Introduction
According to Crampon (2003), tourism is one of the major industries in the world today. Furthermore, tourism makes more than 10% of the worldwide economic output and one in every ten jobs globally. Eadington (2002) asserted that tourism starts with the prestigious images of visits to the seaside spas and resorts, the wealthy, Grand Tours, and the business enterprises such as Thomas Cook. This paper will describe the structure and history of the travel and tourism industry, the influence of the international, national, and local agencies, national and local economic policy, the supply and demand effects on the travel and tourism industry, and the negative and positive tourism impacts.
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Task 1
A)
Tourism historical development can be traced back to different periods; the Greeks in the roman empires in the B.C and early A.D, the middle age period and dark ages from 500 to 1400A.D, the Renaissance period from 1400 to 1700 A.D, the period of the industrial revolution of 1750 to 1850, the early 20th century and late 20th century from the period of 1945 to present.
The Greek and the Roman Empires (B.C to Early A.D)
Great Britain. (1991) pointed out that tourism development was seen in the people of Greece traveling to attend the Olympic Games. The roman coins facilitated travel in addition to the roman roads, which were good infrastructure for tourism. Other notable tourism features included the vacation villas on Naples Bay. According to Kerr (2003), the Romans traveled to Egypt, and sea trips were very common. Moreover, theatres and religious festivals attracted travelers, and people traveled long for health. The seven wonders o the world was also built with the purpose of tourist attraction
The Dark Ages (Middle Ages) 500 to 1400A.D
The cathedrals and churches were built and still act as tourist attractions today. Lickorish and Jenkins (1997) asserted that pilgrimages, such as to Canterbury, were organized in the 14th century. Furthermore, sea travel; flourished, and European cities prospered with the emergence of the middle class and the establishment of universities.
The Renaissance (1400 to 1700A.D)
This period created exploration desire and also encouraged scientific and historical investigations. The first passports, which were travel licenses, were designed during this period. Nash (2007) pointed out that the first grand tour guidebook for travelers was published in 1778. The emergence of trade fairs also stimulated business travel in Europe.
The Industrial Revolution (1750 to 1850)
This was the period that created the foundation for the mass tourism of today. It also brought immense social and economic changes as people moved from the lands to the towns. Furthermore, there was a rapid expansion of education and wealth of the middle classes. Similarly, there was an increased demand for leisure time and recreational travel. Spas were developed, and sea bathing became very popular. The seaside resorts and spas soon became recreation, entertainment, and gambling centers. The industrial revolution also saw the revolution of the transport industry, especially the steamboats and trains. Travel agents like Thomas cook also emerged (Richter, 1989).
The Early 20th Century (Circa 1900 to 1945)
International tourism was boosted after the world wars due to the gained foreign countries’ experiences during the wars. New forms of mass communication also emerged, such as cinema and radius. The motor car was also introduced, and the airline industry and long-distance train travel emerged.
Late 20th Century (1945 to Present Day)
The Second World War led to increased interest n travel. Furthermore, aircraft technology advancement led to the viable commercial aviation industry. Cruise shipping and short ferry services grew in addition to the emergence of flexible and cheap accommodation. This period also saw increased government involvement in tourism and business tourism growth. Furthermore, social patterns also changed, such as the emergence of special holidays and annual holidays (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2007).
The New Century
This century has embraced technology in tourism, such as the internet. There is also a budget airline increase and a boom in holiday buying of homes. The transport system has also increased with people taking short holidays.
According to Vanhove (2011), the contributing factors to tourism development include socio-economic, technological, product innovation and development, changing consumer expectations and needs, and fashion trends. The changing socio-economic factors include increased leisure time, increased car ownership number, and disposable income. Lastly is the national economic impact.
The technological developments include transport technology and ICT developments. The development and innovation of a product include the package holiday development, diversity in location and products, improved sales, and business class travel from tour operators.
The changing consumer expectation and needs factors include demanding customers and the customers becoming knowledgeable. The development of holidays is also a changing consumer factor. Probably the future will be virtual travel. This is because people continue being geographical and socially mobile. There is also an ongoing transport system improvement. Furthermore, there are changes in the work patterns with a shift towards flexible working systems (WTO, 2012).
B)
According to WTO (2012), travel and tourism as an industry are one of the largest and most fragmented globally. It is made up of noncommercial and commercial organizations, with some of the organizations not serving only the tourism industry. The main development in the tourism industry is integration.
