This topic deals with the travel and
tourism sector. Especially it deals with the tourism industry of UK. The word
tourism means to travel all around may be for pleasure or for business. Tourism
deals with business attracting, accommodating, entertaining tourist or tour for
business purpose. Tourism may be of various categories such as local, national
or international. History of travel and tourism says that human beings like to
travel from one place to another. In fact tourism is source of income for
various states or government. UK tourism is the world's 8th biggest tourist
destination, almost 36.115 million tourist visit UK every year. Important
tourist place of UK are in London, The Tower of London. The busiest tourism
month for UK is August. This whole assignment is been divided into 4 task. Task
1 deal with the history of travel and tourism sector and the structure of TUI
group. Task 2 is all about role of local and national government on the tourism
sector. Next task deals about the supply and demand on tourism sector. Last
task consists of impacts of tourism and strategies to control negative impacts.
In relation to this entire topic it will also analyze the TUI group.
TUI group stands for Touristik Union
International. This is a travel and tourism company, headquarter is in
Hannover, Germany. It was founded in the year 1923 and current CEO is Friedrich
Joussen. The various product and service of the company are charter, airlines,
holiday package, hotel, resorts and cruise (www.tuigroup.com). According to a report of 2016
revenue of the company was € 17, 184.6 million, operating income was € 618.3
million and total number of employee are 67,000. The company do have it share
listed in Frankfurt stock exchange and London stock exchange. TUI group holds
1800 travel agencies, 6 airlines with 130 aircraft and also 300 hotel and
resorts.
Figure 1: Logo of TUI group
(Source: www.tuigroup.com)
Out of much industry tourism seems
to be one of the important industries in the world. According to The world
travel and tourism council tourism contributes 10% in world’s total economy (Cooper et al.
2008, p. 112).
Generally tourism means visit to seaside, resorts, mountain or business
enterprise. History of tourism can be done with the three different time
variation such as a) before 1945, b) 1945-1979 and lastly c) 1980 to present.
● Before 1945: History says that till
the end of 16th century most the people used to live at agricultural
communities. After industrial revolution people moved from rural to urban and
thus began their period of leisure and travel. Thomas cook started first tour
packages in 1841 but at the same time railways developed and even offered trips
(Holloway, 2016, p. 145). During middle age Christianity, Buddhism and Islam
started pilgrimage the holy travel aims to promote religion. The upper class of
the society started to have Grand tour all around Europe, Germany and Italy.
● 1945-1979: The main evaluation of
this industry took place in the year 1945. In the mid of 1950s UK government
made a different department for travel and tourism. Hotel where been
reconstructed to attract more tourist. Transport operation developed and made
easy for people around the world to travel from one place to another. From
1950s various factor which promoted tourism were that increase in leisure time,
paid holidays, cheap tour package and growth of transport (Tribe, 2005, p. 25).
● 1980- Present day: In the year 1980s
May airlines started offering a complete travel service to the customers. The development
of tourism industry of UK and Europe affected various other companies. A recent
development in tourism saw various types of tourism such as sustainable
tourism, ecotourism, pro-poor tourism, recession tourism, medical tourism and
educational tourism (Sharpley, 2006,
p. 214). All this types were specialized
for various purpose and motives. Tourism industry is growing 4% per year.
There are some key elements for
tourism industry. They are as follows:
● Departing traveller
● Traveller for various region
● Route region
● Destination region
● Returning travellers
This list consists of various departments
according to the location. First 3 are related to the geographical and
organizational structure according to the tourism (Hudson and Thal, 2013, p. 147). Next point is for the service and
goods. Lastly it is self explanatory. Travel and tourism sector contain various
important factors such as attraction, transport, tour operator, travel agent
and tourism development.
● Attraction- It is related to the
natural or artificial attraction. It is the main reason of a tour, a tourist
plans to visit certain place because of this attraction (Estol and Font, 2016, p. 121). Natural attraction are ocean,
mountains and artificial are related to something made by human being for the
tourist.
● Transport- In order to reach that
place of attraction, transport places a vital role. It helps people to travel
from one place to another.
● Tour operators-They provide holiday
package to the tourist who includes accommodation, transport and visit to
place. They usually provide information regarding the tour.
● Travel agents- The agents sell their
jobs by showing brochures. Normally they act as a connector between tour
operator and the tourist.
● Tourism development- This is a board
whose main focus is upon development of tourism department (Doh and Guay, 2013, p. 121). Development and safety of the
tourist are the main objectives of the department.
