, V & Parnwell, M 2010, Heritage tourism in Southeast Asia, University of Hawaii Press, Tokyo.
Reisinger, Y 2009, International Tourism: Cultures and Behaviour, Elsevier, London.
Singapore Tourism Board: Get up and close with wonder 2013. Web.
Tse, R 2001, ‘Estimating the impact of economic factors on tourism: evidence from Hong Kong’, Tourism Economics, vol.7 no.3, pp.277–293.
YuChen, I 2010, ‘The Environmental Impact of Singapore Tourism Development Analysis and Response’, The International Hospitality and Tourism Student Journal, vol. 2 no. 3, pp. 56-89.
Visiting to one of the most popular cities of Nevada, Las Vegas, may seem like an endless party, where each member is eager to continue entertaining, without sleeping all days and nights in order to enjoy the beauty of this city, if it is possible.
Huge buildings, touching the sky, multicolored lights, making the city brighter and even warmer, and people afoot – all this creates a picture of a lively city that is always ready to accept one more visitor and present the world, full of events and happiness, to him/her. “What matters is that, like an oasis mirage in a parched desert, Las Vegas is whatever you desire most, if only for a day, a night or a dirty weekend.
Here, everyone lives like the King” (Benson 2007). There are 5 evident reasons to visit Las Vegas, Nevada: (1) an ability to watch amazing shows any time you want; (2) a good chance to observe a Pyramid, Ancient Rome, and the Eiffel Tower; (3) a possibility to drink for free visiting different casinos; (4) a great opportunity to win much and be recognized by the world or loose everything; (5) a funny and unforgettable place to get married.
Las Vegas is worth visiting for many reasons, and I, as a sophisticated travel agent, am ready to introduce you this city and prove that you will never forget your vacations and your trip to Las Vegas, where an opportunity to relax, gamble, and meet new people are available all the time.
The Description of the Target Group
The chosen target group for vacation to Las Vegas, Nevada has rather clear purposes to relax, to rejuvenate, and simply to have fun. The choice of this city is obvious: Las Vegas is created for fun, shopping, gambling, and various entertainments, and if people want to have the most amazing vacations ever, the city is waiting for them.
Las Vegas attracts the attention of more that 35 million people annually (Moehring & Green, 2005), and it is never too much for it to accept one more visitor and open its doors with pleasure. The age range of my group is around 35-45 years. It is the most perfect target group because of several reasons. First of all, people of this age usually have successfully established careers, and their fiscal freedom allows them to visit any country and any city in order to relax or just enjoy this life annually.
Household income of the family, the members of which are under the age of 35-45, is about $80,000 per year (Biederman, 2007). People’s abilities to control their income and support each member of the family provide families with opportunities to visit such cities like Vegas and spend a couple of thousands there.
Lifestyle dimensions of this target group are connected to luxury and expensive and of course comfortable conditions. If people go on trip, they prefer to choose air transport in order to spend less time, use the best services, and enjoy the vacation. In spite of the fact that comfort is inherent to this group, people like to see the sights in crowds and eat standard food during the tours.
People under the age of 35-45 prefer both venturers and dependable trips. The latter is used in order to be sure that their vacation will not be spoiled by unpredictable situations or the absence of the necessary comfort, this is why they take short trips and choose standard accommodations. The representatives of venturers prefer new destinations each year and like to buy souvenirs and gifts in order to remember the vacation and have something to share with people from native places.
Vacation to Las Vegas, Nevada
The target group under analysis is going to visit Las Vegas. The choice of this city corresponds to almost all characteristics, which have been mentioned above about this group of people. First of all, 35-45-year-old people can permit themselves visiting different cities and their sights, spending certain sums of money, and enjoy the beauty of the chosen cities.
Las Vegas is the city of gambling and fun, this is why those people, who earn enough money and like different types of entertainment, will certainly find this city interesting and magnificent in many senses.
The peculiar feature of Las Vegas trips is the necessity to plan it beforehand: booking hotel rooms in order to have a place to stay for a while, buying tickets in order to have a chance to reach the city comfortably and quickly, and pointing out the places, which you want to see at first, in order to find out when it is possible to visit it and spend less time to enjoy everything (Benson, 2008).
Government and Tourism. Current economic crisis creates numerous challenges for the sphere of tourism and travel, and the efforts of the government to support Las Vegas’ vacations play a significant role nowadays.
The role of government becomes crucial because only this body is able to support the industry of tourism on its national and international level, to roll out promotions in the state and out of it, and to offer incentives in order to attract investors and develop projects.
As a rule, economic factors become the major ones: generation of jobs, incomes, and taxes should be evaluated in order to pay for numerous public services. However, cooperation of government and tourism may be characterized by both positive and negative outcomes.
On the one hand, government can provide the necessary promotional support as well as tourist police protection and consular services in order to manage crisis and promote tours. On the other hand, out- and in-bound requirements may hurt the industry and mistakenly reward some and disappoint the others (Biederman, 2007).
Sustainable Tourism. The idea of sustainable tourism becomes more crucial due to tourism’s dependence on some cultural and natural resources. It is about “the minimization of negative impacts and the maximization of positive impacts” (Weaver, 2006, p. 10).
Tourists’ activities in Las Vegas have to be rationed to help conserve the area: due to the great amount of tourists every year, it is extremely important to develop approaches and meet the demands of tourists as well as native citizens. The societal issues in Las Vegas do not face any challenges or troubles, because people and culture in Las Vegas are properly comprehended by the tourists and usually appreciated.
Those tourists, who come to Vegas in order to entertain and get some pleasure, realize that Vegas culture and traditions differ from the ones, they come from. It is possible to get married, earn millions, or lose everything within the shortest period of time.
Activities. Gaming activity is probably the major activity to include in vacation to Las Vegas. Many people prefer to visit the city of sins just in order to gamble and get and opportunity to win a bit.
Las Vegas casinos are the most captivating sights: The Hard Rock Casino, Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, or Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, and other casinos on Las Vegas Boulevard (Herczog 2008). This is why it is important to explain how dangerous and unpredictable the games at casinos can be. However, it is also better to comprehend that the target group is old enough to control own budget and incomes.
So, gambling is the activity number one in out vacation list that should happen at day time, because nights have to be spent to enjoy the play of Las Vegas lights and sounds. Many people go outside and observe how amazing the evenings can be: lights of casinos and cinemas and crowds of people make the tourist believe that it is day outside and no one wants to sleep. Another activity that is inherent to the tourists of Las Vegas is shopping and visiting shows.
Ecotourism. Travelling to Las Vegas may be of different types; its magnificent buildings, huge and green parks, and amazing alleys provide ecotourists with opportunities to visit this city and develop ecotourism as an integral part of their lives. Ecotourism differs from other form of tourism due to its abilities to improve native citizens’ well-being and to conserve environment (Biederman, 2007).
It is possible to visit Las Vegas Zoo, also known as the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park, in order to observe exotic animals and enjoy numerous bamboos and cycads. This travel to the zoo helps to forget that you are in the city of casino and to feel yourself as a jungle-person, who observe nature and its riches for the first time.
Transportation. In spite of the fact that Las Vegas is almost in the center of a desert, there are many ways to reach this city within a short period of time.
The only important step to take is to buy a ticket to airplane and come in time to the airport. It does not matter what state/city you are coming from, trip over the air does not take too much time: a couple of hours, and you are in Las Vegas. Travels by airplanes are expensive indeed, but still, all those comfort, saved time, and services cost this money and do not make a traveler being bothered about something.
Local transportation within the city allows getting a cap any time; however, if a person is a member of my target group, a comfortable bus is already waiting for you to take to the most interesting places of Vegas. Minibuses, taxi, or monorail are available for tourists 24/7; and if a tourist loses his/her way or wants to get to his/her apartments as soon as possible, it is possible to spend some money and use some of the above-mentioned transport.
Travel agent vs. online travel site
The role of travel agents is crucial indeed: they ensure connection between travelers and travel vendors like airlines, hotels, and transport. When a person wants to visit Las Vegas for the first time, it is crucially important to use the services of travel agents in order to become aware about possible challenges of this vacation, about places, where some help or support can be found out, and about people, who can help, when it is necessary.
