Intercultural Aspects of Tourism

MAIN BODY

Globalisation refers to the process of physical phenomenon and integration among people, organisations, and governments all over the world. It is increasing due to progressive communication and transportation technology. In other words, it is a process through which businesses or companies acquire global influence or start their business on planetary scale.

The circulating global recess is affecting the travel and tourism industry in the world and some places are unaffected. Travel and tourism is the largest growing industries all over the world, and it is affected by globalisation at large level. Therefore, it can be said that tourism is constituted with globalization and its fast growth assist the globalisation. It also supports in meeting various cultures. It also leads to rapid development and changes in countries which provide support to tourist needs and demands. The travel industry offers services and products which permit the travellers to see something new that they have ever experienced ahead. The tourism industry faces different challenges due to increasing globalisation. Taxation mostly affects the travel industry as they paid taxes on hotel rooms, airlines tickets, etc. which clearly shows that how it impact in the industry (Everingham, (2015). Tourism infrastructure at many places is underdeveloped and outmoded. Government, destination marketing, tourism boards should work on improving the circulating substructure with foresight and they must address the upcoming challenges. Globalisation due to accelerative cooperation and the possibilities of marketing aid the alteration of the technological improvement. Technology also setup the infrastructure of each state influence by the globalisation. The more alterations occur in economy. The liberalise economic system open to extrinsic markets, depreciating the current effects with the inaugural of competition and private businesspersons are increasing speedily all over the world. The direct investment and world trade volume among different countries reached at a high magnitude. It snap opportunities to industries culture to be component of the world culture. One of the effect of globalisation is it produce income inequalities among different countries in tourism department. In the recent 50 years it is undergoing changes in the countries, as the rich are very rich and the poor are very poor (Kirillova, Lehto, & Cai, (2015). The globalisation pressure has a great impact on tourist destinations all over the world. The imputations for destination marketers are intense and the outcome will need a fresh strategic concentration and approach.

The globalisation also creates challenges in managing culturally diversified workforce in the travel and tourism sector. Culture implies some social inheritance of group of persons, society, community which is substantial with the help of learned patterns of activities, feelings, opinions, etc. culture refers to the process or environment in which individuals consume their time. It is trend in developing countries to expend much time in fun, which will be possible with the help of changes in values. Cultural values impact tourism and innovative trends come out that can be utilised to plan new products. Changes in tourism demand structure and character are influenced through alterations in lifestyle and value systems. The diversified workforce is a realness in the modern business world. The influence of cultural diversity differs with the environment types and overall strategy of tourist companies. Diverse workforce is said to be existence of people from different socio-cultural prospect in the company. It involves cultural factors like – age, race, ethnicity, colour, gender, physical ability, etc. It also includes every group of people at various levels in the tourist company. Diversity needs a company culture by which employees can engage their career plans without being repressed by colour, race, age, abilities, etc. There are many challenges which are to be faced by travel and tourism businesses in managing culturally diverse personnel. One of them is advanced cost of diversity administration. It is very costly in some cases like – to improve job satisfaction. When an administration strives effectively to maintain the diverse workforce, it provides required diversity training to managers, workers and supervisors trough which they learns the better ways of interaction clients and individuals. Many training programmes needs high travelling and involvement cost. Other challenge in diverse workforce is discrimination in both employees and manager’s relation. It can subsist but invisible aspect of sickly managed working place. When employees are affected from the discrimination, it reduces their ability to give best performance and also impacts the equity perception and increases proceeding issues.

Communication problems is also one of the challenges in managing diverse workforce. The workplace diversity lead to obstacles in the effective communication system in the organisation. Ineffective communication decreases employee’s productivity and inhibit the consistency among them. Myriad accommodation is also a big problem in the diversified workforce. The postulate of workplace variety is mutual esteem, making means to accommodate different workers petition can be heavy for employers, which create problems in managing diversity. Incorporations issues are also  of the problems among all the above. Social integration in the organisation cannot be affected to the upper limit. Forming only social groups is rarely a natural procedure which cannot be obsessed sometimes (MacCarthy, (2015). Therefore, it can be said that the tourism sector need to interpret and direct personnel diversity in effective manner. By doing this the business can overcome the challenges occur in managing the workforce.

 To deal with challenges in managing culturally diversified workforce there are various management techniques which are used by tourism industries. First of all, it should be determined that culture does not share experiences. Along with this the company can use various strategies which assist in removing these cultural barriers and provide advantages through cultural diversity. The administration of tourism industry must create programs which increase awareness about cultural diversity. They should improve and create affirmative attitudes towards cultural variations. Further it is essential to realise the aforesaid points of perspective and relationships between various social groups. The management should establish effective and flexible communication system between the employees and the organisation. They should show individual confusions and concerns while encountering cultural problems. Along with these they should setup committees for cultural diversity. The travel and tourism industry can use all the above strategies to overcome the problems in cultural diverse workforce.

