Background of INTREPID TRAVEL
Discuss about the current business operation procedure and market position of the tourism industry in Australian market.
The term sustainable development in a business refers to an inclusive approach to bring social, economic and environmental development through the business operation (Albrecht 2018). In order to bring sustainability in a marketing process, the marketers try to enhance the stakeholder engagement and corporate social responsibility to reduce the impact of the business on the environment (McDonagh and Martin 2015). This study deals with the sustainability management in the context of INTREPID Travel. This is a global organization, which operates all over the world. In order to get a competitive advantage in the global market a sustainable marketing is necessary for every organization.
INTREPID TRAVEL is a popular adventure travel company operates in various countries such as Asia, Australia, Middle East, Africa USA and so on. This is a global business organization and specialized for adventure travel (INTREPIDtravel.com 2018). Their objectives are to enhance the staff engagement and creating global bets practice. They have a flatter organizational structure to empower their employees to participate in the organizational decision-making. In the recent years, the management structure is modified in this organization. Their co-founder Geoff Manchester becomes the managing director. The MD of such organization has been carried out the sustainability program by involving both internal and external stakeholders. Their management structure is good as they focus on the customer’s satisfaction as well as the employee development.
This organization is operating in Australia and the international market. However, USA, Africa, Asia are the major there countries where this organization has operating their business with successful growth. In the context of Australia, this organization is one of the popular earning organizations in Australia among the 2000 companies. According to the IBIS report, INTREPID TRAVEL has been growing rapidly in this country as Australia is a good place for the tourism industry. High growth has been achieved in this country. In the year 205, the $129 million was their profit margin (Ibisworld.com.au 2018). This ensures a good business environment in Australia in the context of INTREPID TRAVEL.
Several environmental factors such as political factors have a great impact on the business of INTREPID TRAVEL. In the context of Australia, the stable political environment ensures the growth of the MNC’s in the Asia-Pacific region (Kotabe and Helsen 2014). Such political environment provides INTREPID TRAVEL a sophisticated market and right environment to drive innovation in their travel operation. Cost competitiveness or the low cost of the property is a big economic factor that allows the foreign organizations to establish their headquarters in Australia. Therefore, high GDP in comparison to Germany, UK, and France leads INTREPID TRAVEL to get the opportunity to expand their business in this country. However, social factor leaves a great impact on the travel industry as customer’s lifestyle is a big factor. In Australia, maximum people are working. This may bring opportunity for INTREPID TRAVEL to cover a large number of customers as people of Australia like to travel due to their good income level. INTREPID TRAVEL needs to follow the legal requirements of Australia during their operation as incompliance with the legal norms this organization may face legal obstruction (Yüksel 2016). However, it is important for INTREPID TRAVEL to utilize the emerging technology of Australia as Australia is a technology-oriented country.
Planning in the Context of INTREPID TRAVEL
In the recent years, Australian dollar is feeding into the tourism industry. However, many foreign travelers come to visit Australia. For this reason, there are growing numbers of tourism organizations. The major competitors of INTREPID TRAVEL are Intro Travel and G Adventures in Australia. Such two organizations provide adventure travel to the visitors. Current competitor analysis is helpful for an organization to understand their position in the national and international market (Daft and Samson 2014). In the context of INTREPID TRAVEL they are facing a tough competition level in Australian tourism industry due to rising number of similar companies in the same market segment.
The vision of INTREPID TRAVEL is to bring change in the way through which the people see the world. Their mission is to make a sustainable travel business in the global tourism industry (Bals and Tate 2018). Their value focuses on the establishment of a customer-centric business with focusing each segment of sustainability (Yüksel 2016). Tourism is the largest growing economic segment in the world. Hence, by enhancing the tourism business INTREPID TRAVEL can maintain their economic sustainability in Australia. Through the expansion of the tourism business, INTREPID TRAVEL can invest in the education and professional training especially for the indigenous people. This brings social sustainability in a country as well as in a business. Moreover, the tourism industry is associated with the protection of environmental resources as this is the main attraction of the tourists (Lozano et al. 2018). Hence, by developing a customer-oriented business INTREPID TRAVEL can develop an environmentally friendly business.