With the help of tour operators, a tourist can learn the prices and foresee possible money spending. In comparison to online travel site, the work of travel agents and tour operators seems to be more reliable and safer. Online sites may present interesting and necessary information about Las Vegas, provide with the necessary maps and facts.
However, if a person loses its way or is not sure to use this service or not, online site cannot offer a good solution, because, there are only some general facts and some general suggestions.
Traveler-beginners should feel that their vacation is under someone’s care, and if some unpredictable situation takes place, there will be a person, who is responsible for all this and is able to offer an appropriate way out. My role as a travel agent is very significant, because I try to do my best in order to offer the best vacations ever, and Las Vegas is a good point to start with.
Reference List
Benson, S. (2008). Las Vegas: City Guide. Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publication Pty Ltd.
Benson, S. (2007). Las Vegas. Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publication Pty Ltd.
Biederman, P. S. (2007). Travel and Tourism: An Industry Primer. Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Herczog, M. (2008). Frommer’s Las Vegas 2009. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Moehring, E. P. & Green, M. S. (2005). Las Vegas: A Centennial History. Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press.
Weaver, D. B. (2007). Sustainable Tourism: Theory and Practice. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Ltd.
According to the tourist report, the city of Bath is a wonderful city that offers a rich history, beautiful architecture, and great traditional heritage. The Roman Baths; the medieval core; and the Georgian crescents and squares have allowed Bath to gain World Heritage status and this combined with the retail offer and overall environment has allowed Bath to become an important tourist city.
As things stand out the city of Bath has lost its glory as it used to be before. Due to underdevelopment the city and its environment are decaying hence losing their appeal which has also been brought about deterrent underinvestment. Development has proved difficult due to poor public monopolistic policy rendering the city of Bath at risk of declining hence losing to its key competitors like Oxford and Chester (McElroy 2021, pp.92-106).
There has been great resistance to change at the city of Bath, but courtesy of the Vision for Bath process, there is a growing phenomenon in the belief that something must be done. The Bath economy is mostly deeply dependent on the tourism industry, of which it is experiencing decreasing tourist numbers. There are still are collaborators in the city and yet much of the built environment and public realm is in need of substantial investment. A substantial part of the city currently is below what would be expected of a World Heritage Site and this is making the city of the Bath lose its position as a World Heritage Site.
There is a predominant inadequate job opportunity for career growth and development in the labor market brought about by expensive housing facilities making it unaffordable by the low wages income earners, the dominant tourism, retail, and public service sectors. There is a danger that these myriads of problems will keep away walking Bath residents hence seeking employment opportunities in other jurisdictions. There is, therefore, a great concerted effort to ensure that these issues are well addressed otherwise the city of Bath stands very high chances of being rendered a historically interesting offshoot of a Greater Bristol with little vibrancy, community, or wealth-creating economy of its own.
The transport system is mostly centered on a bus-based network and pedestrianization according to the management plan. Tourism is managed by Bath Tourism Plus which is an independent company. The Destination Management Plan has been updated by a Destination Marketing Strategy for Bath, which aims to enhance growth in the value of tourism rather than in volume. The brand is one of the most paramount assets that a company can ever have. Branding at the destination city Bath has been done to deliver a brand’s distinction.
Introduction
In early 2005 B&NES Council designed and developed future approach for the city of Bath. The development of ‘Vision for Bath’ and the wide communication method by the B&NES Council has led to the development of a mutual agreement within the city and brought numerous tangible changes. The business strategic plan was undertaken to validate and challenge the original vision, whilst the analysis sets out some strategies for developing the overall economy and regenerating the city for both residents and tourists. When the conclusion was drawn, the Business Plan converted the results into a tangible development plan, a spatial interpretation of the scheme, and a financial model to test overall workability. By carrying out the process in this manner, the plan reflected the social and economic needs of the city and created a result that retained the essential characteristics of Bath. The approach ended by conducting the financial usefulness of the scheme and making some recommendations (Fisher, et al. 2019).
Figure 1. City of Bath England
Background Information
Figure 2. Welcome to Bath – The Original Wellbeing Destination is an exciting city with a mixture of contemporary culture, green spaces, and historical heritage.
The city of Bath is believed to have been founded by the Romans as a thermal spa due to its hot springs and appeared as a useful place for the wool industry in the Middle Ages. During George III around the 18th century, Bath develops to become one of the most graceful and stylish cities. The city of Bath has an extraordinary versatile significance in a number of the cultural traits like The Romans remains, especially the Temple of Sulis Minerva and the baths complex (based around the hot springs at the heart of the Roman town of Aquae Sulis, which have remained at the heart of the city’s development ever since) are amongst the most famous and important Roman remains north of the Alps, and marked the beginning of Bath’s history as a spa town (Paddeu, 2017).
The Destination city of Bath has stood out to be into one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with architecture and landscape combined uniformly for the enjoyment of the spa town’s cure takers due to Georgian city which reflects the ambitions of John Wood Senior (1704-1754), Ralph Allen (1693-1764), and Richard “Beau” Nash (1675-1761). Public buildings like the Assembly Rooms and Pump Room have a Neo-classical style that harmonizes with these well with grandiose proportions of the structural ensemble like Queen Square, Circus, and Royal Crescent which all showed great potential, especially the spa city in the 18th century (Warner 1801).
Georgian premises had a great portray and attraction of Palladio (1508-1580) and their collective scale, style, and organization of the spaces between buildings epitomize the success of architects. Some of these are John Woods (elder 1704-1754, younger 1728-1782), Robert Adam (1728-1792), Thomas Baldwin (1750-1820), and John Palmer (1738-1817) in transposing Palladio’s ideas to the scale of a complete city, situated in a hollow in the hills and built to a picturesque landscape aestheticism creating a strong garden city feel, more akin to the 19th-century garden cities than the 17th century Renaissance cities. Bath has high standards for architecture and urban design, its visual uniformity, and its beauty is largely a testament to the skill and creativity of the architects and visionaries of the 18th and 19th centuries. These applied and developed Palladianism in relation to the specific chances offered by the spa town and its physical environment, and natural resources specifically the hot springs and the local Bath Oolitic limestone (Stamataki and Kjeldsen, 2021).
Structures that surround Bath’s urban and landscape spaces lead to the creation of well-connected spaces auger in so well naturally bringing in the green environment suburbs hence outlay of garden city feel as designed by town planners in the 19th century. Roman and Georgian are memorable times for the city of Bath as they brought great significance which over time had great development. This is evidenced during spectacular medieval Abbey church sat besides Roman temple and baths within 18th century and the modern-day city. Like any other current city, there is a high likelihood for the destruction of the city of Bath garden city feel brought about by high pressure for high development and transport system.
The hot springs are well maintained and governed bringing an appealing view. While the main remains of the Roman are kept in good conditions, well guarded, and viewed in a museum set up which makes Roman’s Baths be widely accepted for their originality. The continuous inhabitation since the construction of the majority of the large stock of Georgian buildings has really enhanced retention of the topmost level of the original fabric (Hammond, 2017)
Macro Environment for city of Bath
For survival and remaining productive it is crucial for the city of Bath to access its marketing environment. There are several macro-environmental factors facing Bath which are political, economic, social, and technological. The firms should always be aware of some of these macro-environmental factors even before venturing into a particular country. This will help the business to reduce some of the unforeseen circumstances and dangers that may result from that industry.
Political, legal, and regulatory factors
This is mainly concerned with how the state deals with such issues that will affect the firm’s nature of operations and its core plans. There are different players in the political environment including civil societies, the government through its various agencies like the executive, judiciary, and the legislatures. These play a key role in determining such laws as environmental factors, inflations, employment requirements, taxation laws, occupation and safety laws, minimum wage bills, minimum wage pay laws among others. At city Bath, the government has relaxed in determining the minimum wage for the low levels employees, and the housing rent. Most of the employees are working and commuting daily being unable to afford the house rent in their nearby houses. The council is the one in charge of managing the investment but currently facing financial distress making it difficult to invest more, repair dilapidated houses, and manage public transport (Sun et al.,2020).
