Travel and Tourism - Summary Notes

  • Command words are essential for understanding exam questions.
    • Analyse: Examine in detail.
    • Assess: Make an informed judgement.
    • Compare: Identify similarities and differences.
    • Define: Give precise meaning.
    • Describe: State the points of a topic.
    • Discuss: Write about issue(s) or topic(s) in depth.
    • Evaluate: Judge the quality, importance, amount or value of something.
    • Explain: Set out purposes or reasons.
    • Give: Produce an answer from a given source or recall/memory.
    • Identify: Name/select/recognise.
    • Justify: Support a case with evidence/argument.
    • Outline: Set out the main points.
    • State: Express in clear terms.
    • Suggest: Apply knowledge and understanding to situations to give ideas.

Reasons People Travel:

  • Reasons for travel change with increased transport availability, longer holidays, and affordability.
  • Disease, disasters, and war can limit travel.
  • Reasons include leisure, business, visiting friends/relatives (VFR), medical, and religious purposes.

Leisure Travel:

  • Leisure travel is for pleasure and enjoyment, involving visiting attractions and experiencing breaks from routine.
  • Involves relaxation and fun during free time.
  • Holidays can be relaxing (beach holidays) or active (adventure and sport).

Nature and Adventure Tourism:

  • Nature tourism focuses on the appeal of the natural environment (mountains, lakes, forests, marine environments).
  • Adventure tourism involves physically challenging activities in natural environments (rock climbing, white-water rafting, skiing).

Sports Tourism:

  • Involves visiting places to enjoy sport as a participant, competitor, or spectator.
  • Can include health tourism activities such as jogging or spa treatments.

Culture and Sightseeing:

  • Culture includes traditions, art, and architecture.
  • Tourists visit to experience new cultures and see cultural attractions.
  • Sightseeing involves visiting famous or beautiful sights, both natural and built.
  • Social media has increased the popularity of sightseeing tourism.

Special Interest Tourism:

  • Tourists pursue hobbies or pastimes on holiday, such as painting or cooking.

Business/MICE Tourism:

  • Business tourists travel for work-related purposes, summarized with the acronym MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions).
  • Meetings with colleagues or customers.
  • Incentive rewards for excellent work performance.
  • Conference or convention attendance.
  • Exhibition or trade event visiting.

Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR):

  • Increased due to better transport, more money, more time off, and more family living away from home.
  • VFR tourists consume transport, accommodation, and catering services.

Other Reasons to Travel:

  • Medical tourism involves traveling for treatment.
  • Religious tourism includes pilgrimages to special places.

Key Concept - Change and Development:

  • Travel and tourism is changing due to increased time and money, but issues like disease, natural disasters, and security threats impact travel.

Types of Tourism:

  • Tourism is providing for the needs and wants of tourists.
  • Types: domestic, inbound, outbound; mass, packaged, unpackaged, specialist; short-haul, long-haul; independent travel; sustainable, ecotourism, responsible tourism.

Domestic, Inbound, and Outbound Tourism:

  • Domestic: Tourists visit destinations in their own country.
  • Inbound: Tourists from abroad visit a country.
  • Outbound: Residents of a country travel abroad.

Mass, Packaged, Unpackaged, and Specialist Tourism:

  • Mass tourism: Large numbers of holidaymakers travel to the same resort.
  • Packaged tourism: Organized by a travel business combining transport and accommodation.
  • Specialist tourism: Tourists visit destinations based on particular interests.

Short-Haul and Long-Haul:

  • Short-haul: Flights of less than three hours.
  • Long-haul: Flights longer than three hours.

Independent Travel:

  • Tourism that travellers arrange for themselves, booking components separately.

Sustainable Tourism, Ecotourism, and Responsible Tourism:

  • Sustainable tourism: Minimizes negative impact and maximizes benefits to the environment and local people.
  • Ecotourism: Visiting natural environments with minimal impact.

The Changing Structure of the Travel and Tourism Industry:

  • The industry comprises businesses providing travel and tourism products/services.

Components of the Travel and Tourism Industry:

  • Include accommodation, catering, travel agents, tour operators, transport providers, and visitor attractions.

Accommodation and Catering:

  • Hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, hostels, caravan parks, street food vendors, takeaways.

