Unit 6 Issues in Travel and Tourism Assignment - Tui Group

Introduction

Travel and tourism is the most flourishing sector in the present times and is also benefitting the economies at large. The issues in travel and tourism is been carried out with the intention to gain enhanced exposure to wide ranges of the concepts of travel and tourism all over the world. However, the report would be evaluating current issues which drive changes in the travel and tourism sector. It would be identifying the trends that influence the changes in the travel industry of UK. Moreover, the Issues in travel and tourism would also analyse as how the organisation could respond to the changes along with the strategies to overcome the same. It would also provide a justification of the selected strategies being selected for the business to respond to the change. Furthermore, the report would highlight the impacts of the trends and the issues driving change in the travel and tourism sector. It would also examine the likely consequences of the businesses failing to respond to the changes in the market. In addition to this, the report would focus and elaborate the functionalities of TUI group and would evaluate the related aspects throughout the report.

Task 2

2.1 Current trends that influencing change in travel and tourism of UK

There are wide ranges of trends which influence the change in the travel and tourism sector to the large extent. It has been identified that with the increase in investments in the tours and travels sectors and the inclination of people towards the luxurious tours had led the industry towards vast modifications. There is an immense scope of expansion in the travel and tourism sector of UK and thus the industry is being influenced by many of the new changes (Lee and Brahmasrene, 2013). The industry had initiated to move towards new attractions and approaches through which the tourism sector had moved towards a new era and had provided the customers with the extreme satisfaction and fulfil the market demands effectively.

The travel industry of UK is been influenced with some of the following trends such as:

Adventure tourism: In the recent times, it has been observed that maximum numbers of youth are moving towards the adventurous activities and are much interested in the adventure tourism as well. Therefore, the travel agencies are now developing and planning several packages which include a large number of adventurous trips to different places and explore new destinations. This initiative would highly contribute to the development of the industry and increase the revenue levels as well. In addition to this, these types of trends are also considered to be risky and require higher concerns over the activities. The tourism sector of UK had recently initiated with some of the adventures and motivated the people to participate in the activities such as Jungle exposure, river rafting, ballooning, Bungee jumping, diving, etc (Xiang.et.al.2014). Thus, this trend had a positive impact on the travel and tourism sector of UK and had contributed to the growth of the economy and the industry both.

Holiday packages: People now a day are much inclined towards the leisure tours and spend their holidays at different destinations. Taking this trend into consideration the tourism agencies develops various holiday packages so that to attract the customers and lead towards the profitability. It has been found that approximately 72% of the tourists travel in different countries for the purpose to spend their holidays. This trend had laid a remarkable impact on TUI group and had developed many of the packages concerning the families and the students into the mind. In the above figure, it has been shown that the maximum quantity is been covered by the leisure tourism only.

Dark tourism: This is another recent trend in the tourism sector which has emerged in the industry. It has been found that people are now more interested in exploring historical development and haunted places (Tribe, 2015).  The government is thus investing amounts on renovating the historical monuments and expanding the travel industry to that extent.

Sports tourism: This is also one of the rapidly growing trends which are attracting the visitors to travel from one country to another. It has been identified that attained a growth of 50% in past five years and had contributed to the economic growth of UK to the great extent. It has also helped in enhancing business opportunities in the country as well.

2.2 Analysis of current trends by using various techniques and methods 

As per the given scenario, it had been found that there are an immense number of tools and techniques which are been used to evaluate the trends of the market. In order to carry out the evaluation of the trends for Niche tourism market in the UK, the TUI group would carry out market research through which the organisation would be able to acquire detailed information about the trends, customer expectation and preferences, perceptions towards the tourism, etc. However, it has been found that the niche tourism market of UK includes the trends like medical tourism, dark tourism, sports tourism, business tourism, etc. People from different countries move towards London for the medical purposes or treatments and contributes to the economy. It is important for TUI group to focus on the development of these markets and achieve growth in the industry (Gelman.et.al.2014). It had been identified that the most leading niche market in the present time is the adventure tourism and the holiday tourism which are been preferred by the majority of the customers. Moreover, TUI group could also adopt following methods to evaluate the niche tourist trends in the market:

Feedbacks: The travel organisation collects feedbacks from the travelled from the local and the national regions with respect to their expectation and the satisfaction levels from the agency. TUI groups provide the customers with feedback forms which include the detail of the required improvements, preferences and the expectation of the customers. Feedback could be taken either through online sources manually (Morrison, 2013). This technique would help the organisation in making the required changes and expand the operations effectively.