Economical factors
The economical factors are highly affecting the consumer purchasing power, with others facing such challenges as high commodity prices, wealth per capita among others. Value for money is a significant factor to most consumers and this determines their expenditure patterns. Most consumers especially the poor people are finding it difficult to afford recreational services and shopping in the city of Bath. This is greatly affecting the city of Bath’s revenue since they mostly target high-end expeditors. This is greatly affecting the domestic and the international visitors on their spending on luxuries like tourism.
Social factors
There are social issues like the customs, norms, population, gender, traditions, lifestyles, and preferences playing a critical role in the tourism industry. These are having devastating effects on the city of Bath and so the management needs to put them into consideration to remain competitive in the industry. Most of the tourist visiting the city of Bath is elders and very few youths. Individual population’s size, race, religion, occupation, gender, and education are also contributing a lot to the city of Bath. The high population of students studying at the University of Bath should be highly encouraged to invest and spend at the Bath. Seasonal variations, traveling modalities, and competitions from other players are affecting the number of visitors at the Bath. Management should put in place measures and strategies to address these issues (Baches, 2018).
Technological factors
Like any other firm, the tourism industry is also affected by the new technologies which keep on creating new products and market changes. New visitors especially the young generations are searching for information about a particular product online. With a click of a button, most visitors want to make inquiries on available food, accommodation, travel arrangement, safety, and the cost of services among others. The tourism business needs to be well equipped with the knowledge and the expertise about the internet and its applications. The city of Bath has invested in online platforms, newsletters, and social media platforms to reach a pool of its customers.
Microenvironment factors
The microenvironment consists of forces that are close to the firms and make them unable to serve their customers. Some of these microenvironment factors are the firm’s capital base, competencies of staff and the capability of the management, firms’ goals and objectives, customers, stakeholders, and competitors. The city of Bath is faced with financial challenges to expand on its tourism industry just like other firms. This is making Bath almost lose its long enjoyed glory of a world heritage center. Stiff competitors from other players like Oxford, Chester among others are keeping most of the potential visitors away.
Branding
Figure 3. Branding as a world heritage spa city
The city of Bath has been in the process of rebranding itself by positioning and surrounding and as the go-to organization making it on a global map at a local, national and international level. This aims at redefining and strengthening the city of Bath to become a competitive identity and ensuring that it has a strong, consistent brand and is well recognized by its members, partners, visitors, and the local community. This will make the city of Bath become the market leader thereby the destination of choice when visitors are doing research and making the booking to their trip to Bath. According to UNESCO (2017), the city of Bath branded as a world heritage spa city portrays a unique selling point of the UNESCO status and the thermal spa offering. The new branding shows an iconic historic architecture, a distinctive, independent-minded place, and a charming, unique, and glamorous destination; classical but with a contemporary twist. The reason behind this is to represent the source of Bath’s thermal waters bubbling up in ever-decreasing circles within the Roman Baths and to represent the iconic crescents and the distinctive Circus. The choice of color and design shows the rolling hills surrounding the city (Ong et al., 2021, pp.2338-2348).
Marketing and communication strategies
The city of Bath has been advertising itself through the media like the Television Sets, Radio, website, newsletter, and social media account. The city of Bath capitalized on the use of digital communications as a marketing strategy. This led to using the UK’s best working websites, great use of newsletters to several databases, and an actor with well organized social media program for the tourist. Targeting different categories of users has been the utmost goal and objective to promote continuous messaging to reach them on daily basis. The Bath consumer marketing brand has been operating under the Visit Bristol and Visit Bath brands which include the visitBristol.co.uk plus VisitBath.co.uk websites. There are also several branded newsletters and social media channels both on Twitter, Instagram, and even Facebook. This promotes eye-capturing news content, with business groupings and themed pages easy identification of a market niche (Bindhu, 2017).
Figure 4. Is for Visit Bath Consumer MarketingFigure 5. Is for Visit Bristol Consumer Marketing
With reliable availability of water, the city of Bath stands out as the only natural thermal hot spring in Britain one can take a shower in. The unique and very accommodative tourist appealing center with eateries and finest independent shops in entire Britain makes it an ideal stopover. The wonderful collection of museums and galleries brings about a good entertainment joint full of year-round festivals, theatre, sports, and music. There are plenty of beautiful sceneries like the Longleat Safari Park, Stonehenge, and Avebury among others.
As a way of the personal selling city of Bath tend to employ locals and tourist as brand ambassador by actively encouraging word of mouth and social media engagement. An encouraging and well-designed promotions offer of the city center plus annual Festivals and Events program plays a critical role in extending seasons and filling off-peak capacity. As an advertising tool Bath will venture into routine friendly welcoming of tourists by providing appealing marketing resources, updated digital information, and high-class Tourist Information Hub (García-Hernández, la Calle-Vaquero and Yubero, 2017).
Tourism attraction remains the epitome of the economy for Bath and its environment. There is every concerted effort to promote the value of tourism to bring out economic progress by using several marketing strategies. According to a 2014 report by Bath, it sets out clear plans and strategies to boost tourist attraction thereby promoting the economy. Bath aimed at creating and developing destination stopover in the home market while maximizing trends at domestic by increasing daily tourist by 12% annually to reach £118m by 2014. Bath also intends to increase the value of high-end international tourists by 12% to reach £83m in 2014 targeting those from Europe, the US, China, Asia among others. City Bath is concerned with increasing the value of the day visitor market by 12% while that of business tourism growth by having more delegates annually to a tune of 9% (Lovell, 2019).
On a global map, The US has been the main prayer with others like Australia, European countries and the Far East are also becoming partners. The elegant sceneries at Bath have made it receives an international reputation for its calmness with a good place for recreational services. With increasing competition from Oxford and Chester, there is every desire to put more effort into promoting the heritage and culture at Bath. Bath enjoys a wide pool of loyal customers who are older age groups, youths, spendthrift customers, and fashion-sensitive tourists.
With a high influence of some emerging factors like the ever-changing economy and technology that currently guides on expenditure and destination sites, the city of Bath needs to up its game to outdo its competitors by investing heavily in its goods and services plus marketing budgets. The increased competition in most tourist attraction centers on leisure time in an uncertain economy needs to be well incorporated into the business strategic plans. Bath has been doing well in the business productivity which left it tourist spending little individually however slowing down its growth. Bath has been on a trajectory path to overcome these challenges by investing more in areas of high growth like the spendthrift market and holidaying at domestic (Borsay, 2019).
Strength
The city of Bath is widely known as a World Heritage center and stands out as the only one across the whole UK to enjoy such an identity. Bath enjoys a well set and performing tourist economy, has documented events of culture and festivals, and it also has a strong mix of several retails and own provisions that have placed it top of the industry. Having a strong culture and enjoying the good reputation of the Bath led to the creation of a city well known for good things. A strong culture of artisan traditions provides alternative medicines, designs, arts with a good council enjoying reaping huge returns from the ancestral and ancient assets of things. The University of Bath is top-ranked in the UK universities with establishment also of University and College of Further Education and has a standing culture for sports by having well established recreational facilities in the UK like the Bath Rugby Club that tops in the premiership of the Rugby Union Club (Pavlić, Portolan and Puh 2020).
Weakness
This however comes with several weaknesses for the Bath. Some of the main weaknesses for the Bath include declining wages and a monopoly of the public sector leads to limited creation of wealth around the city. Bath also faces a declining wage economy in comparison with other towns and states within the South of England, with a performing hospitality industry that is costly and becoming obsolete. Affordability of housing is a major problem in a low-wage economy, there are also poor sceneries in some public utilities and the well-established environment is getting dilapidated hence reducing the city of Bath from a World Heritage Location. Financial challenges are facing the B&NES council rendering it difficult to tap into new wide capital intensive projects (Rasoolimanesh et al., 2017).
The challenges are immense since the transport industry within the city has been fully exhausted whereby any new venture stands high chances of creating congestion within the industry. B&NES council and other key players failed to have a better modern plan for the city leaving it with poor marketing of the city and inconsistent messaging regarding the city of Bath.
