The Study of Tourism Part - 2 Classes of BTS

Greetting from Jayant Prakash. Lets started new classes of BTS students. Welcome in our E-Book Model mode. I hope you enjoyed in this sessoon also. We will give each chapter Screening about in tourism studies.

BTS -01

TS-1 Foundation course in Tourism

TS-2 Tourism Development: Products, Operation and Case Studies

TS-3 Tourism Management

TS-4 Indian Culture: A Perspective for Tourism

PTS-4 Project – Indian Culture: A Perspective for Tourism

TS-5 Ecology, Environment and Tourism

PTS-5 Project - Ecology, Environment and Tourism

TS-6 Tourism Marketing

TS-1 Foundation course in Tourism

Foundation Programme in Travel and Tourism - Course Structure

This focused course is delivered through seminars, lectures, workshops and tutorials. You will develop the research and study skills required for success at undergraduate level.

The modules are outlined below:

Researching, Recording and Responding

Develop essential research skills and the ability to ensure your findings can be documented, analysed and conveyed for maximum effect through this module. It covers the foundations of good study practice, and will teach skills that stay relevant throughout your future learning and career.

Preparation and Progression

Learn to take advantage of opportunities for career progression with this module, designed to help you identify your career preferences and enabling you to pursue them from an informed standpoint.

Investigating the Travel and Tourism Sector

Get to grips with the fundamentals of travel and tourism with this module, developed to investigate the structure and function of industry organisations. You will also examine the important issues and major developments facing the sector.

The Hospitality Industry

Develop your knowledge of the classification systems and standards used in hospitality businesses, as well as a detailed awareness of their structure. You will also examine different types of ownership, services, customers and products.

Introduction to Marketing

This covers how marketing research, planning, and marketing mix are used by all organisations (even non-commercial, public and voluntary ones). It focuses on the customer – including why and how customer groups are targeted.

Business Project Management

Learn how to identify the aims and objectives of a project, as well as ensuring they are met. You will understand the process of preparing, planning, managing and assessing the results of a project.

Final Project

This module helps you bring together the knowledge and skills gained during your foundation studies. You will apply all these competencies in drafting a Final Major Project (FMP) and Statement of Intent (SoI).

Assessment methods

This course gives you critical practice in the core assessment methods and formats used during undergraduate study. These include:

• Essay: demonstrate your research, analytical, evaluation and presentation skills in written essay form.
• Report: evidence your ability to find and apply information for specific purposes in written report form.
• Presentations: display your ability to gather and present information to an audience using images, video, flatwork and models.
• Proposal: show your capacity to evaluate practical research taking context into account and indicating options for development.
• Technical report: undertake an analysis of a debate regarding a specific and relevant topic.
• Learner diary: examine and reflect on ideas, concepts and designs with a view to their improvement.                                            

TS-2 Tourism Development: Products, Operation and Case Studies

COMPONENTS OF THE SPECIFIC TOURIST PRODUCT

According to Middleton and Clarke (2001) the tourist product means customer value, which is “the

perceived benefits provided to meet the customer’s needs and wants, quality of service received,

and the value for money”(Middleton & Clarke 2001, 89). The tourist product is fundamentally a

complex human experience (Gunn 1988), which is an output of a production process, where the

tourist utilises the facilities and services to generate the final output, experience (Smith 1994, 590-

591). Value is added in each stage of the production process and the consumer is an integral part of

the process (Smith 1994). The experience is a customer outcome, which, in the eyes of the

customer, is assosiated with added value and quality. This outcome is created and interpreted during the idea generation a large number of ideas are often created. The purpose of screening the

ideas is to reduce the number of ideas. The idea screening is the appropriate time to review carefully

the question of product line compability. (Kotler et.al. 1999, 291-292; Zeithaml & Bitner 1996,

202). The key questions to ask when screening product ideas are, if there is a market for theproduct, if the product is a right one for the company product strategy and if the product can be

produced profitably (Morgan 1996).

A clear definition of the service concept should be the outcome of the service development and

evaluation stage. The new service concept would then to be evaluated by employees and customers.