Major planning and goal setting practices of INTREPID TRAVEL include improvement of the traveler engagement in the sustainability issue, enhancement of the staff engagement, development of the global practices and increasing the customer loyalty. This organization focuses on the traditional approaches to implement their planning. As for example, they have made campaigns to increase the awareness among the travelers regarding the current sustainability issues especially the environmental sustainability. Such campaign encourages the tourists to involve in reducing the social and environmental sustainability issues by increasing the education level and by protecting the natural resources (Daft and Samson 2014). In order to increase the staff development, INTREPID TRAVEL has established staff motivational techniques through providing financial and non-financial award such as salary increment, performance appraisal, and promotion. In order to increase customer loyalty, they focus on the low pricing strategy with high-quality service.
Human Resource Management
The approaches that are taken by INTREPID TRAVEL are associated with the economic, social and environmental sustainability. However, organizing campaign is an effective approach to increase the awareness among the tourists regarding environmental sustainability (Yip and Bocken 2018). On the other hand, an employee motivation technique in INTREPID TRAVEL is beneficial to increase the employee performance, which is associated with profitability as well as economic sustainability of the organization. Retention of the customers by using low pricing strategy is helpful for INTREPID TRAVEL to increase their sales revenue and they can contribute to the educational and training program. This approach ensures both economic and social sustainability.
In order to make a business competitive, the human resource management or HRM department plays an important role. In the recent years, labor shortage issue is one of the major issues in the travel industry (Ehnert et al. 2013). In the context of INTREPID TRAVEL is crucial for HR department to solve the labor shortage problem. INTREPID TRAVEL has offered more job opportunities to resolve such labor shortage. They have established employment policy to recruit more skilled labors in this organization. This is helpful for the organization to improve their productivity, outsourcing and fulfill the demand of the target market. INTREPID TRAVEL has focused on the employee empowerment strategy. The HRM of such organization has encouraged the employees in the organizational decision-making. This will be helpful to enhance the performance of the employees by sharing new ideas in business. As a result, such organization can gain competitiveness in the global market. Cost reduction is crucial for a business to achieve the economic sustainability (Doppelt 2017). The HRM of INTREPID TRAVEL has established cost reduction strategy by recruiting skilled employees. However, skilled employees are able to reduce the internal cost and increase operating margin, which is a big factor in gaining competitive advantage.
INTREPID TRAVEL defines the job role before hiring an employee. Therefore, they use right hiring method such as the use of social media via Linkedin they are able to attract the local job seekers. Review the application is necessary for an organization to get the right people (Daft and Samson 2014). INTREPID TRAVEL reviews the applications before selecting the people for the desired position. In order to develop an effective workforce, the HRM of INTREPID TRAVEL has established a collaborative work between the employees and the management. The departments and employees are interdependent to each other in this organization, which ensure their effective workforce development.
Maintenance of the effective workforce is necessary besides its development (Daft and Samson 2014).INTREPID TRAVEL has identified the gap between the existing system and the business need. They have established an effective communication with the employees and share their business goal with them, which helps them to enhance the employee engagement. Therefore, they are monitoring the progress of the plan by taking feedback from the employees.
INTREPID TRAVEL gives value to the importance of the sustainability of a business. They have taken a policy to reduce their impact on the environment. They have adopted energy-efficiency measure policy by automatic computer shut off at 8 pm in their head office. They focus on the Skype conferencing rather than face to face interaction in order to reduce the energy consumption (INTREPIDtravel.com 2018).
Sufficient resource and the accurate leadership are the two vital factors that contribute success in a tourism industry (Stead and Stead 2013). In the context of INTREPID TRAVEL they follow the motivational leadership. Geoff Manchester the MD of such organization focuses more on the employee motivation. INTREPID TRAVEL follows transformational leadership style in their business. This type of leadership is associated with the change in an organization. INTREPID TRAVEL has adopted transformational leadership to motivate the employees in their work. The leaders of INTREPID TRAVEL are an effective communicator and have a specific goal. They are very accountable and responsible towards the organizational objectives as well as employee benefits. However, INTREPID TRAVEL follows transformational leadership style in their organization thus their leaders follow some specific characters. The leaders are able to take a difficult decision based on the situation. They have a clear focus on the vision, objectives, and goal of the organization. The leaders are inspirational and execute new ideas to achieve a sustainable business through their collaborative work.