The imbalances between high house prices and low wages, coupled with inadequate competent quality private sector employers, bring inconsistencies in the development of the community. Bath can so wish to provide a residential base for the wealthy but the declining economy currently provides few chances for potential individuals to create this wealth. Low-wage workers are increasingly forced to live out of town and there are few opportunities in the city for those who graduate at the Universities of Bath. This makes Bath provide almost nothing to promote the next generation of wealth creators (Shtudiner, Klein and Kantor, 2018).
There is a worrying trend of the decline in the number of tourists visiting the city of Bath. The tourism economy is of great significance to the city of Bath. Tourist spending across the retail sector encourages a retail offer that far exceeds the offer which would be expected for a city the size of Bath more so in regards to its nearness to Bristol. Tourists and new entrants mostly contribute a substantial amount of the revenue which is useful to the council investment in other projects and provision of services. If the number of tourists and the new entrants keeps on decreasing, job opportunities and other key investments generated by the tourism and retail businesses will reduce.
Future Marketing
Bath envisions rebranding itself as well looking for the potential new market and encouraging top most spending tourist. Customer satisfaction with quality services and appealing new experiences cultural values is the new trend for most tourists. With this, Bath will be investing heavily in the power of word of mouth and individuals’ affection for the city both international and domestic by developing digital and social media platforms. By creating strategic alliances with like-minded business partners, a well-researched marketing approach, and a good external environment in its vicinity, Bath plans to deliver a good package that is in the best interest of everyone.
Every measure is being put in place to ensure that Bath continues enticing and attracting domestic and regional markets to become a thrilling shopping destination. On international markets, it will be tapping top spending visitors from the US, European countries like France and German, and the East like China. Culture still forms the basis and center of attraction with unique features and sceneries. The investment of a great pool of domestic tourists and brand ambassadors from within will play a key role. Several events will be used to promote the tourism industry like the UK day and residential events, international incentive travel from European countries, and the US (Elliott, 2018).
The Tourism industry at Bath will be creating and providing leadership by searching and securing new ventures for the best interest of the wider industry. Tapping on the vendors from other events markets, firms, and meetings in collaborations from the Visit England, Visit Britain, UK and the global destination trade like Bristol Airport, Airlines, First Great Western, Bath Business Improvement District, and neighboring destinations will create new chances missing at local associate (Bass and Livingston, 2019). Bath will be committed to using thrilling information and innovative advertisement to promote awareness as a tourist attraction center. To remain and achieve its global perspective, Bath will stick to its main goal of growing the value of tourism through a collaborative approach with industry partners, extending our reach, reducing duplication, and achieving a bigger slice of the market.
The city of Bath plans to reduce the effects of seasonality by creating an annual continuous tourist using its key festivals and the events as the captivating thing. This will also involve incorporating other creative forums like new Bath Tourism Marketing for a better framework and increasing its potential in the business tourism market. Creating good working environments with other players will help Bath Tourism Plus exploit marketing chances hence a greater target on target markets. New technology and changes in consumer behavior are redefining the old habit of marketing which Bath is giving a key priority. Bath Tourism Plus envisions becoming an industry leader and a center of marketing excellence by leading in the creative, innovative, and digital platforms. As a leader in digital strategy, Bath intends to collude with others for transparent information sharing in all digital avenues, use recommendations of the tourist at the online platforms and social media account, as well as work with other stakeholders to ensure quality information at Bath for easy access of credible information by the tourist at the click of a button (Asante et al., 2019).
Investing more in research projects, wide knowledge, and the growing consumer behavior will be a key consideration in customizing the tourist product we offer. By use of appealing voice, good character traits and innovative ways will form part of the historical and heritage. This will go away to ensuring that Bath brand toolkit for the firm use, and supporting messages produce a tourist unique product within and across the globe. Bath brand is in the business of reaching out for more ventures to promote its brand alliances to reach more customers and creating unique but appealing and price-worthy products that entice more pool of customers (Yoon and Shin, 2017).
Conclusion
The city of Bath plays a critical role in the tourism industry. This has been made possible by its well-developed strategies in several unique features like rich history, beautiful architecture, and great traditional heritage. The Roman Baths; the medieval core; and the Georgian crescents and squares have allowed Bath to gain World Heritage status and this combined with the retail offer and overall environment has allowed Bath to become an important tourist city. The development of ‘Vision for Bath’ and the wide communication method by the B&NES Council has led to the development of a mutual agreement within the city and brought numerous tangible changes. The Business Strategic Plan was undertaken to validate and challenge the original Vision, whilst the analysis sets out some strategies for developing the overall economy and regenerating the city for both residents and tourists. When the conclusion was drawn, the Business Plan converted the results into a tangible development plan, a spatial interpretation of the scheme and a financial model to test overall workability. However, there has not been without several strengths like a World Heritage Center and stands out as the only one across the whole UK to enjoy such an identity. Bath enjoys a well set and performing tourist economy, has documented events of culture and festivals, and it also has a strong mix of several retails and own provisions that have placed it top of the industry. Having a strong culture and enjoying the good reputation of the Bath led to the creation of a city well known for good things.
However, there have been several weaknesses for the Bath including declining wages and a monopoly of the public sector leads to limited creation of wealth around the city. Bath also faces a declining wage economy in comparison with other towns and states within the South of England, with a performing hospitality industry that is costly and becoming obsolete. The affordability of housing is a major problem in a low-wage economy. If proper measures are incorporated the city of Bath will continue maintaining its status quo of a World Heritage Center.
Recommendations
The city of Bath should ensure that it encourages a high density of housing development on Bath Western Riverside albeit, promote more private sector employment, invest more incorporate research, preserve the integrity of both the retail mix within the city and the retail experience, and also invest hospitality activities. Other areas include a better plan for the financial strategy which identifies the funding mechanisms for the public sector contribution to the Business Plan, a better marketing strategy that conforms with the modern world, a delivery approach that puts into consideration the internal resources, and structure of B&NES Council.
Reference List
Asante, B.O., Trask, C., Adebayo, O. and Bath, B., (2019). Prevalence and risk factors of low back disorders among waste collection workers: A systematic review. Work, 64(1), pp.33-42.
Baches, M.B., 2018. Commonalities and Conflicts Between Urban Preservation and Social Sustainability in the Historic City of Bath.
Bass, B.J. and Livingston, M., (2019). Automotive retrofits in historic city centres and their potential effects on their walkability: a comparison of San Luis Obispo, CA, USA and Bath, England, UK. Journal of Urban Design, 24(2), pp.290-304.
Bindhu, V.H., (2017). The factors influencing young women in purchase decision regarding bath and shower category. ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 7(7), pp.1-8.
Borsay, A., (2019). Medicine and charity in Georgian Bath: a social history of the general infirmary, c. 1739–1830. Routledge.
Elliott, L., Benoit, E., Campos, S. and Dunlap, E., (2018). The long tail of a demon drug: The ‘bath salts’ risk environment. International Journal of Drug Policy, 51, pp.111-116.
Fisher, C.T., Cohen, A.S., Solinis-Casparius, R., Pezzutti, F.L., Bush, J., Forest, M. and Torvinen, A., (2019). A typology of ancient Purépecha (Tarascan) architecture from Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity, 30(3), pp.510-528.
García-Hernández, M., la Calle-Vaquero, D. and Yubero, C., 2017. Cultural heritage and urban tourism: Historic city centres under pressure. Sustainability, 9(8), p.1346.
Hammond, C.I., (2017). ” Architects, Angels, Activists and the City of Bath, 1765? 965″: Engaging with Women’s Spatial Interventions in Buildings and Landscape. Routledge.
Lovell, J., (2019). Fairytale authenticity: historic city tourism, Harry Potter, medievalism and the magical gaze. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 14(5-6), pp.448-465.
McElroy, I.E., (2021). Constructed contrasts and manipulated experiences: the cathedral at Gerasa and its relationship with the adjacent Temple of Artemis complex. Levant, 53(1), pp.92-106.
Ong, J., Swift, C., Bath, M., Ong, S., Lim, W., Al‐Naeeb, Y., Shankar, A. and Dan, Y.Y., (2021). The prevalence of burnout, risk factors, and job‐related stressors in gastroenterologists: A systematic review. Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 36(9), pp.2338-2348.