Travel Agents and Tour Operators:

  • Travel agents sell products and services; tour operators create and sell package holidays.

Transport Providers:

  • Provide air, water, rail, and road transport.

Visitor Attractions:

  • Natural attractions (scenery, beaches) and built attractions (museums, monuments).

Ancillary Services:

  • Additional services such as tour guides, currency exchange, and car/bike hire.

Changes in Industry Structure:

  • Industry is becoming more integrated through vertical and horizontal integration.
  • Rise of independent travel and dynamic packaging.
  • Increasing sustainability awareness.
  • More online booking opportunities.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration:

  • Vertical integration: Businesses from different components join together.
  • Horizontal integration: Businesses from the same component join together.

Key concept - Change and Development:

  • Internet and social media have changed booking methods, leading to more independent travel and larger, integrated businesses.

Key concept - Marketing and Management:

  • Successfully marketing products and services to customers, including sustainable options, helps protect the environment and economies.

Types of Destinations:

  • Destinations vary in scale and are classified into resort towns, city destinations, countryside areas, coastal/island destinations, and purpose-built resorts.

Resort Towns:

  • Towns where leisure tourism is the main economic activity (beach, ski, spa resorts).

City Destinations:

  • Cities that attract tourists for leisure, business, VFR, and medical reasons.

Countryside Areas:

  • National parks and nature reserves protected for natural landscapes and wildlife.

Coastal and Island Destinations:

  • Places at the coast or islands with beaches.

Purpose-Built Resorts:

  • Theme parks and all-inclusive resorts.

Elements of Destination Appeal:

  • Include accessibility, built and natural attractions, sustainable practices, weather/climate, and historical/cultural attractions.

Accessibility:

  • Ease of reaching a destination due to transport links (airports, roads, public transport).

Built and Natural Attractions:

  • Attract tourists for sightseeing and adventure.

Sustainable Practices and Provisions:

  • Ecotourism products and services appeal to responsible tourists.

Weather and Climate:

  • Destination weather and seasonal climates are increasingly known and influence travel choices.

Historical and Cultural Attractions:

  • Increased online information and desire for sustainable travel have boosted the appeal of historical/cultural sites.

Other Elements:

  • Events, leisure activities, MICE facilities, and accommodation/catering.

Different External Customer Types:

  • Families, individual tourists, groups, visitors with language and cultural differences, and people with specific needs.

Visitors with language and cultural differences:

  • May face communication and cultural challenges.
  • Responsible tourists and providers seek to educate about local norms.

People with Specific Needs:

  • Include mobility/access needs, sensory needs, and dietary needs.

Mobility and Access Needs:

  • Difficulty moving around destinations; addressed through accessible infrastructure.

Sensory Needs:

  • Needs of people with sight or hearing difficulties; met through guidance aids.

Dietary Needs:

  • Arise from allergies, religious/cultural avoidances, or personal/health choices.

Key concept - Customer Focus:

  • The appeal of destinations attracts tourists and is a part of customer focus of the travel and tourism industry.

Definition of trends in travel and tourism

  • Trends in travel and tourism are directions of change in travel and tourism, including changes in tourism flow and factors affecting these changes.

Changing Global Tourism Flows:

  • Tourism flows are movements of tourists between their places of residence and destinations.

Changing Global Tourism-Generating and Tourism-Receiving Areas:

  • Tourism has become global.
  • Long-haul destinations are becoming more popular.
  • Inland tourism is developing more.
  • Tourism-generating areas in Asia and the Pacific are growing.

The COVID-19 pandemic:

  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to declining numbers of tourists.
  • Overtourism occurred during periods of lower infection rates.

Key concept - Global and growing.

  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant change in the previously continuous growth of tourist numbers.

Factors Affecting Global Tourism Flows:

  • Factors include economic changes, technological advances, social/demographic changes, and health/security issues.

Economic changes:

  • Levels of disposable income.
  • Levels of employment and unemployment.
  • Measures of national economic strength or weakness, like GDP.
  • Currency exchange rates.
  • Government investment.
  • Infrastructural developments.

Social and demographic changes:

  • Age profiles.
  • Family structures.
  • Attitudes to tourism impacts and changes in people's sustainability awareness.

Health and security issues:

  • Disease, unrest, crime, terrorism, pollution, disasters.