Structure of Travel and Tourism Sector Assignment

Introduction

As known, travel and tourism is the fastest growing industry of the world and there is no doubt in the fact that travel and tourism helps very much in strengthen the economy of the country. According to Visit Britain, UK is the eight biggest tourist destinations of world in which London tower is the main attraction that attracts lots of visitors toward it. There are also many other industries that grow with the travel and tourism industry such as hospitality and food industry as the visitors come to the country and also enjoys the accommodation and food of the country. Many other factors and aspects related to UK will be discussed in the following report such as structure and development of tourism industry in UK, function of government etc.

Task 1: Understanding the history and structure of the travel and tourism sector 

P 1.2 Explain the structure of travel and tourism sector

Tourism is the world largest industry so the nature of this industry in complex. Following is the four types of organisation that form a structure of the tourism industry of UK:

                                             Figure 1: tourism structure of UK

• Distributors: this category includes the travel agents, aggregators which provide integrated services to the tourists by collaborating with the other tourism service providers such as cab services and hotels. These aggregators mainly function through the web portals which could be explored by the tourists to prepare their itinerary at one place instead of contacting the different service providers (Lim, 2010).
• Accommodations: The accommodations include the hotels and motels in the city that provide space and food to the tourist during their visit to London.  London city has approx 105 hotels and 56 guest houses to provide the service of the accommodations.
• Transport: Transport is one of the most important elements of the tourism sector which includes air transport, road transport and sea transport. London is well connected with the other cities in UK as well as with the foreign countries through the London Airport. Along with the air transport, London has a very good infrastructure developed for the connectivity of the different places within London through public road transport. Private organisations also provide transport to the tourists for site seeing.
• Conferences and events: Conferences add value to the attractions as it makes aware the tourists about the attractions in the London city and also provides the training and development to program to the local people so that they could handle the tourists (Kingsley, 2014).
• Tour operators: Tour operators are the companies that offer the services of tourism to the customers or tourists.
• Regulatory bodies: Regulatory bodies such as UNWTO, ICAO, and ABTA etc. are the regulatory bodies which main function is to keep watch on the policies and the packages designed by these three organisations (King, 2009).
• Visitors: These are the main players of the structure of the tourism organisation as all the facilities in the tourism are arranged for them only. The main motive of the organisation of tourism industry is to attract the visitors to them.
• Public sector organisation: There are two types of organisations held in this segments that are the public limited and charitable organisation. The public limited organisations are the organisation that is run or funded by the central or local government of UK and charitable organisations are those organisations that managed the operation of the organisation by the volunteer (Lemont & Winter, 2011). The basic aim of the stakeholders of these types of organisation is not to gain the success in terms of finance even they endorse and promotes the tourism in the country for the benefits of local people such as Visit Britain. These organisations are also known as non- commercial organisations.

Agencies delivering travel and tourism products and services: the tour operators and travel agencies come under this category as they offer the product of tourism to the clients by assembling the different packages of accommodations, transportation etc.

Task 4: Understand the impacts of tourism

P 4.1 Positive and negative economic, environmental and social impacts of tourism

The environment, social and economic factor affects a lot to the tourism sector of UK. These impacts could be negative or positive on the basis of the fact how the tourism industry reacts towards these factors. The negative and positive aspects of the economic, environmental and social impact are described below:

Social impact of tourism: the tourism sector of the country affects a lot to the country as the people from other countries come to the host country and meet the people and know the culture and the other aspects of other countries (Borsay, 2000). The positive and negative social impacts of tourism are defined as:

• Positive effects of tourism on society: when the people of the other country come to the host country and communicate with the local population, the following effects on society could be seen:
• Developing the positive attitudes towards each other so that they can understand the need of each other,
• Learning the culture of each other that brings a feeling of respect to each other.
• Traditional art is benefitted because of the tourism. For example, the handicraft work is promoted by the tourism which helps in saving the old arts from extinction.
• Tourism helps people in learning the foreign cultures and motivates the people to adopt the good things from these cultures. It reduces the differences among the people in different countries and contributes in strengthening the bonds between 2 countries.
• Increasing self-esteem for host and tourist.
• Psychologically satisfied to each other.
• Mutual appreciation, understanding, awareness and tolerance.

Besides this the local community could be benefited indirectly by the contribution given by tourist and use this contribution in the development of the infrastructure of the society such as school, college etc.

Negative effects of tourism on society: there is no doubt that tourism is giving a huge benefits to the society but tourism also put negative effect on the society as because of the tourism the gambling and prostitutions are increasing day by day as the people from other countries come here and increase the crime rate of city. Other than this, too much involvement of the tourist may wither the culture of the country. Hence, tourism affects very much to the society of the country (Brunt & Courtney, 2008).