Paddeu, D., (2017). The Bristol-Bath Urban freight Consolidation Centre from the perspective of its users. Case Studies on Transport Policy, 5(3), pp.483-491.
Pavlić, I., Portolan, A. and Puh, B., (2020). Segmenting local residents by perceptions of tourism impacts in an urban World Heritage Site: The case of Dubrovnik. Journal of Heritage Tourism, 15(4), pp.398-409.
Rasoolimanesh, S.M., Jaafar, M., Ahmad, A.G. and Barghi, R., (2017). Community participation in World Heritage Site conservation and tourism development. Tourism Management, 58, pp.142-153.
Shtudiner, Z.E., Klein, G. and Kantor, J., (2018). How religiosity affects the attitudes of communities towards tourism in a sacred city: The case of Jerusalem. Tourism Management, 69, pp.167-179.
Stamataki, I. and Kjeldsen, T.R., (2021). Reconstructing the peak flow of historical flood events using a hydraulic model: The city of Bath, United Kingdom. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 14(3), p.e12719.
Sun, J., Birmili, W., Hermann, M., Tuch, T., Weinhold, K., Merkel, M., Rasch, F., Müller, T., Schladitz, A., Bastian, S. and Löschau, G., (2020). Decreasing trends of particle number and black carbon mass concentrations at 16 observational sites in Germany from 2009 to 2018. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 20(11), pp.7049-7068.
Warner, R., (1801). The history of Bath. R. Cruttwell, and sold by GG and J. Robinson, London.
Yoon, S. and Shin, Y., (2017). Research of the Optimum Conditions for Thermal Comfort of the Changing Room after a Bath. International Information Institute (Tokyo). Information, 20(5A), pp.3275-3282.
Turnover is one of the biggest issues in the hospitality industry. The majority of hotels experience around 80% turnover rate on a yearly basis (Immaneni et al., 2021). This results in additional expenditures for finding and training additional staff, reduced efficiency, and quality of labor, and decreased customer experience. An emerging body of literature on the subject indicates that the retention of employees would bring more benefits to companies and clients in the long-term perspective (Immaneni et al., 2021). The case study of Mandarin Oriental Hotel demonstrates how different non-material aspects of rewarding and appreciating employees would result in better morale and retention rates (Marshall et al., 2015). Their experience is relevant and important for studying business and the hospitality industry in particular, as it demonstrates the effectiveness and attitudes towards different methods of solving the problem of retention.
Identifying and Diagnosing the Problem
The problem described in the case study relates to the state of labor and employee relations with companies. The hospitality industry in Bangkok is described as greedy, providing its workers with low compensation, inadequate benefits, poor working conditions, and a lack of care about morale and attitudes (Marshall et al., 2015). This is both an intrinsic and extrinsic problem. The issues described are intrinsic to every individual hotel, restaurant, and catering facility because each of these businesses makes a conscious choice to treat their employees in such a way. At the same time, the extrinsic aspect of the problem is the uniformity of employee maltreatment across the industry, likely to make the workforce rotate between major players without seeing any improvement before finally leaving the industry.
The root cause of the problem lies in ignorance about the consequences of turnover coupled with flawed industry standards and the need to compete with others. Maltreatment and poor compensation of employees help save money on incentive initiatives in the short term (Immaneni et al., 2021). Increased salaries, longer breaks, comfy restrooms, and various other appreciation programs present additional ongoing costs to businesses. In addition, due to all other competitors trying to save costs on employees, there is external pressure to do the same (Immaneni et al., 2021). Therefore, the root causes of the problem are both intrinsic and extrinsic in the ways described above.
Possible Alternatives
Mandarin Oriental defied the expectations set by the industry when they provided their employees with a series of benefits and incentives to improve their motivational hygiene. These included a Wall of Fame, facilities for grooming and clothing maintenance, zones for reading, leisure, and relaxation, and facilities that sold food and items to employees at a discount (Marshall et al., 2015). Some of these facilities were very popular among workers, with discount stores being universally adored. Others, like the Dream Zone and Fashion Zone, were less popular. However, the overall approval rate for each solution was above 50% (Marshall et al., 2015). Alternative options offered to employees could be increased paychecks (Immaneni et al., 2021). As it stands, the balance of salaries in Bangkok is relatively stable, so an employer with a higher payer margin is likely to attract better talent.
Conclusion
Higher salaries can be achieved by saving money from elsewhere. As it stands, the number of programs is excessive, with some of the functions redundant and not appreciated by almost every second employee. The dream room and relaxation room could be united into one; the same goes for grooming and clothing maintenance. In addition, the company could afford a small cut to their profit margins in the short term to achieve better performance. Though Mandarin Oriental’s plan was successful, this additional solution would improve retention even more.
References
Immaneni, K. M., Sailaja, D., & Naga, V. (2021). A review of hr practices and employee retention in hospitality industry. European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine, 7(7), 6698-6704.
Marshall, T., Mottier, E. M., & Lewis, R. A. (2015). Motivational factors and the hospitality industry: A case study examining the effects of changes in the working environment. Journal of Business Case Studies (JBCS), 11(3), 123-132.
The travel and tourism industries form one of the most important sectors in the economy of any country. In 1999 the tourism and travel industry formed 5% of UK GDP. The travel and tourism sector serves the demand for travel of residents in and out of the country as well as travel for visitors from overseas. The travel and tourism industry has made tremendous steps of growth over time while responding to the constant challenges facing the dynamic industry. The challenges facing the travel and tourism industry are drawn from within the country as well as from global impacts and demands.
Travel and tourism, in addition to the high contribution to the economy, integrate a lot of other industries proving employment opportunities to a vast population in the country. The travel industry involves road, air, rail, and water transport sectors. The development of the travel industry in the UK has directly led to positive impacts on the tourism sector, especially when responding to dynamic challenges.
Development of package holidays
Initially, the tourism industry involved tour operators who arranged holiday packages for customers. This involved provision of accommodation means of travel, and choice of activities that were pre-arranged, etc. These arrangements were done to suit the operations of the tour operators. The recent development in this area has been the shift to a situation where the consumers make choices that suit them. This has been made possible through the use of online booking systems where the consumer chooses from thousands of options provided, thanks to the development of information and communication technology. This involves research on the area of preference, booking a flight, accommodation, plan routes, hire cars, and book a train or ferry, etc all possible by clicking a mouse. Availability of this service has prompted the consumers to buy directly from the suppliers while the suppliers sell directly to the consumers e.g. Budget Airlines offers real-time online bookings at varying prices.
Development of travel agents
The shift of the operations in the travel and tour operations from supplier-driven to consumer-driven operations has lead to direct interactions of the consumer and the supplier of travel services. The above-indicated concept has posed a great challenge to the businesses of travel agents where the number of clients in travel agencies is constantly reducing. This shift has posed a great challenge to the tour operators and several companies have merged to create a market dominated by two major service providers. In October 2008, Worldchoice and Travel Trade Association (TTA) merged to beef up operations against the Triton Travel Group. While the tour operators have rendered the consumers independent to make their preferred choices online, they also involve themselves in drafting dynamic packages with dynamic prices depending on demand. (Biz/ed para 8). According to Lambert (para 5), other mergers in tour operators happened in 2007 where German travel firm TUI merged with UK-based First Choice to create TUI Travel Plc. This followed another merger between Thomas Cook and My Travel tour operator companies.
Vertical integration vs. horizontal integration
According to Liden (2009: Para 1), horizontal integration entails companies at the same line of production of goods and services merging for business reasons. This can be illustrated best by the merger of two companies in the UK offering tour and travel services in October 2008. Worldschoice merged with Travel Trade Association (TTA), to increase the market share in the provision of tour services in the UK. Horizontal integrations are done for several reasons: – When companies’ producing/providing similar goods/services merge, they can increase their share of the market considerably. This is because the companies can sell more of their products; the companies can share resources and merge synergies for effectiveness; merger promotes effectiveness by increasing market power over other suppliers.
On the other hand, vertical integration is where companies at different stages of production or distribution merge. Vertical integration can be either forward or backward. Backward integration involves a merger with the company at a lower level of production e.g. input suppliers, while a forward merger involves a merger with a company at a higher level of production e.g. output distributor. When a tour operator company merges with a travel agent company, such integration is vertical. The advantages of vertical integration include Monopoly of the market throughout the chain; reduction of operations costs; and effective control of supply, production, and distribution.