Apart from all these strategies the company can also use many other effective approaches, in order to deal with cultural diversity in the organisation. The values and organisational policies must be defined effectively (Martin, & Nakayama, (2013). The management should ensure that the fundamental policies and morals decided by them are able to provide solutions for different problems in the culture diversity. The ethics and policies should be prepared by considering questions such as – what image is required to encourage to utilise effectively ethnic diversity personnel in the travel and tourism management. It must also be determined that what type of manpower the company required in future and the characteristics which are essential for the better performance. Another important technique is following employee relationship administration system (Moufakkir, (2013). The management should establish better relations with employees to integrate them into the organisation from various cultures. They can improve relations through different programmes such as – teaching, language, celebrating various religious or conventional holidays of workers, including their families in company's programmes. Along with this creating healthy and pleasant atmosphere in the workplace lead to improve retention. The management should have overall information about employee’s backgrounds and personalities, in order to execute relationship development programmes. For an example the managers can communicate with the workers at the social events or they should listen and respect their ideas and views. Another important approach is developing diversity administration training curriculum. Training is one of the important element which assures effectiveness in cultural diversity. Amid enhanced globalisation in tourism industry, different programmes like  cross-cultural training which assist managers in knowing about various cultures and improve their skills to deal with problems in cultural multiplicity. It will decrease the expected cost failure which occurs due to ethnic difference issues. These training programmes should be implemented at each level of tourism industry. Among different techniques of maintaining culture diversity another one is optimising training for it. The ethnic diversified training includes that –  why it is essential, knowledge about it, information about different level of cultures such as individual, organisational and national level. The trainer should have all information about cultural behaviours, its influences on the work and phenomena of anticipations, stereotypes, prejudice, etc. This training is essential, as it assist in understanding and knowing innovative things, etc. It must be applicable for everyone – supervisors, workers and management. There should be also responsibility and measurement in the training (Pearce,  (2013). It must also consider assessments to make employees more attentive for any task, as it supports in reaching learning intentions such as change in attitudes, behaviour, improve knowledge, etc. The trainer should have appropriate skills, information and attributes which are best for the project. They should be capable to deal with conflicts and managing unit dynamics. The training can be implemented in the organisation by different teaching methods such as theatre, role play, tiny group work, video, quiz, etc. The management should select that method which easily help the whole organisation in learning. Last one or important and effective method of cultural diversity is language bank. This is a program through which employees can understand variety of languages for another one who requires translators (Wilks, Stephen, & Moore, (Eds.). (2013). It assists workers in understanding and communicating various languages among other employees in effective manner in travel and tourism sector.

 Therefore, it is also necessary to develop and promote understanding, cooperation in organisation culture and culture diversity. Culture refers to resource for social, ethical, economic and environment sustainability. It is the essential component of developing cooperation and policy. Thus, cultural sphere provide broad links with the substance of democracy and ensure relief from poverty. Development policy programmes of government can be implemented to maintain sustainability of humanity policy in travel and tourism sector. Expanding globalisation breed new opportunities and give challenges to ethnic diversity among poor and wealthy countries, in order to improve cross-cultural dealings. Development cooperation regarding cultural industries provide strength to the cultural department and ethnic capacity of the relative countries and  encourage progressive engagement in social group and system development. It has clear overlap with the development of human rights, good governance and cross-cultural perception. Cultural sustainability needs that development should be in effective manner with the ethnic values of the economy concerned (Reisinger, & Turner (2012). The objective of development cooperation in culture sector is to promote and prevent cultural expressions diversity. It provides better opportunities to solve critical problems in the workplace environment of trust, mutual respect and cooperation in the tourism sector. Therefore, it is essential to promote culture diversity in the travel industry for its long term growth and sustainability.

CONCLUSION

From the above essay report it is concluded that tourism is deeply connected to global economic, political, social and environmental trends. Globalisation is the process which help in integrating various organisations and businesses at different levels all over the world. It has large impact on travel industry. Increasing globalisation also have both positive and negative impacts on the tourism sector. Further, there are various obstacles or challenges in managing culturally diversified workforce. Along with this there are different techniques of management to deal with the challenges in cultural diversity which can be used by the travel and tourism concern to overcome the issues in business. Furthermore, the understanding and cooperation of cultural diversity is necessary to manage culture diversity in the travel industry. 

REFERENCES

Books and journals

• Crippen, C., & Brew, L. (2013). Strategies of cultural adaption in intercultural parenting. The Family Journal. 21(3). 263-271.
• Everingham, P. (2015). Intercultural exchange and mutuality in volunteer tourism: The case of intercambio in Ecuador. Tourist Studies. 15(2). 175-190.
• Kirillova, K., Lehto, X., & Cai, L. (2015). Volunteer tourism and intercultural sensitivity: The role of interaction with host communities. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 32(4). 382-400.
• MacCarthy, M. (2015). ‘Like Playing a Game Where You Don't Know the Rules’: Investing Meaning in Intercultural Cash Transactions Between Tourists and Trobriand Islanders. Ethnos. 80(4). 448-471.
• Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill.
• Moufakkir, O. (2013). Culture shock, what culture shock? Conceptualizing culture unrest in intercultural tourism and assessing its effect on tourists’ perceptions and travel propensity. Tourist Studies. 13(3). 322-340.
• Pearce, P. L. (2013). The social psychology of tourist behaviour: International series in experimental social psychology (Vol. 3). Elsevier.
• Reisinger, Y., & Turner, L. (2012). Cross-cultural behaviour in tourism. Routledge.
• Wilks, J., Stephen, J., & Moore, F. (Eds.). (2013). Managing tourist health and safety in the new millennium. Routledge.
• Yu, J., & Lee, T. J. (2014). Impact of tourists’ intercultural interactions. Journal of Travel Research. 53(2). 225-238.

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