Introduction to UK Tourism Industry
Travel and tourism has been considered as the major and crucial industry for every country. Acceding to World Travel and Tourism Council, contribution of tourism sector is more than 10% in the global economic output. This sector also provides various employment opportunities, thus, 1 out of every 10 jobs is in travel and tourism sector (Baker, 2014). In this report, historical and current developments in tourism sector in UK will be covered along with the identification of different types of tourism. In the next phase of the report, demand of tourists, tourist motivations and tourist behaviour will be covered in relation. 6 A’s framework of tourist destination and tourism supply chain in public, private, and voluntary sector of UK travel and tourism industry will be discussed in the last part of the report.
Thomas Cook introduced first tour package in 1841 but at the same time, railways were already engaged in offering tour packages since 1830. After that period, major development and growth in the travel and tourism industry was started in 1945. In mid 1950s, UK’s tour operators started changing the characters of the travel and tourism industry to integrated activities from individual business activities (Aldebert, Dang & Longhi, 2011).
For example, people were looking for value added services along with the accommodation and reviewing this demand by guests, hotel industry started expanding their area of service and today, this industry provide almost every type of service to its guests along with the basic, luxurious and classic accommodation facilities (Xiang, Magnini & Fesenmaier, 2015).
Since 1960s, travel and tourism sector has attained high attention, development and growth. Primary reason behind development of travel and tourism industry is the development in all industries associated with this industry. Apart from historical developments in this industry, there are tons of developments made in this industry. Major source of recent development in this industry are technological advancement, increase in economic conditions, tourists behaviour, etc. With the help of technological advancement only, lot of things have been made easier for tourists. For example: Prior to the introduction of technological factors such as internet, guests were required to visit tour operators for taking information in relevance with excursion trips but after introduction of internet and other aspects, people could book and compare all tour packages as per their requirements from various tour operators. Along with this, they could also design their trip as per their requirement by booking travel tickets, hotels, etc. over internet. This has helped both the parties i.e. tour operators as well as travellers because tour operators could also promote their packages over internet and through other mediums. This has increased the reachability for travellers and this industry will grow and prosper in the same manner in future also (Mowforth & Munt, 2015).
Development of UK Tourism Industry
Special interest tourism is one of the driving factors for the development of tourism. This is due to huge product offering in this industry which has distended a small industry. Special tourism includes Gastronomy, wine, art, adventure, and all those tourism which relates to a special interest. When a group of people or an individual develops interest for visiting various destinations which are connected with certain subject is known as special tourism (Swarbrooke & Page, 2012).
Characteristics of special tourism:
- Special tourism is counter point to mass tourism
- Meaningful experiences for tourists
- Aim of special tourism is to meeting with specific needs and interests
- It is also referred to as the niche tourism
- Special tourism includes social, educational, discovery, active, challenging, excitement, relaxation, etc. types of excursion trips (Sigala, Christou & Gretzel, 2012).
Mass tourism is a type of tourism under which huge number of tourist visits same place, resort, etc. for the same reason in a particular year. Mass tourism is known as the most popular form of tourism and it is also known as the cheapest form to enjoy holidays. Tour operators use these types of packages to attract target audience. Thomas Cook is one of the biggest tour operators in UK and they promote mass tourism in order to generate high revenues. Under mass tourism, every facility is being provided to the tourists and it includes travel, accommodation, sightseeing and sometimes food facility is also being provided under these types of packages (Law, Buhalis & Cobanoglu, 2014).
For example: Euro Disney tour, cruise trip, La Tomatina festival, etc. are some examples of mass tourism and it is generally supported by governments because it leads to generation of huge revenues for the host destination.
Characteristics of Mass tourism:
- Spatially polarised
- Segmented markets
- Dependency
- Price and it is an important factor in mass tourism. This is because movement of tourists in comparatively low with regards to the price factor.
- Mass tourism generally activates during seasons, hence, it is a seasonal.