The next step is to determine the feasibility and potential profit implications. Demand analysis,

revenue projections, cost analyses, and operational feasibility are assessed at this stage. The stage

will involve preliminary assumptions about the costs of hiring and training personnel, delivery

system enhancements, facility changes and any other projected costs. (Zeithaml & Bitner 1996)

Once the new service concept has passed all the front-end planning stages, the concept is ready for

the implementation stages. During this phase, the concept is refined to the point where a detailed

service blueprint representing the implementation plan for the service can be produced and tested by

the personnel. The market testing phase is in tourism industry often implemented by introducing the

new tourist product to a certain group of customers or representatives of intermediary stakeholders.

If the product has passed all the former stages the service goes live and is introduced to the

marketplace (commercialisation). A very important phase is the postintroduction evaluation. At this

point, the information gathered during commercialisation can be reviewed and changes made to the

delivery process, staffing or marketing-mix variables.

Some case studies

DEVELOPING A NEW TOURIST PRODUCT – CASE STUDIES AMONG NATURE

BASED ACTIVITY OPERATORS

In this chapter we will introduce two short case descriptions. The aim of the interviews was to find

out how the small activity operators in nature-based tourism industry in Finland develop their

product line and how is their new-product development process like in reality. The two cases were

chosen to represent similar kind of businesses: both companies offer nature based activity services

for the same target group, business sector. Their product are divided into corporate entertainment

products, incentive products and nature-based activities for other groups of customers. For both

companies the local based corporate entertainment means nearly half of the income. Both

companies operate from and have their base (office) in the same town. These companies are both

limited companies and are run by two male entrepreneurs. In the nature-based activity service

sector these types of companies are common in Finland in terms of size, mode of operations, age of

the company and the background of the entrepreneurs. In this branch of tourism businesses the

customer involvement and the activity itself is crucial. Co-operation with the accommodation

business is inevitable, if the operator does not have own accommodation facilities.

 Case 1.

This company was founded in the middle of 1990s, when an old company, which had been one of

the pioneers in nature-based activity sector in the area, had gone bankrupt. A couple of friends of

the former entrepreneur bought the base of the company as well as the equipment and founded a

new company to continue the operations. During the last two years the ownership as well as the

operative management of the company concentrated to the two guys who run the business today.

The new company had “inherited” a good and successful product line with a core product based on

a certain physical plant, a river with rapids, by which they have a base with smoke sauna, shelters

etc. The base is situated about 100 km from the office base, were the equipment are stored. The

office situates in the town where the main demand for the corporate entertainment products is

originated. At the moment the company has another base near the airport in that town. The third

base is situated in a national park about 60 km from the town.

According to the entrepreneurs the basis of their new-product development lies on their business

mission, which refers to producing nature-based experiences for the chosen target groups in a

certain area. The need for new-product development arises from the customer needs: in most of the

cases the existing customers need new experiences. The marketing strategy and the promotion  

TS- Tourism Management 

Tourism studies including tourism management are novel concepts and have only evolved in the past 30 years.

Introduction
Tourism studies including tourism management are novel concepts and have only evolved in the past 30 years. Tourism management is a subject that consists of many facets. "The subject area of international tourism management is so wide and varied, covering aspects as diverse as economics, accounting, marketing, politics, physical planning, sociology and environmental studies (just to mention a few) that it makes the production of a comprehensive textbook a most difficult task" writes Edmund Heery from Kingston Business School about the book "The Management of International Tourism" from Witt et al. But not only are the areas copious, also will they vary depending on what kind of tourism management is examined; is it the activities of a tourist manager in a large hotel on the Balearic Islands or is it a tourist development planner in the Gambia. Other writers believe that the main principles of tourism management focuses on how to influence visitors' choices of location, access, timing and product provision and to develop local understanding and knowledge of appropriate balance between demand and supply. This would imply that tourism management is about marketing, infrastructure, access, seasonality and educational efforts. And this then at least partly seems inline with Heerys' view.

This report will not focus on the day to day activities of tourist managers, but rather address the wider implications of tourism and thus outline the more grand tourism management principals. Coltman identified that tourism affects are divided into three elements; economical, environmental and socio-cultural. And thus it seems that the main aims of tourism management are to maximize the economic, environmental and socio-cultural benefits of tourism, while minimizing the associated costs. The scope of the following report will by no means be exhaustive due to the limitations of time and word count.