INTREPID TRAVEL has the ability to motivate the employees as they follow the transformational leadership style. They use the reward and performance appraisal tactics to motivate their employees. They provide both financial and non-financial award to the employees to enhance their performance beyond their normal level. This transformational leadership process helps this organization to encourage the employees in their work. For a growing tourism organization, the travel company needs to integrate sustainability into their leadership style. The transformational leader focuses on the sustainable strategy to improve the organizational performance (Mpuga 2017). In the context of INTREPID TRAVEL, the leaders focus on the Federal Sustainable Development Act 2008 to protect the environment by motivating the employees about the importance of establishing an environmentally friendly business. Therefore, they motivate the employees to focus the on the internal cost reduction for the economic sustainability in this business.
The operation process of the travel industry includes front office and back office operation. The front office operation includes customer facing while the back office operation includes non-customer facing (Yüksel 2016). In the context of INTREPID TRAVEL they manage their front office operation by developing an effective communication with the customers. The customer can book the hotels and tickets via online. Their customer executives provide 24-hour support to the customer through online. On the other hand, the back office staffs involve in managing account (Walker and Jones 2012). Therefore, employees of INTREPID TRAVEL are associated with cost-cutting process. The team leaders are associated with the workforce management by providing the training program.
Supply chain management is a crucial part of any business. INTREPID TRAVEL aims to eliminate the waste and to enhance the customer satisfaction by their supply chain management process. The supply chain of tourism industry includes accommodation, transport, and excursion. Apart from this production of food and waste disposal are the other aspects of the tourism supply chain management (Masa’deh et al. 2017). INTREPID TRAVEL develops sourcing strategy, distribution strategy, inventory strategy and customer service strategy. They focus on the fresh raw materials to prepare food for the customers. They deliver their service within 24 hours after just the customer place the order. They follow low inventory management strategy to reduce waste in their supply chain process. Their sourcing strategy includes two-step system that is direct sales from the supplier to the customers via own reservation. They communicate with the customer directly and provide them service, there is no middle man. They provide transportation service by offering railway, airline, and road transportation. They provide local foods and crafts by involving local suppliers, which is the main customer attraction and contributes more in the local economy.
INTREPID TRAVEL uses internet based software to make their supply chain process simple (Masa’deh 2017). Flash View is an important software that is used to reduce the error in the supply chain management. INTREPID TRAVEL uses this software to digitally analyze the data of inventory. Therefore, this helps them to monitor and track all the information in supply chain process by generating and electronic invoice. Flash View enhances the operational efficiency of the supply chain process in the context of INTREPID TRAVEL. However, INTREPID TRAVEL has achieved sustainable business through their supply chain management and business operation as they focus on the local foods and culture, which allows them to contribute more in the local economy and get social sustainability. They involve the local suppliers for arranging the accommodation for the tourist, which improves the economic condition of a specific region.
- INTREPID TRAVEL needs to adopt a market research strategy to evaluate the position of their competitors. It will be helpful for them to achieve competitive advantages.
- Recruitment of the skilled employees by using online recruitment software will be effective for INTREPID TRAVEL to reduce the labor shortage and maximize the productivity.
- INTREPID TRAVEL needs to focus on the enhancement of the local revenue by tourism investment. For this purpose, an involvement of the local people in the tourism industry will be an effective strategy for INTREPID TRAVEL to maintain the economic sustainability in the local areas, where the organized tour.
- Conservation of the habitats to make the tourist area attractive will be a good strategy for the tourism industry. INTREPID TRAVEL can focus on the protection of habitats and wildlife as it will allow this organization to make an environmentally friendly business, which is one of their business goals.
- INTREPID TRAVEL can implement the ICT or information communication technology by using mobile devices and social media. This will help them to improve the tracking process in the supply chain management.
Conclusion
The above piece of the study reveals the sustainable management and the marketing in the context of INTREPID TRAVEL. This organization operates in Australia and across the global tourism industry. They focus on the economic, social and environmental sustainability by accomplishing their business goals. On the other hand, they have adopted transformational leadership by motivating the employees. They provide training to the employees to enhance the staff developmental program. In order to achieve a sustainable business, they encourage their internal and external stakeholders to involve in the organizational decision making.
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