Latest Technology: With the help of latest technological tools like online sources, websites, etc. the organisation could approach a maximum of customers and collect the required information. This would help in evaluating the trends in a more effective manner as would approach a larger number of customers and make the results more fruitful. The  customers are now more inclined towards the convenience and prefer to have the easy interface for booking tickets, avail the information about the packages, make complaints, feedbacks, etc (Ritchie.et.al.2013). Thus technological tools are also beneficial in evaluating the trends.

In addition to this, the adventure tourism is been considered to be the interesting trip and people are more inclined towards it. This type of tourism offers wide ranges of activities at the different destination and facilitates the customers with higher satisfactions. The major reasons behind its popularity are the activities being included in the tourism. The adventure tourism provides the opportunities to the tourists to explore the world and perform each and every new activity throughout the tour. For instance, the tours being conducted for the activities like ballooning, mountain climbing, tracking, river rafting, etc. attracts the teenagers to explore their skills and interests out of it (Page, 2014). It has been also found that the adventure tourism market had recorded a growth of 65% in past 5 years. It has been seen that there is an untapped opportunity for growth in this market and the TUI group must move towards the market in order to expand its profitability. 

Task 3

3.1 Respond to the change by International Airlines Group

International Airlines Group is the well-known airline group of UK that provides airline services to its client. The organization has various national and international clients in the world. The business operates the business in various parts of the world with satisfied customers. Organization is well developed and provides the good working environment to the employees in order to reduce the employee turnover. Sometimes changes in the policies of the government may create the issue for the working conditions of the organization and decline the efficiency of the business (Burke, 2013). The different government set the different regulation to govern the organization in order to revert back business take the laws in a positive way and designs the packages according to the guidelines of the government.

SWOT analysis of International Airlines Group:

• Strength: Organization has the effective labour work and business focus on the optimum utilization of the resources which depicts the strength of the International Airlines Group. Organization keeps positive working environment which motivates the employees and business can easily achieve the organizational goal. To raise the strength business focuses on the skills of the employees and tries to increase the skills. If the employee is highly skilled then easily satisfy the demand of the customers (Depledge, 2013). International Airlines Group adopts the online platform to serve the better services to the clients in order to retain them.
• Weakness: As per the analysis it can be evaluated that the weak point of the organization is the new policies and regulation design by the different countries. The weakness is rivalry and their policies. The rise in the price of fuel also put the business into a weaker section that affects the growth of the business and increases the price of the tickets.
• Opportunities: International Airlines Group can create the opportunities by improving the quality of the services or by expanding the business in different parts of the world. Organization can design the economic travel packages for the customers. Organization can merge the business with global companies for business strategy expansion and it will create the global opportunities for the International Airlines Group.
• Threats: In current market scenario, International Airlines Group has various threats which penetrate the organization while growth. The major reason is changing prices of fuel and laws of different government (Andersen and Moynihan, 2016). Nowadays, organizations are facing the changes in environmental conditions which result the cancellation of flights that decreases the customer retention.

PEST analysis

• Political factors:  Political factors of UK are suitable for the International Airlines Group to operate the business. The government of UK provides the rebate to the organization to increase the tourist ratio.
• Economical factor: The financial base of UK is strong so it provides a high standard of living to the employees by which resident of UK has high demand which directly increase the quality of the services. UK has strong GDP growth that facilitates organization to grow.
• Social factor: International Airlines Group should value the cultural beliefs of the customers which attract them and it could be an opportunity to create a new market segment.
• Technological factor: This factor helps the organization to serve the quality services to the clients and deliver on time (Anderson, 2013). It creates a positive way to attract the customers and helps to retain for the longer time. Technological factors assist the management to monitor the feedback of the customers after providing the services.