The structure of the travel and tourism industry is divided into five main divisions: the principals or the producers, organizations for support services, wholesalers, retailers and tourists. According to Crampon et al (2003), the travel and tourism structure is complex and made up of variety of commercial and interrelated non commercial and commercial sectors. It is mainly a service industry, with many of the enterprises being medium and small sized. These organizations interact and work together to provide experience to the tourists.
The industry structure included the commercial organizations, the non commercial organizations and other agencies that deliver products and services of travel and tourism. The commercial organizations include the organizations in the private sector that make profit and are privately owned. These can be private or public limited companies or sole traders. The industry is mostly dominated by the private sector and funding is through profits and investments. Their financial success is used to judge them by their stakeholders (Eadington, 2002).
The non commercial organizations include the voluntary and the public sectors. The organizations of the public sector are funded by the central or local governments with an aim of providing services. The stakeholders do not use financial success to judge these organizations. Their objectives are issues like environmental and quality issues and number of tourists.
The Agencies that deliver products and services include the travel agency, tour operators and the principal.non of these organizations work independently. For example, new tourist attraction development at a destination will affect accommodation, transport, tourism promotion and development of local and regional organizations (Kerr, 2003).
The marketing channel or the chain of distribution is used in description of the system by which services or products are distributed from the source of manufacturing to the eventual consumer. The chain of distribution helps in explaining different ways a consumer could purchase the product of travel and tourism. The product can be sold directly to the tourists or travelers from the producers. Another chain is whereby the services and products are bought in wholesale by the tour operators, who package the holidays and later sell it to the consumers. Another chain is whereby services and products are sold by the travel agent to the consumer on behalf of the tour operators or producers (Great Britain, 1991).
According to Lickorish and Jenkins (1997), integration is the process of linking organizations to benefit economically. Integration has two dimension; horizontal and vertical integration. Vertical integration is whereby two companies at different chain of distribution levels merge. Horizontal integration is whereby two similar organizations merge or one takes over the others. Organizations integrate to increase their market share, reduce competition, for survival, increase their efficiency in their channel of distribution and finally to maximize profits.
Task 2
A)
The government position is multiple and essential side of the travel and tourism industry, involving policies. Involvement of state in the trade is a very recent practice for the central government. The state, in general, recognizes that the public sector duties must cover matters such as safety, health, consumer interest and fair trading and transport infrastructures like the ports, railways and roads. Nash (2007) pointed out that there is a jumbled record in the leisure facilities provision, protection and conservation of the environment which includes unique cultural heritage responsibility, a significant part of visitors’ attraction of Europe.
The tourism agency of the state, tourist board or the department of the government will have a significant role to play in the strategy advisory, offering opportunities to cooperate and consult with the private sector that is dispersed, and preparation of the marketing strategy of the destination based on an appropriate market identification and their wishes and needs (Richter, 1989).
Swarbrooke and Horner (2007) observed that based on the periodic surveys of the role of the government by the OECD, WTO and individual countries, the main function of the tourism ministry or of agencies in the control of the government are as follows:
- Planning, research and statistics
- Marketing
- Tourism resources development
- Regulation
- Education and training
- Liberalization or facilitation
- Local governments
According to Vanhove (2011), at the local level, the local or the regional authority has similar roles to the central government, and in several ways a more important and comprehensive one. In the early years of mass travel, which was stimulated by the development and growth of the rail network, intervention of the public sector in tourism was at the local level solely. This is because there were no organizations of national tourism.
The large resorts growth, pioneered in United Kingdom at the main canters of the seaside, encouraged local tourism administrations development to carry out host destinations responsibilities.
International organizations
There exist many international bodies, both nongovernmental and governmental, with interest in tourism. The government bodies mirror the interest of the national governments in, and the political will concern intervention of tourism. WTO (2012) indicated that in the industrialized countries, the priority of tourism tends to be low. Moreover, because of the wide range of activities of tourism, the number of organizations with some responsibility or concern is great, but cooperation and often coordination as at the national level is feeble. Moreover, consultation with operating and consultation sectors is inadequate in most cases, as the voice of the sector is weak.
The bodies of the main sector present the case inevitably their own trade, occasionally as in means of transport in a situation that is competitive. Hence, the approach of collective tourism is hard to sustain and organize, even when operating level cooperation is effective (Crampon et al, 2003).
