Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Present day travel and tourism
sector
profi ts and save costs, companies source their supplies
and staff from anywhere in the world. Airlines work in
partnership through alliances, such as the Star Alliance
and Oneworld. Larger travel and tourism companies
also use call centres located in parts of the world where
staff costs are lower.
The developments discussed in the previous sections
of this unit have all played an important part in shaping
today's travel and tourism sector. It is one of the
fastest-growing sectors in the world, employing more
than 230 million people worldwide and accounting for
10 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP),
a measure of the total value of all goods and services
produced in a country.
Consumer demand
Consumer demand is changing all the time and it is
a big challenge for travel and tourism organisations
to respond to changes in people's habits, tastes and
fashions. There are many factors that contribute to this
changing demand, for example:
Products and services
•
Ageing of the population;
Today's tourists are more sophisticated than in the past
and are looking for high quality products that offer
good value for money. The internet allows people to
research their travel plans thoroughly before making
their booking and gives destinations throughout the
world an opportunity to promote their areas to visitors.
Increasingly, people are not just buying travel and
tourism 'products', but they are looking for 'experiences'
to satisfy them in their leisure time, whether in the
UK or overseas. This could be a weekend break in a
spa hotel, a mountain biking holiday in the Alps, an
art appreciation course in Italy, a relaxing break in
a country house hotel or even getting married on a
remote Caribbean island!
•
More active lifestyles;
•
Media infl uences;
•
Greater interest in environmental issues;
•
Changes in working practices and the 'work/life
balance';
•
Changes in family composition;
•
Advances in technology.
Types of organisations
Today's travel and tourism organisations have to be
managed in a way that allows them to achieve their
objectives, whether these are purely fi nancial or more
social and community-based. Staff costs are usually the
single biggest expense for an organisation, so changes
in personnel are commonplace in travel and tourism.
There are also frequent company amalgamations to
help reduce costs and increase profi tability, but this can
lead to fewer companies and less choice for customers.
In general, travel and tourism organisations have to
'work smart', using their full range of physical, fi nancial,
technological and human resources.
Business operations
As in many walks of life, change is an everyday part
of the travel and tourism scene. The dynamic and
competitive nature of the sector means that companies
often combine their business operations to be more
effective, through mergers, alliances and acquisitions.
For example, there has been a trend in recent years for
control of parts of the sector to be in the hands of a small
number of big companies. This is particularly true in the
tour operating sector, where, in 2007, Thomas Cook
and MyTravel merged their tour operating businesses,
and TUI (Thomson) and First Choice Holidays joined
forces. Between them, these 'big two' account for
nearly half of all package holidays sold to people in
the UK. Business operations in travel and tourism are
also becoming more global. In order to increase their
Competition
Travel and tourism is, and always will be, a fi ercely
competitive sector. Companies and destinations have
to compete with each other for their share of tourist
numbers and revenues. Luckily, travel and tourism has