3.2 Development of strategies for Iberia and Vueling

Development of strategies is the foremost task of the organization to grow faster effective strategy assists the management in creating the brand value of the business. It assures the management to utilize the resources effectively and properly. The businesses implement various strategies to increase the business like social media marketing, add campaigns, discounts on tickets, free lunch or dinner etc. These all strategies help the organizations to grow faster and simpler. Through these strategies, Iberia and Vueling airlines can overcome the communication barriers and directly communicate with the customers. The marketing strategies assist the management in attracting the more customers and asses their needs in order to retain them. The strategies aid the management to improve the services and provide the alternatives to expand the business in different parts of the world. Nowadays many organizations are adopting the online platform to target the customers by targeting them by their internet usability. Through internet facility management of both the organizations can easily segment the customers and increase the revenue (Grant, 2016). Iberia may advertise the services through advertisement campaigns and try to inform more and more customers by distributing pamphlets to the people.

It can be said that people are changing the perception according to the changes in the technology. Customers can easily book the tickets through online platforms and check the status of the booking. This kind of trends assists the management to grow in a positive way and improve the efficiency of the organizations. The strategies aid the management to decide the price of the product and provide the techniques for measuring the quality of the product. It enables the organization to decide the promotion strategy for the organization. Vueling adopts various strategies to expand the business (Cummings and Worley, 2014). Both the business can enlarge the business by developing the sub-units in the different parts of the world.

3.3 Validation for the strategies

To response to the change, organizations have opted the best strategies which suit the nature of their business. Through this strategy, management can increase the revenue and create the good customer base for the business. This strategy helps the Iberia to utilize the resources effectively. It will aid the management win the confidence of the customers and identify their demand. Through these strategies, the business can increase the profit percentage and get the better control over the operations. This strategy helps the management to get the better control over the employees and increase the profits. All the strategies aid management to get in touch with the customers through different modes like social media, website etc. Through these strategies, management can monitor the functions of the employees and implement the policies in better and effective way. It facilitates Iberia and Vueling to forecast the factors which affect the demand for the product (Davenport, 2013). These strategies are the ways to attract the customers and sell them the product according to their need.

The management can promote the brand through this strategy by giving a discount on the occasions, free coupons etc. One more strategy is privatization that improves the service quality of the organizations. It will improve the production process and monitor the employees. The strategy helps the manager to collect the feedback from the customers and identify the problems facing them customers. The strategy will provide the opportunity to the private organizations to expand the business and provide quality services to the customers. By adopting this strategy Iberia and Vueling will easily achieve their goals and expand their business in the UK (Anderson, 2013). This strategy will increase the number of customers and provide feedback to the organization to improve the quality of services.

Task 4

4.1 Impact of current trends and issues that driving the changes

According to the given scenario, the Myla Travel, Thomas Cook and The Travel Network Group had been impacted by the ongoing trends and the issues in the market. It has been found that the market issues had let the organization to bring changes in their business activities so that to meet the market conditions and satisfy the customer needs. It is very much important for the organizations to fulfil the market requirements and attain growth effectively. With reference to the functionalities of Myla Travel, Thomas Cook and the Travel Network Group, there are large numbers of issues which drive the changes in these organizations. Some of the major trends and issues are as follows:

Structural Issue: As per the given scenario, the mergers of Myla travel and Thomas cook would be impacted due to its structure as both the organization acquire different structures and the employees require understanding the both. It is very much important that the employees adapt to the structures and respond to the change in a positive manner so that to lead the initiative towards the growth (Pappas and Apostolakis, 2016). It has been found that the employees create a resistance to the change in case of different environment and the structure and results in the specific issues at large. In order to overcome the issues, the organizations must provide the employee with effective training and facilities so that to deliver the best results out of their efforts.

Employee turnover: It is very much important for Myla Travel, Thomas Cook and the Travel Network Group to ensure the awareness of the employees with the changing trends and the issues in the business. With reference to the case, it has been seen that Thomas cook had faced a drastic shift of job cuts along with the employee turnover which requires hiring new candidates for the business (Blank, 2013). The organization needs to acquire qualified employees for the organization and make them adopt the strategies and the operation effectively.