United Nations World Tourism Organization
This is a United Nations specialized agency and the leading organization in the tourism field. It serves in the tourism global forum policy issues and a source of know how in tourism. Eadington (2002) pointed out that this body plays a role in promotion of development of sustainable, responsible and universal tourism, paying specific attention to the developing countries interests.
The organization also encourages the global code of ethics in tourism implementation, with the aim of ensuring that the member countries, businesses and tourist destinations maximize the positive social, economic and cultural tourism effects and reap fully its benefits, while reducing its negative environmental and social impacts (Great Britain, 1991).
Kerr (2003) observed that WTO has strived recently to strengthen its association with non-governmental and commercial partners through its affiliate membership system should assist in provision of practical guidance and as foundation for cooperative action.
B)
Growth of tourism in different countries has not been so high, especially the countries that were faced with much political instability that has resulted in holding back of tourism development. The aspects of politics in tourism are interlinked with economic consequences. Lickorish and Jenkins (1997) asserted that tourism is a politics continuation but an integral section of the global political economy.
Iran
Before the theocracy accession, tourism was characterized by large number of visitors traveling to the country for its variety of attractions, basting of beautiful landscape and cultural splendors suitable for a wide range of activities. However, tourism dramatically declined during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s but has revived subsequently (Nash, 2007).
Since the revolution of the Iranians in 1979, many Iranian visitors have been the business people and the religious pilgrims. Despite the international tensions, the Iranian government projects high rise in visitors’ numbers and revenues from tourism over the period forecasted, and even talk of building projects of additional hotels (Nash, 2007).
The industry in the early 2000s faced grave limitations in personal training, regularity norms, communications and infrastructures. According to Vanhove (2011), in 2003, there were about 640 hotels with about 63,000 beds in Iran. Recently years Iran has earned approximately $1 billion annually from tourism. Globally Iran ranks at position 68 in revenues from tourism (Vanhove, 2011). Moreover; the country with attractive historical and natural sites is ranked among the ten countries for tourism globally. Swarbrooke and Horner (2007) pointed out that about 1.8% of the national employment in Iran comes from the tourism sector which is projected to increase in the next five years up to 10%.
The factors that have hindered tourism growth in Iran as pointed out by Swarbrooke and Horner (2007) include; regional unstable conditions, weak advertising, the bad public image in some regions of the world and absence of planning schemes that are efficient.
China
China tourism has expanded greatly over the last decades. The sprout of newly middle class that are rich and elimination of the movement restrictions by the Chinese authorities are fuelling the boom in travel. China has become most watched world outbound tourist markets.
According to WTO (2012), China is ranked fourth for in bound tourism. The overseas tourists’ number in 2007 was 55 million with an income of $41.9 billion. The number of domestic tourists was 1.61 billion with an income of about 777.1 Billion Yuan.
Task 3
A)
Richter (1989) pointed out that most researches on tourism demand have either used tourism earnings or visitor arrivals as a dependent variable. Demand for tourism is a base is in which all businesses decisions related to tourism eventually rest. Governments and companies as a case, hotels, tour operators, airlines and providers of leisure facilities have an interest in their products demand by tourists. Many businesses accomplishments completely depends on the tourism demand status, and collapse of the final management is often because of the failure to meet the demand of the market.
The influence factors include; economy, politics, threats and crisis, demographic change and technology. Additionally, the general changes influences in consumer attitudes and the tourism industry itself should be taken into account. These factors are interlinked.
These factors have an impact in different ways. The demand for holiday is driven by expectations, motives and needs. Furthermore, its realization depends on the travel freedom and economic situation of the individual. Therefore; external factors may sometimes have an impact on the demand for tourism by affecting the travel ability, which is fitness, money, time and freedom and the motivation and ability to do so (Vanhove, 2011). Moreover, behavior of the consumers is not single factor reaction but on the entire set of influencing the external factors. Additionally, it is driven by the internal factors such as abilities and motives. Thus, a change impact is limited to a single external factor. WTO (2012) indicated that most external factor appear to be favoring for an efficient development of demand for tourism in Europe in the coming years. However, signs for general boom are absent.
B)
According to Crampon et al (2003), supply is modeled by five components that are independent; transportation, attractions, service, promotion and information. The most important comportment is the tourism attraction.