Travel and tourism department have
witnessed various changes that were introduced in this department. These
changes have helped to reduce the negative aspect of tourism department. The
local, national and international agencies play a vital role in this industry
as a part of this industry and their function affect the outcome of the
industry (Cheng et al. 2016, p. 58). The various roles played by the
above mentioned bodies are as follows:
● Local government- The main
responsibility of the local government is to provide infrastructure and service
to the visitors. It even helps the industry to achieve their objectives and
also to reduce the negative impact of tourism industry. Local government needs
to promote the sustainable tourism by adopting waste management by strategic
planning.
● National government- The basic
function of government is to impose plans and policy that would aim at reduces
environmental impact and also increases the employment and foreign exchange.
Safety and security are been handled by the government so that tourist should
feel free to visit any parts of a country (Sharpley and Telfer, 2014, p. 145). Development of tourist place are
been headed by government of a country. Affordable transport for the tourist
should be main objectives of government.
● International agencies- There are
some bodies which focus towards development of tourism. The sponsored bodies
contribute for the development of tourism and the country. They even frame
process and policy which help to have a smooth tourism functioning. The United
nation world tourism is the tourism agency for UN. It works for the development
of tourism (Mowforth and Munt, 2015,
p. 121). It even focuses for making
sustainable tourism around the world. The major goal of internal agency is to
attract more tourists, earn more profit and also to be world top most tourism
agency. But still there are some factors which stop this agency from having a
smooth functioning.
The travel and tourism industry of a
country is very important for the socio-economic factors of a country.
According to Saha and Yap, (2014,
p. 117), socio-economic
benefits can be generated with the help of foreign exchange, employment and
environmental awareness. The GDP if UK decreased by 9.8% in the year 2009 and
its outcome was that number of tourist decreased. By imposing certain policy UK
government had a control on the decrease of tourist (Alvarez and Campo, 2014, p. 120). The main factor was that exchange
rate of pound was strong than many other country and this would help tourist to
spend more money. One another factor was seasonality as holidays are considered
to be most important for tourism. The policies aimed at sustainable development
of the industry and economic viability is important for sustainability. Safety
and security are been handled by the government so that tourist should feel
free to visit any parts of a country. Positive changes were seen because of
economic policies. The economic policy even focuses on providing share to the
local community (Gartner,
2013, p. 105).
Policies of local and national government needs to pay attention towards the
local people as they are fu8lly dependent on the natural resources available to
them. The sponsored bodies contribute for the development of tourism and the
country. They even frame process and policy which help to have a smooth tourism
functioning. The United nation world tourism is the tourism agency for UN. It
works for the development of tourism. It even focuses for making sustainable
tourism around the world. The policy should even focus towards the protection
and development of the tourist place. Fund allocation needs to be done to this
industry during budget as this would help the industry to develop (Ridderstaat et
al. 2014, p. 110).
Infrastructure and transport could be improved with proper allocation of fund
to the industry.
The travel and tourism development
has not been same for all the countries. Those countries which faced political
unstableness could not develop the tourism department. Tourism is used as
economic and political tools for many countries. Some changes in policies may
bring fear in the mind of tourist and they could avoid visiting that particular
place. In fact political change in one country can have impact on other
country. Number of tourist could increase or decrease due to the change of
politics. If tourist considers a place as unsafe then they would avoid visiting
that country. Tourist will like to visit those countries where there are less
legal formalities and more safety. If a government make its visa policies
tougher than tourist for those countries would decrease (Wang and Chen, 2015, p. 109). The negative publicity for
tourism destination would affect the tourism industry. If we take example of
UK, the high political stability is the main factor of increasing tourism
industry as tourist feels safe to visit this country. Some political changes in
different countries are as follows:
● China: Deng’s improved the living
standard of people and thus made China a strong economic nation. Thus this lead
to the rapid industrialization of China. Tourism of this country is improving
with every change of year. Recent report says that China has become a most
watched and hottest outbound tourist country of the world. A report of 2007
says that China had 55 million oversee tourist, foreign income was 41.9 US
dollar and total income was 777.1 billion.
● Iran: Tourism industry of Iran was
very strong before accession of theocracy.
Tourist footfall decreased during the war of Iran and Iraq but after
sometimes it revived. Majority of
visitors to Iran during 1979 were religious pilgrims and business people. There
is international tension but still government of Iran tries to maintain the
smooth functioning of tourism industry. The government also planned to
construct 100 hotels near to the tourist destination (Sharpley, 2014, p. 12).
It is very important to have demand
for tourism product and service in the tourism industry. Demand of these
products states the number of tourist visiting a destination. The factors which
affect the tourism industry in UK are as follows:
● Demographic: When demography of
consumer changes then demand of tourist rises as he has more power of spending
(Caruso, 2014, p. 20). The demand of tourist always
leads the industry in a positive direction. Thus development of industry could
be seen.