Discussion
Tourism is an ancient phenomenon and existed already in the times of Mesopotamia. However, it has only started to expand significantly post-Cook area of 1880 and it was not until post-war 1950's that modern mass tourism appeared6. This growth of mass tourism has showed some horrific consequences and made it quite clear that the sustainable planning and development of a tourist area are some of the crucial tourist management principals.

Tourism Planning and Development
To outline each and every facet of tourism planning and development would leave one writing an entire book. However, a common contemporary theme in tourism and development, which became fashionable within the past 20 years, is the issue of sustainable tourism1. Considering the Brundtland Commission (1987) development is sustainable when "it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". At the Globe ' Conference in Vancouver a different definition was offered; "Sustainable tourism development is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that we can fulfil economic, social and aesthetic needs while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems".

Following this notion of sustainable tourism, there are three main goals that are to be achieved by tourism development:

1. Increasing economic value of tourism
2. An improvement in the life quality of people
3. Protection and responsible use of natural resources

Therefore, the tourism managers planning and development methods encompasses principals such as:
- The formulation of tourism policy
- Finding a balance between the social, environmental and economical aspect
- Clarification of the role of government
- Integration of the public and private sector
- Slow paced indigenous tourism
- Continuous marketing planning and efforts
- Adopt a regional approach towards tourism planning
- Cluster tourism activities
- Sustainable planning of natural and cultural resources
- Multi-disciplinary research, training and education
- Good access and accessibility

All these principals and methods are guidelines for tourist managers to ensure the sustainable development, and maybe also the sustainable running, of a tourist area. Again there will be numerous variations with each different situation, but the general principals and methods should follow the same patterns of sustainability. Subsequently, there will be an outline of the main tourism management principals and methods, analyzed in terms of the three central areas of concern in tourism management, namely; Economical, Environmental and Socio-cultural impacts.

Economical tourism management principals and methods 
It often seems that one of the main reasons for tourism development in a country is the economical gain that is expected to come with it. But whether the economical gains will really exceed the costs (not only economically) of tourism, will greatly depend on the methods and principals used by the tourism management. Naturally there are the staffing costs, utilities and overheads etc. And in the day to day management, methods should be used in order to lessen these costs to a minimal, i.e. through better staffing rotas or by using electricity and water saving measures. However, these measures are mainly concerned with single tourism entities, such as a hotel. But in this report, we are more interested in the grand economic management principals.

There can be many positive economical aspects of tourism, such as a better balance of payments and easier access to foreign exchange, the contribution to GNP, the multiplier effect, job creation, revenues for the government , direct and taxation revenues and contribution to GDP6. However the negative impacts are also significant and include costs for infrastructure development, opportunity costs and over-dependence of the destination on tourists, low skilled work, leakages and fluctuations in intake.

As analyzed above, it seems the main principals and methods of tourism management should be focused on trying to minimize the costs and leakages that come with tourism and to maximize the profits.

Leakages are cause by the need to support tourism6, in the forms of importing food and drinks, capital, technology, capital outflows through repatriation of staff, governmental investment in infrastructure to support tourism, and generally are highest in MNE's. Arguably therefore reducing the numbers of MNE's in a tourist destination, will not only minimize leakages by lessening capital outflows and repatriation of staff, but automatically also increase the multiplier effect by getting tourists to spend more money in the local economy. And arguably, another method for tourist managers would be to try and employ as much local staff as possible, ensure decent salaries, and if possible provide them with training in order to give them the chance for a promotion. This should then decrease the repatriation of staff, and at the same time increase some of the local employees' earnings possibility, which in turn should increase the multiplier effect, and may then as a result also benefit the socio-culture of the destinations.

"Economics is about how people make choices" and thus those choices should be influenced and guided as best as possible. Marketing strategies should be used in an attempt to increase visitor numbers, increase average length of stay, average daily expenditure and diminish seasonality. However, it will be shown below, that these measures, although beneficial economically, may further harm the environmental and socio-cultural aspects of the destination thus cause indirect costs, and should therefore be evaluated carefully.

Environmental tourism management principals and methods
Lickorish and Jenkins outline that tourism development can be identified as being the main cause for environmental degradation in almost every country where there is tourism. The damages vary from water, air and noise pollution, to garbage on streets and beaches, biodiversity damages, traffic congestion, wildlife deterioration etc. Some of these damages will be irreversible and harm not only the tourist destination and its industry, but will also add to global pollution.