The supply of tourism and recreation is a combination that is complex of the recreational sites, natural; amenities, activity of the private sector and access which is influenced by many factors that act to give opportunities that satisfy travel demands that are leisure based. Recreational sites density measures that account for both geographic or physical population and size, or social capacity are used as the principal explanatory variables in dependence of tourism models (Eadington, 2002).
Task 4
A
The many tourism impacts include environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts which can be either positive or negative. Great Britain. (1991) asserted that the sustainability conception is factored in the impacts of tourism, when the impacts sizes turns out to be huge to change intensely economic, environmental and socio-cultural tourist destination areas.
Tourism has immense influence socially on the host societies. According to Kerr (2003), tourism can be a source of peace and understanding, international amity and corrupter and destroyer of the indigenous cultures, an assault to the privacy, authenticity and dignity of people and a source of environmental destruction.
Lickorish et al (1997) indicated the possible tourism effects:
- Developing towards each other a positive attitude
- Learning about other people’s customs and cultures
- Reducing negative stereotypes and perceptions
- Friendships developments
- Developing appreciation, pride, respect, understanding and tolerance to other peoples cultures
- Increasing self esteem of the tourists and the hosts
- Through interaction one gets psychological satisfaction
Therefore, social contacts between local people and tourists may lead to mutual appreciation, tolerance, understanding, awareness, family bonding, learning, liking and respect. The residents get educated about the world outside without having to leave their homes. The visitors also learn about the host culture the local communities benefit through tourism contribution to the social infrastructure improvement like healthcare institutions, libraries and schools. Furthermore, if the local culture is the main attraction to the tourists to the area, it helps in preservation of the local handicrafts and traditions (Nash, 2007).
For instance in Uzbekistan, especially in the famous areas likes Horezm, Buhara and Samarqand. The tourists significantly contribute to the preservation of their traditional wood carving; copper work, hammered, handmade carpets and silk handicrafts. Additionally, it preserves and maintains the historical and architectural monuments (Richter, 1989).
B)
As much as tourism has positive effects, it can also increase hostility, tension and suspicion. According to Swarbrooke and Horner (2007), the claim of tourism as a significant force for peace is very much exaggerated because there is little evidence that tourism draws world together. The social and economic impacts of the local community depend on the amount of the generated income by the tourists that go to the local communities. Vanhove (2011) observed that in most of the package tours that are all-inclusive, 80% of the fees of the travelers go to the hotels, airlines and international companies, and not to the workers and the local businesses.
Uzbekistan hotels can mitigate the negative impacts by not importing foods to satisfy their foreign visitors. They should also employ local staffs at their senior managerial positions to enable locals reap the benefits.
To prevent cultural change of the locals, the government of Uzbekistan should avoid artificial reconstruction, conflict, assimilation and overdevelopment. Richter (1989) asserted that while presenting to the tourists the local culture, it may help in preservation and also dilution and destruction. Therefore, Uzbekistan should promote tourism locally to create respect and give income for the local culture and traditions. Additionally, they need to minimize positive and negative impacts on the local environment like over consumption, lack of resources and pollution.
Conclusion
Tourism is the most growing industry globally and it creates jobs and reduces unemployment. Tourism history is long punctuated with massive growths and periods of stagnation and recessions. The backbone of globalization is the international travel and tourism. It increases trade, promotes economic growth, creates income and propels development. Tourism also brings people together from different backgrounds and regions and strengthens communities, advances global understanding and peace goals.
References
Crampon, L. J., & University of Colorado (Boulder campus). (2003). The development of tourism. Boulder, Colo: Business Research Division, University of Colorado.
Eadington, W. R. (2002). Tourism alternatives: Potentials and problems in the development of tourism. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Great Britain. (1991). The development of tourism. Great Britain, Welsh Office, Planning Division.
Kerr, W. R. (2003). Tourism public policy, and the strategic management of failure. Oxford: Boston.
Lickorish, L. J., & Jenkins, C. L. (1997). An introduction to tourism. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Nash, D. (2007). The study of tourism: Anthropological and sociological beginnings. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
Richter, L. K. (1989). The politics of tourism in Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Swarbrooke, J., & Horner, S. (2007). Consumer behaviour in tourism. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Vanhove, N. (2011). The economics of tourism destinations. S.l.: Elsevier.
WTO. (2012). Annual report. Geneva: World Trade Organization.
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