It has been observed that various studies and researches have been conducted with regards to identify the developments in tourism industry but there are limited numbers of studies with regards to analyse the significance of repeat visitors to the same destination (Erku?-Öztürk & Erayd?n, 2010). After reviewing certain studies, it has been observed that there can be tons of reasons behind repeat visitation to the same place such as tourist’s personal choice, environmental factor, peace, attractions of particular place, etc. Apart from this, tourist’s satisfaction, perception of tourists for destination, etc. are other significant factors which promote repeat visitation to a particular destination. According to a research, it has noticed that most of the countries keep record of the tourists that reach every year and they also track their citizen’s departures and arrivals. This type of data is being used to evaluate condition of tourism industry. As analysed above tourism industry is rapidly growing, thus, competition level in this industry is very intense. In relation with this, tour operators and other industries associated with this industry have adopted customer retention strategies which could also be considered as the crucial factor for repeat visitation of the tourists to a particular destination (Látková & Vogt, 2012).
Types of Tourism
Tourism demand: It can be defined in various ways which depends upon factors such as geographic, psychological, economic and political. Geographic perceptive of tourism demand denotes that the overall number of people travelled or willing to travel to a particular place and avail the services of tourism industry. Tourism demand has three objectives i.e. effective demand, suppressed demand and no demand. Factors which influence tourism demand are core, supplementary and future. Attractiveness of destination, products and services delivered at the destination, quality of services rendered, etc. are major factors which impact over tourism demand (Ghimire, 2013).
Push pull factors: Push factors denotes to the internal forces of a tourist which motivates him to reduce its needs by performing certain activities. While pull factors are the external forces of a destination which forces tourists to hold for a particular place. Desire for spurt, relaxation, health, prestige, adventure, etc. are certain factors included in push factors and these are intrinsic motivational forces. Pull factors are attractiveness of a destination, facilities and activities conducted at the particular destination, etc. It has been evaluated both factors have their separate advantages such as push factors works at initial stages while pull factors plays crucial role in selecting a destination for the purpose of travel (Som & Badarneh, 2011).
Tourist Motivations: Tourist motivation could be defined as “the global integrating network of cultural and biological forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behaviour and experience”. It is a study which describes the factors which influences an individual to travel to a particular destination and it is known as tourism motivation. Every tourist has different choices which drive him to visit to a particular destination. Relaxing, pleasure, shopping, etc. could be several reasons which motivate a tourist for visiting a particular destination (Campo-Martínez, Garau-Vadell & Martínez-Ruiz, 2010).
Travel motivation affects with two factors i.e. pull and push factors. Push factors forces an individual to explore, visit to a particular destination. Pull factors attracts the tourists to visit destinations. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is known as the best motivational theory.
Tourist Typologies: Classification of tourists is done on the basis of their behaviour and tour operators and other business enterprises engaged in this industry uses tourist’s behaviour for analysing their demand related to products and services. With the help of this, tour operators plans and develops management functions so that the target audience could be approached easily (Osti, Disegna & Brida, 2012).
Demand of Tourists
Stanley Plog has classified tourists as per their personality and curiosity to visit new destinations i.e. allocentric type and psycho-centric type. Allocentric model describes:
- It includes people who are adventure seekers and always wish to travel to new places.
- They are confident enough and mostly they prefer excursion trips
- Prefers to explore new places and cultures and they also loves to meet new people.
- Make own travel arrangements.
Psycho-centric model describes:
- Inhibited, unadventurous and conservative.
- Tradition in nature and very less curiosity to visit and explore new places.
- Generally prefer to visit same destinations which match with their comfortable zone.
- Too much worried in relation with the tourist’s safety and security.
Cohen’s tourist typology has divided tourists into four segments:
- Organises mass tourist
- Individual mass tourist
- Drifter and
- Explorer
This model is quite similar to the Plog’s model under which psychocnetrics includes individuals and organised while allocentrics include drifters and explorers.
Factors of tourist motivation: Tourists are segregated into different aspects thus, their factors for motivation also differs from each other. While factor for tourist motivation for an adventurer will be exploring new places, attractiveness of destination, etc. and at the same time, motivational factors for psycho-centric travellers will be shopping, relaxation, fascination, etc. (Lee, Huang & Yeh, 2010).
Development of a new destination requires consideration of various elements. For uplifting a normal destination into a tourist destination, it is required to adopt certain crucial measures, through which the existing points of the destination could be highlighted along with the development of new infrastructures. Following are certain points which could be considered for developing a new tourist destination:
- Preservation of environment: Environment is the most significant factor which plays crucial role in uplifting a normal destination into a new tourist destination. While developing a new and attractive destination, it is required to save the environment and while promoting the new place, government and tour operator agencies could utilise this factor by spreading awareness amongst the target audience (Jopp, DeLacy & Mair, 2010).