Since the physical and cultural environments are often the main attractions of a tourist destination10, it should be a crucial principal to tourism managers to use methods to minimize environmental damages to ensure the possibility of future business.

There are many methods a tourism manager can use to lessen environmental impacts. The list is endless and will include every possible measure from energy saving light bulbs, to water saving tabs and flushes and environmentally friendly cleaning detergents, to limiting the visas and thus visitor number and awareness programmes for tourist and locals. The main point is that tourism managers' main principals should include every possible action to lessen the environmental impacts of tourism. In some cases this will even increase the profits by cutting costs, such as utilities. However, even if it decreases the profits, such as in terms of limiting the number of visitors' entry, it will provide the possibility for future gains by tourism in not destroying the natural resources used to attract tourists.

And to conclude this section, one of the vital principals to ensure the success of environmental policies is the involvement of the government in this process. Arguably the government should implement laws on land usage and ensure destinations do not get over-built. Also should it be their responsibility to ensure that there is appropriate infrastructure to deal with the volume of tourism and to protect rare natural heritages such as Coral Reefs.

Socio-cultural tourism management principals and methodsSocio-cultural impacts can be measured on statistics of crime rates, ratio tourists to locals, cost of living for locals, increase in prostitution, large difference between rich tourists and poor locals etc. Another management method that can be used in identifying the level of socio-cultural impacts of tourism is Doxey's Irridex Model.

And naturally, tourism managers should try and avoid reaching the last stages of the Irridex Model in trying to minimize the negative impacts of tourism on the socio-culture of the destination.

To prevent negative socio-cultural impacts, cultural heritage, religious buildings and cultural events should be kept preserved and original instead of staged. However, this is only a drop of water in the ocean. Tourism can cause severe damages in socio-cultural terms, and some writers even suggest that tourism is the new form of imperialism, whereby the rich western countries invade tourism nations and making them their subservients.

Nevertheless, tourism can also have a positive side and can severely increase the standard of living for the host inhabitant, as well as helping in the preservation of cultural and traditional heritage.

Some tourism management methods which help maximize positive and minimize negative impacts of tourism on the socio-culture are:
- Education about tourism
- Promote cross-cultural exchange
- Impose visitor codes of conduct
- Ensure locals access to cultural facilities
- Preserve local architecture
- Maintain authenticity
- Market to cultural sensitive tourists
- Limit tourist numbers

Tourism Carrying Capacity
A principal that has been much talked of is the carrying capacity assessment. It can be used as a tourism management method in order to control and implement sustainable tourism on all fronts. Tourism carrying capacity assessment can be applied in various forms, for example; it could determine the limit of tourism development in a place, or the limit of visitor numbers. It tries to balance the economic goals with the physical and facility carrying capacity of the destination, the social goals with the social carrying capacity of the destination and the environmental goals with the ecological carrying capacity of the destination to make sustainable tourism development a reality20.

However, research has shown that carrying capacity management has been limited in its success of application, mainly due to unrealistic expectations, untenable assumptions, inappropriate value judgment and insufficient legal support systems.

Furthermore, there are various other tourism management principles such as the; environmental impact assessment, limits of acceptable change, visitor impact management and visitor experience and resource management . None of these tools will provide the management with an all panacea but they can support the managements' efforts in building sustainable tourism.

Conclusion
The study of tourism management is a novel concept and covers subjects from marketing to politics. But its main principal should be the long term successful running of the tourist destination. To achieve such, sustainable development and management of the tourist destination will be required. And thus the main aim of tourism management is to maximize the economic, environmental and socio-cultural benefits of tourism, while minimizing the associated costs.

A common theme that has surfaced during the text above is that tourism managers should not work single-handedly, but instead collaborate with the local government and public bodies. The legal enforcement is one of the main concerns, but also if numbered visas are to be distributed, the tourism manager alone will not be able to implement such without help. And generally will the success of sustainable tourism be more likely if the government and tourism managers are pulling on one string.

The methods used to achieve sustainable tourism are numerous. But the main principal stays the same; they are all aimed at the protection of the host destination, rather then focusing on the tourists demand. Clearly do the tourist demands need to be considered, but it should not be the main focus for tourist managers when designing the tourist product. And if all tourist managers adhere to those main principals and transform them in their methods, then hopefully there is a sustainable future for tourism.

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