Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Brochures and leafl ets - are an essential part of
Gazetteers - are used by travel agents and tour
selling holidays and other travel products. They
also contain a great deal of useful information on
destinations and what they offer visitors. Leafl ets
tend to be used by particular travel and tourism
businesses to promote their facilities, for example
hotels, attractions, activity centres, tour guides, etc.
Some will have information on the area where they
are located to offer customers a fuller picture of a
destination area;
operators to fi nd independent information on
destinations and accommodation in resorts. Two
of the most popular are the Hotel and Travel Index
(HTI) and the Apartment Gazetteer ;
Websites - the internet is a particularly good source
of information on travel and tourism, but the secret
is discovering the really useful websites amongst
the millions that search engines tend to fi nd! As with
brochures, remember that internet sites may not
always give objective information on destinations,
unless they are from a reputable, independent
source. Many tour operators' websites, from the
mass-market organisations to specialist companies,
have excellent guides to destinations, including
which types of customers they appeal to most, e.g.
families, couples, singles, groups, honeymooners,
adventure tourists, etc. The following websites are
useful starting points for gathering information on
long-haul tourist destinations:
Travel guides - some travel guides are aimed
at people working in travel and tourism (the
travel trade) rather than the general public. They
provide very detailed information on, for example,
destinations, airlines, hotels and rail companies.
The World Travel Guide from Columbus Press has
country-by-country information, including transport
to and within areas, passport, visa and health
requirements. OAG (formerly Overseas Airways
Guides) publishes a range of guides for air and rail
services, including the OAG Rail Guide and the
OAG Flight Guide . Countries that are keen to attract
tourists will have a national tourism organisation
(NTO) that is responsible for producing guides and
brochures on tourist accommodation, attractions
and facilities, e.g. the Mexico Tourism Board or the
Taiwan Tourism Bureau. Major resort areas, such as
the Caribbean Islands and Australia's Gold Coast,
produce their own guides for visitors, usually working
with hoteliers and tourist attraction operators who
pay for an entry. City guides offer detailed advice
on travel, accommodation and tourist information.
Commercial destination guides, such as those from
Lonely Planet and the Rough Guides series, as well
as organisations such as Which?, tend to offer a
more objective view of what a destination offers
visitors;
www.worldtravelguide.net; www.antor.com;
www.travelocity.co.uk; www.abta.com;
www.aito.co.uk; www.lonelyplanet.com;
www.oag.com; www.roughguides.com;
www.tripadvisor.com
DVDs and CD-ROMs - travel DVDs provide useful
information on destinations, providing vivid
images and information on tourist facilities. They
are distributed by tourist boards and larger travel
and tourism organisations, for example Disney to
promote its attractions around the world. CD-ROMs
are useful for storing large amounts of information
on travel and tourism.
Activity 8.1
Hotel guides - these are available from hotel
To develop your internet research skills, gather
details from each of the nine websites listed above
(starting with www.worldtravelguide.net ) and
produce destination fact sheets containing useful
tourist information for visitors to any two of the
following long-haul destinations - New York, Boston,
Cape Town, Melbourne, Auckland. Each information
sheet should cover no more than 2 pages of A4.
companies themselves, e.g. Best Western, Holiday
Inn, Crowne Plaza, and Marriott Hotels and Resorts.
Guides from independent publishers, for example
the Good Hotel Guide and the Which? Guide to
Good Hotels , claim to offer unbiased advice. Hotel
guides produced by tourist boards usually only
feature hotels that are registered and meet agreed
accommodation standards. Hotel guides often
include information on the features and attraction
of a destination area to entice people to visit;
This activity is designed to provide evidence for P1.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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