Diagrams showing horizontal and vertical integration
The vertical and horizontal integrations can be illustrated using the following diagrams.
Horizontal integration
Company A is involved in the distribution of oil products in region X while company B distributes oil products in region Y and Z while company C distributes oil products in both region Y and Z. if the three companies merge to form company ABC, the type of integration formed is horizontal.
Vertical integration
Consider company P,Q and R where, company P is a travel agency, company Q is a tour operator company, company R has a chain of five-star hotels while company S a freight company offering air travel services to tourists in a certain country. If a merger of P, Q, R and S is made to company T, the type of integration will be vertical.
Figure 2: (a) Companies before mergerFigure 2: (b) vertical integration
Technological development
The travel and tourism industry in UK has witnessed tremendous technological advancement over time. The most resent developments involved upgrade of the road networks, rail network, and most resent sea travel vessels, up to date technology airline services and a vast and dynamic information and communication technologies. This has been possible trough employing technologically advanced concepts to solve some of the challenges facing the travel and tourism industry. The most resent developments in this industry that have been witnessed in UK include:
Construction of Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL)
Construction of new super ferries.
Provision of online services in travel and tourism sector.
Development in the airline industry
The resent developments in the airline industry regarding the travel and tourism have been the link between the air travel service providers and the consumers through the use of internet. In UK airline companies are adopting this new technology where online bookings are possible. In provision for this service, dynamic packages have been introduced with dynamic pricing. This means that the consumer is at liberty to make bookings that favors them either economically or casually e.g. Budget airlines offers real-time online booking services. Online services in the airline sector have led to saving of money through elimination of expenses initially incurred through involving travel agents. The growth of the airline industry in the UK has witnessed tremendous growth evidenced by the increase in infrastructural development of the sector as well as increased interconnectivities with the rest of the world.
Development in rail and sea transport
UK has adopted one of the resent technologies in rail and sea transport. The most tremendous development is the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL). Construction of the modern high speed rail transport system was aimed at provision of better transport services to the public and reduction of traffic congestion in the towns. The rail transport in UK provides one of the safe and fastest means of transport. The electric train traveling at 186 mph (300 kph) is aimed to eventually connecting London with Paris with its larger portion passing underground. (CTRL, United Kingdom para. 1). Its high efficiency is leading to rail transport being preferred over road transport.
On the other hand sea transport has also been targeted in development of the travel and tourism industry. UK has adopted some of the modern advanced sea transport networks through use of super ferries to make sea transport easy and efficient. The water channel networks connect most major towns in UK and also other countries. This contributes positively to the growth and development of the travel and tourism industry.
Conclusion
The success of the travel and tourism sector in UK depends on the speed with which players in the industry will apply in relation to adopting new technologies and ideas. The use of internet has led to drastic changes in this sector with expected more changes in quest to ensure prosperity of the industry. In addition, tourism industries involve connecting to other areas in the world where relevant technologies are required to keep the worlds pace of development in this industry.
Works Cited
Biz/ed. “Package holidays, dynamic pricing and the credit crunch”. Package holidays, dynamic pricing and the credit crunch. 2009. Web.
”Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), United Kingdom”. Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), United Kingdom. 2007. Web.
Lambert, Simon. “TUI and First Choice to merge”. TUI and First Choice to merge. 2009. Web.
Liden, Daniel. ”What Is Horizontal Integration?” What Is Horizontal Integration? Web.
Presently, many people in the world have embraced the traveling culture to explore the magic of nature. Travel and tourism in broader terms refer to the movement of people to places outside their normal habitat within one year. Due to this development, there is the establishment of travel and tourism institutions or industries Worldwide. Travel and tourism industry does not only give people the chance to explore but also acts as an avenue of job creation.
To determine the number of visitors and how their expenditure on these trips affects the economy, various research works were carried out to help analyze the income generated in the travel and tourism industry. When analyzing the contribution of Travel and Tourism in the economic development various aspects are put into consideration. These include:
Direct contribution to GDP
Direct contribution to employment- number of direct jobs created by the industry,
Total contributions to GDP- GDP generated directly by the industry plus the indirect and induced impacts,
Visitors’ exports- how tourists spend money in the country both in business and leisure,
Domestic travel and tourism spending-residents spending in both business and leisure, Government individual spending-government spending on travel and tourism linked directly to visitors such as a cultural event, and
Internal tourism consumption-revenue generated in a country from the industries that deal with tourists directly.
Research done by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and Oxford Economics explained that there was an excellent growth in the GDP of Dubai travel industry for the third consecutive year in 2012. It also indicated that more than four million jobs were directly created in that year. Travel and Tourism contribute greatly to the world economy, and the same research showed there was a nine percent contribution of global GDP and over 260 jobs generated.
Travel and tourism industry has proven to be the industry that grows at an exceptional rate over others. It has been noted that there can be more contribution in economic development by this industry if there will be a decrease in punitive taxation and minimal visa restriction.
According to the 2013 annual research report by the United Arabs Emirates they claim that Travel and Tourism have directly contributed AED89.7nb to GDP which is equivalent to 6.6 percent of the total GDP in the year 2012. They also predicted a rise of 4 percent in the year 2013 and a 5.1 percent from 2013 onwards.11.3 of the total employment which is approximately 388,500 jobs were also generated in the year 2012 due to tourism.
There is an expected rise of 2.6 and 3.9 in the year 2013 and 2023. Furthermore, visitor’s exports contributed 9.7 percent of the total exports in 2012 and a rise of 4.9percent and 5 percent is expected in the year 2013 and 2023 exclusively. The total investment in 2012 was 23.2 percent, and it is expected to rise by 11.7 and 23.2 percent in the year 2013 and 2023.
Travel and tourism contribute greatly to economic development through avenues such as hotels, airlines, travel agents and other passenger transportation services. This also includes leisure and activities of the hotels or restaurants. These industries contribute directly to GDP by 6.6 percent, and this percentage is expected to rise by 4 percent in 2013 and 7.7 by 2023.
Indirect contributions are achieved due to three factors:
Capital Investment: this involves spending by all sectors within the travel industry,
Government Collective Spending: this includes government spending in support of tourism activities, and
Supply-Chain Effects: this is the domestic goods purchases by various sectors of the travel and tourism industry as a contribution to their ultimate tourism production.
Surely, this is an industry we cannot ignore, and we should do our best to advance it.
There has been an endless debate among travelers concerning the standard of quality of service in the hospitality industry. It is worth noting that the debate is focusing on whether European hotels offer same level of services as their Asian counterparts.
There is no doubt that different people have different test when it comes to the quality of service they would like to receive from hotels as well as other hospitality industry. There are those of the view that whenever they are out of their country, they expect to receive services equal to what is offered back home while there are those who believe they need to receive a different level of service (Naraya et al., 2009).
Since the world has turned into a global village, travelling has been faster and cheaper, thus people find themselves out of their motherland more often. This kind of travelling has offered hospitality industry with an opportunity to grow. One area that scholars have noted to be of interest and can be successfully used as competitive advantage is to provide customers with very high standard of service; this can be attained through incorporating cultural aspects.
As a result of rising significance of service quality in the hotel industry, scholars in the hospitality industry dedicated their efforts to come up with a framework as well as measurable scales to help determine perception of service quality. As a result SERVQUAL model was developing and up to date it is well known and has been applied in various studies. The model is made up of 5 service quality dimensions and includes the following; tangible, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and reliability (Tse, 2009).
Tangibles are those physical facilities; equipment as well as how the employees of a hotel look, when the expectations of a customer are met this will contribute to satisfaction.
Reliability means the ability to accomplish and provide customers with services initially promised, responsiveness defines the willingness of hotel workers to help customers and give them prompt services, assurance refers to knowledge and courtesy of workers towards visitors finally empathy is the caring and personalized attention that customers are provided with by service providers.