Economic impact of tourism: It has been mentioned above that tourism affects the economy in various ways. The positive and negative effects are given below:

Positive effects of tourism on economy: the economy of the country includes the various factors such as employment rate, exchange rate, income of population, foreign exchange etc. Positive effects could be seen as:

• Tourism helps the economy of the country by increasing the numbers of the employment in the country as the tourist came to the country then the hospitality and the transportation companies try to fulfil the need of the tourist so they release the vacancies time to time for the local people. Hence, the rate of employment increased due to tourism (Mathieson and Wall, 1982).
• When the employment rate increase then the income of the population of the country is automatically raised. The population use this income to raise their standard of living. Hence the income and the standard of living of population are increased due to tourism.
• Economic Multiplier Effect is seen as one of the most important positive factors in UK tourism industry. Economic Multiplier Effect is the situation in which the revenue earned through the tourism activities in London is used in the further development of the tourism industry. Because of the Economic Multiplier Effect, the flow of money in the UK tourism industry is increased which resulted in the more organised and developed facilities.
• Tourism is the activity that also helps in balance the import and export of the country so that the exchange rate could be managed.

Negative effects of tourism on economy: the negative effect of the tourism could be seen only on the employment rate factor of economy as the tourism is a seasonal activity that means the tourists come to the country only in a specific season. At that time there are huge job in the market for the local people but once the season is over then the companies terminate the employees to the next season. The cost of the products increased due to the tourism sector as the local people also has to pay same amount (King, 2009). This affects the financial conditions of thee local people.

Leakage is another negative impact on the economy of UK which is caused when the profit is earned by a foreign organisation instead of a domestic organisation because of the tourism activities.

Environmental impact of tourism: tourism activity also affects the environmental activities. The positive and negative aspect is given below:

• Positive effects of tourism on environment: if the tourism is planned then it brings lot of positive aspects for the environment and the local people and tourist is also understand the value of the environment for the country so they don’t do or perform any activity that harms the environment. Besides this, the government of UK declare many natural sites to park in which to perform any activity that harm the environment is totally prohibited (Ashworth, 2005). The ancient sites of the country are also safe because of tourism and the regulator bodies are established only to the purpose that they can maintenance the heritage cultural site of the country.

The introduction of Ecotourism has helped in making the environment better as many organisations are now promoting ecotourism nowadays. Through international tourisms, UK is able to gather funds to organise the activities which could save the environment. Availability of more funds allow the government to spend more on the preservation of the wildlife and other natural resources

• Negative effects of tourism on environment: to gain the profit from the tourism sector the country start to develop the sites. In this case, it indirectly harms the environment and the tourists who come to the other countries are not aware of the environmental rule of the other countries so they litter. The activities like this put negative effects on the environment and also make unhygienic. Due of the tourism, the water, air and noise pollution is increased to the harmful level and destroy the environment. Other than this, the overuse of the natural and historic resources may deteriorate the environment of the country (Pigram, 1980). The sewage production if also increases due to the tourism.

P 4.2 Explain strategies that can be used to minimize the negative impacts while maximizing the positive impacts.

Following are the strategies that can minimise the negative effects and maximise the positive effects on the society, environment and economy:

Strategies that minimise the negative effects and maximise the positive effects on the environment: to minimise the negative effect of the environment, the government need to formulate the policies and the strict rules for the society and the tourists and also may put some fine on the violation of these rules (Albalate & Bel 2010). Other than this the country could also take the action on the companies and factories that emits the harmful chemical as their waste. The government also make rules for the waste management and the wastage recycling. To maximise the positive effects, the government need to promote the concept of sustainable tourism among the society and natural attractions.

Strategies that minimise the negative effects and maximise the positive effects on the economy: to reduce the negative effects, the government of the country has put some regulation on the invasion of multinational companies so that the local tourism companies can generate the profit as the economy will be benefited if the local companies get profit by the tourists (Kingsley, 2014). To maximise the positive effects on economy, the tourism sector of the country such as natural attraction or heritage site should be promoted in the other countries so that they get to know about the natural sites.

Strategies that minimise the negative effects and maximise the positive effects on the society: to reduce the negative effect of tourism on society, the security department of the country has to be more powerful so that the gambling etc could not take place in the city and also need to promote the sustainable tourism to maximise the positive effects (Hall, 1994).

Conclusion

Tourism is the activity that benefits the country economically, socially. The various aspects of the tourism such as structure of the travel and tourism, the function of government, government sponsored bodies and international agencies in travel and tourism, influence on local and national economic policy are discussed. Other than this, the factors that affect the tourist demand and supply of the tourism product is also discussed along with the local and the main positive and negative economic, environmental and social impacts of tourism.

References

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