- Development and preservation of historical monuments: In relation with promoting a tourist destination, it is required to develop and maintain historical developments. These monuments plays essential role in making the destination unique and attractive, thus these should be maintained in an appropriate manner (Benur & Bramwell, 2015).
- Development of infrastructure: Along with the preservation of environment and historical monuments of a destination, it is required to develop infrastructures such as roads, attractive and beautiful constructions, shopping complex, etc. These are the factors which helps a destination to attract tourists as well as to be included in the new tourist destination.
- Hotels: This is another crucial factor which plays crucial role in the development of a new tourist destination. Tourists’ basic needs from a destination are proper accommodation facilities, food and travel facilities, etc. Thus, tour operator agencies along with the government require adopting certain effective measures through which the requirements and demands of the tourists could be fulfilled (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010).
- Promotion: After providing and development of all necessary things which are required for the promotion of a new tourist destination, adequate strategies in relation with the promotion and marketing is necessary. Until, marketing of the destination will not be done in an effective manner, tourists will not be able to gain enough information about the particular place (Turner, 2010).
This framework has a huge impact over the tourists as it describes the significance of a destination. Following are certain elements of this framework:
Attraction: For motivating tourists towards a particular destination, attractions are required and these could be manmade either natural. This factor motivates an individual to leave its own place i.e. residence for exploring particular place. Attractions for every destination differs and these could be historical monuments, unique and big buildings, adventurous places, theme parks, host for cultural or special events, etc. (Sigala, Christou & Gretzel, 2012).
Accessibility: Apart from attraction, another factor which influences tourists to explore new destination is the accessibility to the destination. Appropriate mediums of transport should be available for approaching to the destination otherwise, chances for success and growth for that destination will be very less. It includes better roads, appropriate railway network, air transportation services, etc. should be available for attracting large number of tourists.
Amenities: Services, facilities, etc. provided to the tourists along with the accommodation also affects the demand of a destination. These services are telecommunication, emergency services, public toilets, retail shopping, etc.
Available packages: Appropriate tour packages should be made available by the tour operators and other agencies with regards to the attraction of tourists. Tourists should be provided with all relevant information such as booking tour packages, attractions of the destination, etc.
Tourist Motivations and Behavior
Activities: It is required for a tourist destination to provide a set of activities through which tourists could be attracted. It may be adventurous activities, cultural events, etc.
Ancillary services: These are the services which supports transmission of services from the site to the consumer. Marketing development and coordinating activities in the destinations are ancillary services.
Primary aim of the supply chain management is to eliminate the wastes and adopting measures so that customer service could be improvised. Elimination of wastes in the tourism industry is providing qualitative products and services to the tourists at effective prices along with providing them the assurances regarding quality of services. And improvisation of the quality of service relates to adaptation of the unique and advanced measures so that tourists’ needs could be fulfilled. Supply chain of tourism industry includes accommodation facilities, transport facilities, food and activities within the destination. All these services should be served in this chain in an effective manner so that appropriate results could be attained along with originating opportunities for sustainable development in the industry (Cowper-Smith & de Grosbois, 2011).
There are number of industries are engaged in travel and tourism industry and every industry plays its separate role in customer satisfaction. For instance, when a tourist visits to a destination, he seeks for hotels which could provide appropriate accommodation facilities along with appropriate restaurants which could serve healthy and delicious food items. Apart from these, tourists also seek for better transportation services which could saves their time as well as approachability to the destination could be improved. Thus, the flow of services should be should be executed in an effective manner so that supply chain management in tourism industry could be improvised.
Titan Travel UK, Back-Roads Touring Company Ltd., Cox and Kings Travel, UK Travel & Tourism Ltd., British Tours, and Thomson Sport (UK) Ltd. are certain tour operator companies in UK which provides various unique and attractive excursion trips packages depends upon the needs and requirements of the tourists. Travel and Tourism companies in UK are also offering facility to modify the tour packages to its customers so that they could customise those packages as per their requirements.
Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that travel and tourism industry is an important aspect for the country’s economy. In order to analyse the significance of the travel and tourism industry in UK, various aspects has been considered. Initial report concluded historical developments made in the tourism industry in UK and in other parts of the globe. Along with this, various types of tourism, reasons for repeat visitation to a particular destination, elements for developing a new destination and 6A’s framework has also been discussed in this report with the objective of evaluating the effectiveness of travel and tourism industry.
6 A’s framework of Tourist Destination
References
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