Ideally service quality has been simply thought of as the difference between perceptions of customers and his or her expectations. Therefore service quality is one way to help manage business process in order to ensure that total satisfaction to customers on all levels is attained. Ideally the concept ultimately results in higher level of competitiveness, effectiveness as well as flexibility.
According to Robinson, 2003, he asserts that every nation has realized the importance of tourism and has embarked on efforts to attract more tourists. To match the demands and aspiration of the visitors, hotels are in the forefront to ensure that the visitors are satisfied with everything which will ensure customer loyalty as well as retention.
Asian hotels
Asian hotels has the advantage of being considerably less expensive compared to those in America and Europe zone. For this reason, every individual can afford to enjoy the services of the hotel industry.
However in Europe, individual of lower income level can only share room with many other visitors. Similarly, hotels in Asia tend to give much better services as compared to their European counterparts. Additionally the facilities are better too (Tse, 2009).
For instance room are relatively larger in size, they are new bathroom are also newer and larger. Visitors have indicated that they love to spend their holidays in Asian hotels since it is affordable. They claim that they can stay in a hotel in a beach or a block away from the beach at relatively lower cost. Taking dinner every single night is fun and affordable too. Interestingly visitors indicate that they are more attracted to the unique culture of the region.
Europe hotels
Hotels in Europe are quite expensive as compared to those in Asian countries. From previous studies, it has been revealed that most of the hotels in this region are smaller; however visitors find it to be charming as well as offer local hospitality. Nonetheless, there have been cases where visitors were of the view that the rooms and bathroom were quite smaller, with poor ventilation. Other visitors were unsatisfied with the quality of linen offered to them as well as lack of view from their room (Akbaba, 2006).
Factor impacting on customer satisfaction (culture)
It has been shown that service quality or customer satisfaction with regards to services in the hospitality industry is dictated by a number of factors. The encountered services, employee training and culture are the three most important factors that lead to quality service.
As suggested by Yi, Marcelo & Tyler, 2008 more emphasis has been put on culture and quality service particularly when comparing European and Asian hotels. This is because culture significantly plays an important role in dictating how customers expect services to be delivered.
Similarly cultural differences play an important role in understanding differences between customers and more often than not act as a factor in affecting the preferences as well as values of the customer in deciding to use a service. For that matter service managers need to be fully aware of not only their ability to leverage culture-driven expectations but also the cost associated with ignoring cultural norms and beliefs.
Previous studies have shown that when dealing with Japanese service should be tailored to ensure safety and the service provider should give more attention to them. Additionally customers with western culture have been shown to be more likely to depend on the tangible cues from the physical environment as compared to their Asian counterpart.
Similarly hedonic dimension of the consumption experience is more important to those having western culture as compared to those of Asian culture. Other studies particularly the one carried out by Hsu & Kang, 2003 and Tsang & Qu, 2007 clearly indicates that Asian visitors exhibit higher level of expectations and tend to evaluate perceived service quality more unfavorably than the non Asian visitors.
This has been shown to be directly linked to money that they spend on a service. It is from this cultural background that most of the Asian hotels seem to emphasis on providing their customers with more attention, guarantee security and put less emphasis on tangible aspect. However due to globalization, Asian hotels have managed to bring in the concept of tangible more central to their operation in order to appeal to western visitors.
This kind of combination has been shown to auger well with better quality service. Similarly the findings of Donthu & Yoo, 1998 revealed that individualistic customers tend to exhibit higher levels of expectations of assurance from hotels as compared to collectivist since they expect to receive confidence about the service they have paid for from service providers.
Another study done by Mittila, 1999 which centered on perception of service quality between western and Asian customers concerning communication and power distance, it was apparent that culture resulted in bias on how individuals evaluated their goals to purchasing a service.
According to Furrer et al., 2000, perception of service quality indeed varies with the culture of the customers. Thus individualists prefer to keep distance between them and those providing the service and to that effect tangible attributes of service industry comes in handy. There is no doubt that there is a close relationship between culture and service quality.
Interestingly, people in Asia strongly believe in harmony and are of the view that open expression of dissatisfaction is inappropriate as well as not socially acceptable. The reason is that this might lead to confrontations which will ultimately jeopardize the relationship between customers and service providers. For this reason, Asian hotels have mastered ways of understanding their customers need and expectations hence providing them with services that satisfy them.
However, in situations where visitors from Europe visit Asian hotels, when they express their concerns about certain issues, workers seem to be offended with such open expression of dissatisfaction. As noted previously visitors have mixed demands, there are those who will call for services which are in line with their culture while others will demand services that are unique. It has been shown that visitors from Asian countries when they go outside the region demand for services which uphold their culture (Tanvir, 2011).
On the other hand, western visitors more often than note demand for high value indigenous culture based services. In Asian hotel, culture dictates a lot and this might make western visitors feel unsatisfied. For instance, it is not allowed to openly take liquor forcing them to be restricted in their room; to them this denies them the chance to enjoy the scenic beauty.
Additionally hand shake to women is not allowed, this seems weird to western visitors since they are used to hugging and even kissing females in public. All these cultural attributes in one way or the other contributes to differences in perceive quality service in Europe and Asian hotels (Winsted, 1997).
Research questions and objectives
The main research question is to establish the effect of cultural differences on perceived service quality between Europe and Asian hotels. This is guided by the fact that previous studies have indeed worked in trying to establish the relationship or significance of culture of service quality, however there has been no effort directed in determining the effect of culture on perceived service quality.
The specify objective of the study will include;
Establishing the cultural differences between western and Asian visitors.
To find out the extent to which these cultural differences impact on how an individual perceive quality service.
To develop recommendations that will help hotels in Asia and Europe reduce the quality service difference gap.
It is no doubt that due to the nature of globalization, there is need for service providers to be fully aware of how cultural difference impacts on how individuals perceive quality service. If hotel managers fail to accommodate the demands and aspirations of their customers who come from every corner of the world, then there are higher chances that they may run out of business (Cheng-Shiung, Chin-Tsai & Sheng-Hshiung, 2005)
References
Akbaba, A. (2006). Measuring service quality in the hotel industry: A study in a business hotel in Turkey. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 25(2): 170-192.
Cheng-Shiung, W., Chin-Tsai, L & Sheng-Hshiung, T. (2005) Cultural differences of service quality and behaviour intention in tourist’s hotels. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, 13(1): 41- 60.
Donthu, N. & Yoo, B. (1998). Cultural influences on service quality expectations. Journal of Service Research, 1(2): 178-186.
Furrer, O. et al., (2000). The relationship between culture and service quality perception: basis for cross-cultural market segmentation and resource allocation. Journal of Hospitality Research, 2(4): 355-37.
Hsu, C & Kang, S. (2003). Profiling Asian and western family independent travelers: an exploratory study. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 8(1): 58-71.
Mattila, A. (1999). The role of culture in the service evaluation process. Journal of Service Research, 1(3): 250-261.
Naraya, B. et al., (2009). Dimensions of service quality in tourism: An Indian perspective. Total Quality Management, 20(1): 61-89.
Robinson, K. (2003). Tourism: it’s about managing competitiveness, too. International Trade Forum, 2(1): 2-5.
Tanvir, S. 2011. A remedy based concept: Impact of encounter service, culture and employee training on customer’s satisfaction of hospitality industry. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research Business, 3(2): 1237-1247.
Tsang, N. & Qu, H. (2007). Service quality in China’s hotel industry: a perspective from tourism and hotel managers. International journal of contemporary Hospitality Management, 12(5): 316-326.
Tse, E. (2009). Service Quality in the Hotel Industry: When Cultural Contexts Matter. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 50 no. 4 460-474.
Winsted, K. (1997). The service experience in two cultures: A behavioral perspective. Journal of Retailing, 73(1): 337-60.
Yi, W., Marcelo, R. & Tyler, K. (2008). Cultural perspectives: Chinese perceptions of UK hotel service quality. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2(4):.312 – 329.
Tour operators are people or companies that offer various travel packages that are used by tourists. Tour operators are very different from tour agents. Tour operators combine everything that the tourist would possibly need into one package. There are two main categories of tour operators in the United Kingdom. These are the incoming tour operators and the outbound tour operators (Aramberri & Butler 2005).