4.2 Likely consequences of businesses failing to respond to market changes           

The Likely consequences of business failing to respond the changes are as follows:

Job Losses: Once the employees become habitual to its environment, it becomes difficult for it to adapt to new changes or a new environment. As per the given case, the higher Authorities stated that changes in business practices may lead to job losses as every person may not be able to cope up with the changes in business environment.

The loss in Business: As per the given case, the travel agency Myla, on the way of changing business practices, suffers from huge losses because it was not able to meet its high-performance standards. Also, the travel agency saw sudden decline financially.

The increase in debts: New business requires a huge amount of investment and some businesses fail to achieve its desired goals, with respect to the given case the company was being forced to turn to its bank for additional loans (Ucbasaran.et.al.2013).

New Products: In the given case, one of the Staff Association stated that company needs new products to prosper. It is important for the company to have new ideas and techniques to compete with its rivals. New Inventions & Innovations and also the modern technique can only help the company to create new products.

Reduce in sales: There can be a huge downfall in the sale because sometimes management takes a bad decision making or sometimes business may fail to cope with the standards set for an organization. Also, there is the time when the customer is not satisfied, and then it is important for the Myla, Thomas Cook and The Travel Network tourism organization to analyze the change and also to implement it (Page, 2014).

Bad Management Decisions: In the given case, Thomas Cook plans to axe 2500 jobs. It is a bad management decision because suddenly there was a high number of job cuts which led towards the decline in the business.

Negative Branding:  In relation to the case, there was huge Job losses, the financial loss of business, increase in debts, reduce in sales and bad management decisions will all lead to the negative branding of the company and also can spoil the image of company among the customers (Foxall, 2014). Because of negative branding, the customer will not get attracted towards any package or towards any promotional policy.

Conclusion

With the above report, it could be concluded that the Travel and tourism sector is the most flourishing sector in the present times. The report had revealed that the adventure tourism had laid a positive impact on the travel and tourism sector of UK and had contributed to the growth of the economy and the industry both. It has been also identified that the most leading niche market in the present time is the adventure tourism and the holiday tourism which are been preferred by the majority of the customers. Even the report had recognised that there is an untapped opportunity for growth in this market and the TUI group must move towards the market in order to expand its profitability. Moreover, the report states that it is important for the Myla, Thomas Cook and The Travel Network tourism organization to analyze the change and also to implement it.

References

Books and Journals

Andersen, S.C. and Moynihan, D.P., 2016. How Leaders Respond to Diversity: The Moderating Role of Organizational Culture on Performance Information Use. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, p.muv038.
Anderson, D.L., 2013. Organization development: The process of leading organizational change. Sage Publications.
Blank, S., 2013. Why the lean start-up changes everything. Harvard business review, 91(5), pp.63-72.
Burke, W.W., 2013. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014. Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Davenport, T.H., 2013. Process innovation: reengineering work through information technology. Harvard Business Press.
Depledge, J., 2013. The organization of global negotiations: Constructing the climate change regime. Earthscan.
Dickinson, J.E., Robbins, D., Filimonau, V., Hares, A. and Mika, M., 2013. Awareness of Tourism Impacts on Climate Change and the Implications for Travel Practice A Polish Perspective. Journal of Travel Research, 52(4), pp.506-519.
Foxall, G., 2014. Corporate Innovation (RLE Marketing): Marketing and Strategy. Routledge.
Gelman, A., Carlin, J.B., Stern, H.S. and Rubin, D.B., 2014. Bayesian data analysis (Vol. 2). Boca Raton, FL, USA: Chapman & Hall/CRC.
Goodall, B. and Ashworth, G. eds., 2013. Marketing in the Tourism Industry (RLE Tourism): The Promotion of Destination Regions. Routledge.
Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M., 2013. Challenges of tourism in a low?carbon economy. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 4(6), pp.525-538.
Grant, R.M., 2016. Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, J.W. and Brahmasrene, T., 2013. Investigating the influence of tourism on economic growth and carbon emissions: Evidence from panel analysis of the European Union. Tourism Management, 38, pp.69-76.
Mariani, M.M., Buhalis, D., Longhi, C. and Vitouladiti, O., 2014. Managing change in tourism destinations: Key issues and current trends. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 2(4), pp.269-272.