Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
streamlined operations (e.g. on some airlines toilets on domestic flights are emptied only at cabin
crew requests rather than at each turnaround to reduce costs)
• Many of the aircraft are leased, reducing the level of depreciation and standardising costs
• Many airline functions are outsourced, such as ground staff and check-in, minimising overheads
and reducing costs by 11-15 per cent
• Standardised aircraft types (i.e. Boeing 737s) to reduce maintenance costs and the range of spare
parts which need to be held for repairs
• Limited office space at the airports
• Heavy emphasis on advertising, especially billboards, to offset the declining use of travel agents
as the main source of bookings
• Heavy dependence upon the internet and telephone for bookings
• Small administrative staff, with many sales-related staff on commission to improve performance
(as well as pilots in some cases)
Source: Page (2003a)
Low cost airlines have changed the geographical access to leisure consumption by
widening the domestic tourist and leisure traveller's search area for new consuming
experiences, while radically impacting upon scheduled airline services and standards of
provision as competition increases.
INSIGHT: The destination life cycle
The notion of a destination product life cycle has been extremely influential in tourism
research and probably ranks as one of the most substantial contributions by geographers
to the wider tourism literature. The tourist area life cycle (TALC) also has a wider
significance beyond a focus on tourism destination development because it challenges the
notion of tourism studies having a simplistic theoretical base. As Oppermann (1998a:180)
noted: 'Butler's model is a brilliant example of how scientific progress could and should
work…. [having] been scrutinized in many different contexts with modifications
suggested to fit specific situations and circumstances.'
Butler's (1980, 2005) concept of a tourist area life cycle of evolution, based on some
of the initial observations of Christaller (1963) and Plog (1974, 1977), has been applied
in a number of environments and settings representing the development of a destination
through time and space (Cooper and Jackson 1989; Cooper 1992,1994; Ioannides 1992;
Butler 2005). Because of its relative simplicity the concept of a tourist area life cycle has
emerged as a significant concept for strategic destination marketing and planning and
which underpins much of our understanding of urban tourism development. As Lundgren
(1984:22) commented, 'Butler put into the realistic cyclical context a reality that
everyone knew about, and clearly recognised, but had never formulated into an overall
theory'.
According to Cooper and Jackson (1989) the two most substantial managerial benefits
of the life cycle concept are its use as a descriptive guide for strategic decision making
and its capacity as a forecasting tool. As a descriptive guide the life cycle idea implies
that in the early stages of product development the focus will be on building market share
while in the later stages the focus will be on maintaining that share (Rink and Swan
1979). However, the utility of the life cycle concept as a forecasting tool relies heavily on
the identification of those forces that influence the flow of tourists to a specific
destination As Hay wood (1986) recognised most models work well in their early stages
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