Outbound tour operators are tour operators who offer different holiday packages to people who are going abroad for vacation (Talwar 2006). This means that people who live in the UK use outgoing tour operators when they want to go abroad.
Such tour operators own one or several travel services and have packages that include accommodation and tours in the country that the person wants to visit. One of the well known outbound tour operators in the United Kingdom is Thomson (Kozak & Baloglu 2005).
An incoming tour operator, on the other hand, is a tour operator who gives tour services to people who are visiting the country (Spenceley 2008). There are some tourists who do not look for the outbound tour operators; instead, they prefer using the incoming tour operators.
There are a number of reasons why people prefer one category of tour operators to the other. An example of an incoming tour operator in the United Kingdom is the GTi Travel Group.
Roles of Incoming and Outbound Tour Operators in the Same Country
The two categories of tour operators have very different roles when they are working in the same country. One of the roles that are performed by outbound tour operators is booking accommodation for tourists who are travelling from the United Kingdom to any other country. These tour operators usually have agreements with hotels and other service providers to give their clients quality services.
The outbound tour operator also ensures that the flight details of the tourists are in place (Pender & Sharpley 2005). Most of the tour operators have special deals with various airlines.
This makes it easier for the operators to book flights for the tourists. It is also the role of the outbound tour operator to ensure that the tourists reach the destination that they intend. It is up to the outbound tour operator to help the client if a problem arises, unless the tourist specifically asked to be left alone once they are in the plane.
On the other hand, the incoming tour operators have to ensure that the tourists who arrive in the United Kingdom’s airports are taken to their hotels swiftly and safely.
It is also up to the incoming tour operator to ensure that the tourists get the accommodation that they want. The tourists usually choose the type of accommodation that they can afford. The incoming tour operator must ensure that the tourists get to their hotel without any trouble.
Most tourists also ask the incoming tour operator to take care of their means of transport when in the United Kingdom. This means that it is the work of the tour operator to provide buses, personal cars, and other means of transport for the tourists. The tourists who use buses are usually those who travel in groups.
Tourists who travel alone use personal cars. They may, or may not take chauffeurs. The incoming tour operators also book tours for the tourists. This happens when the tourists have chosen the tours that they want to have.
The incoming tour operator can be required to book a personal tour guide for the tourists if they have no specific tour that they would like to have. All these come under the different packages that the incoming tour operators offer.
Roles of Incoming and Outbound Tour Operators in Different Countries
There is the case where the incoming tour operator is in a different country from the outbound tour operator. When this is the case, the two categories of tour operators have similar roles (Gartner & Lime 2000). The two categories of tour operators can, at times, work together. This is possible because the outbound tour operator will provide travel packages for the tourists who are going out of the UK.
The incoming tour operator in the country where the tourists are heading will then take the tourists and give them tour packages, accommodation, and other services within the country that they are visiting. However, this type of collaboration is not common.
Pros and cons of using any of the two types of tour operators
There are several benefits and disadvantages of using any of these two categories of tour operators. Outbound tour operators are easier to reach because they are in the country where the tourist is coming from.
This makes it easier for the tourists to visit the operators, get to know about their packages, and evaluate the operators in general. It is quite hard to do this with incoming tour operators who are in another country. The only way of communicating with the incoming tour operators is through the Internet or the phone. This can be very frustrating at times.
Incoming tour operators, however, have the advantage of knowing the country well because they have lived in the specific country that the tourist is visiting for a long time. They are also familiar with the locals. This makes it easier for them to plan the best tours compared to the outbound tour operators from another country.
It is also perceived that the incoming tour operators offer cheaper rates than the outbound tour operators because they can get the best and most affordable deals, given that they know the locals and the country in question well.
The incoming tour operators normally make hotel reservations, tours, means of transport, and other fun activities for the visitors. This is in contrast with the outbound tour operators who mostly make travel packages for the destination of choice.
There are some outbound tour operators who do hotel reservations and book tours for the travellers. However, many travellers prefer to obtain travelling packages from the outbound tour operators, but the tour and accommodation packages from the incoming tour operators.
It is possible to find an incoming tour operator selling their packages to an outbound tour operator. This works in the case where the incoming tour operator gets tour packages and tour guides for the outbound tour operator. They both agree on the amount of money that the outbound tour operator will pay for these packages.
The outbound tour operator then offers these services at a much higher rate every time they are taking tourists abroad in order to make a profit (Dale & Oliver 2005). It is also worth noting that the two categories can also work together mutually. The incoming tour operator can help the outbound tour operator when it comes to matters of optional destinations, passenger transfers, and special visits.
However, the outbound tour operator and the inbound tour operator have to be from different countries for this mutual relationship to work. For example, the outbound operator can be from the United Kingdom, while the inbound tour operator can be from India.
Although there are differences between the two tour operators, there are some similarities that these two categories of tour operators from different countries share (Marvell 2005). The first similarity is that they both handle tourists. The two categories also have to work together to get maximum profits.
It is hard for the incoming tour operator to know when tourists will be travelling if he does not work with the outbound tour operator, especially when the two operators are from different countries.
In the same manner, the outbound tour operator will not be able to provide quality services to tourists if he does not hand in hand with the incoming tour operator (Sharpley 2006). Another similarity between two categories is that they purchase services in bulk. Such services include hotel and airline packages, among other services.
It is also very common to find one company working as both an incoming and an outbound tour operator. This is very common in the United Kingdom. Such companies take tourists out of the country and invite the visiting tourists into the United Kingdom at the same time.
In terms of business, this is a way of making maximum profits. However, there are tourists who do not like to use such tour operators for one reason or another (Scott, Baggio & Cooper 2008).
Incoming and outbound tour operators who operate in the same country do not present a lot of economic competition to one another because they target different types of clients.
The inbound tour operators target the tourists who are arriving in the country, while the outbound tour operators target tourists who are leaving the country. This is why it is very possible for one company to act as both the incoming and the outbound tour operator (Buhalis & Laws 2001).
The outbound and the incoming tour operators challenge one another economically when they are located in different countries (Bhatia 2012). This scenario happens because they both target the same type of clients; that is, those travelling to one of the involved countries.
For example, when the outbound tour operator is in the UK and the tourists are heading to Africa, the incoming tour operators in Africa will also want this same group of tourists as their clients. This means that the two categories of tour operators are in competition with one another.
Some of the outbound and incoming tour operators who do not want this cut throat competition opt to work together. This involves the outbound tour operators buying packages from the incoming tour operators in the country that the tourists are heading to. It is also possible for the incoming tour operators to buy packages from the outbound tour operators.
Based on this possibility, one might find that one incoming or outbound tour operator has several deals with outbound or incoming tour operators from different parts of the world. It is also very difficult to find one company acting as an incoming tour operator in one country and an outbound tour operator in another country due to this competition.
List of References
Aramberri, J, & Butler, R 2005, Tourism development: Issues for a vulnerable industry, Channel View, Clevedon, UK
Bhatia, AK 2012, The business of travel agency and tour operations management, Sterling Publishers New Delhi, India
Buhalis, D, & Laws, E 2001, Tourism distribution channels: practices, issues and transformations, Thomson Learning, London, UK.
Dale, G, & Oliver, H, 2005, BTEC national travel and tourism, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford, UK
Gartner, WC, & Lime, D 2000, Trends in outdoor recreation, leisure, and tourism, CABI Publishers, Cambridge, MA
Kozak, M, & Baloglu S 2005, Managing and marketing tourist destinations: Strategies to gain a competitive edge, Routledge, Oxon, UK
Marvell, A, 2005, GCE AS travel and tourism single award for Edexcel, Heinemann Educational Publishers, Oxford, UK
Pender, L, & Sharpley R 2005, The management of tourism, SAGE Publishers, Thousand Oaks, CA
Scott, N, Baggio, R, & Cooper, C 2008, Network analysis and tourism: From theory to practice, Channel View Publishers, Ontario, Canada.
Sharpley, R, 2006, Travel and tourism, SAGE Publishers, London, UK
Spenceley, A 2008, Responsible tourism: Critical issues for conservation and development, Earthscan, Gateshead, UK
Talwar, P 2006, Travel and tourism management, Isha Books, New Delhi, India