● Technological: The online
reservation and availability of information regarding a tourist destination
affected demand as now consumer get to know everything. With the increase in
usage of internet demand for tourism is increasing. Increase in transport and
support system help to increase in tourism.
● Globalization: With the increase in
Globalization consumer and provider could travel from one country to another.
This is the reason of increasing the demand for UK tourism.
● Currency rate: Change in currency
rate affect change in tourism. UK currency value increase from other so the
tourist to spend more money compared to another country. If the price rate of
GBP falls then UK tourism will have more demand in America.
Figure 2: Tourism demand
(Source: Caruso,
2014, p. 20)
The tourism industry mainly focuses
on the demand and at the same time it overlooked the supply side. The supply
depends upon few factors such as transportation, promotion, attraction, service
and information. The most common factor in tourism industry is attraction (Cooper et al.
2008, p. 112). The
proper balance between demand and supply has smooth functioning in the tourism
industry of UK. According to the situation and demand for tourism, the supply
of product and services is decided. According to the manager of TUI is that protection
of room from sun radiation, promoting greenery and effort to fulfil demand of
customer are important steps taken by TUI. The suppliers of TUI maintain
wildlife and thus it help to attract tourist. This organization even focuses at
offering training and developmental skills to various suppliers. The company
even reward the supplier as “environmental champion’’ and this would motivate
them.
Figure 3: Tourism supply
(Source: Cooper et al. 2008, p. 112)
The figure
3 states the supply factors that help tourism industry to increase its demand.
When demand increase the price of those supply increases.
The tourism industry is considered
to be the most important industry of a country. The industry has its own
benefits and limitation on host as well as on tourist. Here are some positive
and negative factors of tourism, they are as follows:
Positive
impact:
● Economic: A tourism industry
provides employment to many unemployed in retail as well as in transportation.
It even gives small scale industry to earn money. Most important part is that
rural economical condition gets stronger (Sharpley, 2006, p. 214).
● Social: The local communities get benefited
from improvement of infrastructure and new leisure location. It even motivates
traditional preservation of customs, festival and handicrafts. A better
cultural understanding is been developed between guest and host.
● Environmental: Tourism focus on
conserving wildlife and natural resources and thus environment gets protected.
Tourism helps to get funds for development and conservation of animals and
nature.
Negative
impact:
● Economic: Development of tourism is
done with improving infrastructure such as road or bridges. The expenditure
falls on the government, lots of money gets wasted. Tourism do not always
benefited to the local people as sometime international companies takes all the
benefits.
● Social: Visitors behaviour would
effect on the host such as alcohol problem, prostitution and crimes. Sometime
local people are kicked off from their property to make tourist place (Hudson and Thal, 2013, p. 147).
● Environmental: Tourism affects both
natural and cultural resources. Wastage of water, destroy of heritage site by
overuse. Pollution increase due to overcrowding of tourist.
The above question explained the
positive and negative impact of tourism. Political, social and environmental
have negative and positive impact of tourism. Negative economic impact could be
control by taking strategy that would help local people to maintain standard of
living. Only the required location should be improved, proper survey would help
to control expense of money. The diversification strategy could be used to cut
down dependency. A committee needed to be appointed which would focus on
conservation of natural resources and also to ensure that it have less impact
on environment. Environmental agencies needs to be more careful and regular
visited or research is needed for various tourist destinations (Holloway, 2016, p. 145). Social negative impact could be reduced if host focus on
their own culture and should also try to avoid culture and behaviour of
tourist. Personal connection with the tourist needs to be avoided.
Positive impact could be maximising
with the usage of latest technology and equipment. More small scale industry
needed to be developed near the tourist destination. Wildlife protection
department needs to be more alert (Caruso, 2014, p. 20). Steps lightly, making difference and lead the ways are
some strategy that could help to bring down negative impact and also to
maximise the positive impact.
Recent studies say that tourism is the most rapid growing industry for all the countries. The countries which possess much natural attraction are the main point of development. The international tourism is also considered as the backbone of globalization. This helps a country to be economically strong. Tourism deals with business attracting, accommodating, entertaining tourist or tour for business purpose. Tourism may be of various categories such as local, national or international. UK tourism is the world's 8th biggest tourist destination, almost 36.115 million tourist visit UK every year. Important tourist place of UK are in London, The Tower of London. The busiest tourism month for UK is August. The entire required angle are been analysed by the writer. Local and the national government needs to take pay more attention towards the development of tourism industry. In the same time it should look towards control negative impact and to maximise the positive impact.
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