Although tourism industry has seen remarkable growth in past and they played crucial role in development of economy but this sector also brings many issues which impact society, environment, economy and travel & tourism professionals also.
- Analyze contemporary issues in travel and tourism industry that impact companies like Whitspread Plc.
- Evaluate recent trends of tourism industry and their impact on whole sector.
- Develop understanding of the strategies that can be used for responding recent changes in tourism sector.
- Access influence of the changes on companies, like Whitspread Plc, of travel and tourism sector.
INTRODUCTION
Travel and tourism industry plays a valuable role in the growth of an economy due to which such industry get enough support from the government and private tourism companies with a hope of getting huge income. United Kingdom has attained maximum number of travel and tourism companies which is engaged in development of tourist destinations and attract visitors through out the world. Along with the profit, travel and tourist companies are also liable to act for their welfare of the societies through creating lots of employment opportunities to the local individuals of UK. Such business can be influenced by several factors which includes political instability, interest of visitors, climatic conditions, lack of security etc. The present assignment report is based on Whitspread Plc which deals in providing their diversified business activities related related with travel and tourism in UK. The project explaining the different issues and challenges that drive travel and tourism business to adopt changes. There are various aspects as well which are also discussed under this report with the context of Whitspread Plc (Cohen and Cohen, , 2015).
TASK 1
1.1: Evaluation of the issues which drives changes in travel and tourism sector
Whitspread Plc is one of the successful tourism company which has operated different business activities in United Kingdom. They mainly focuses on UK inbound, domestic and outbound tourism market in order to attract visitors across worldwide. It will increases their profit thus contribute maximum to the economy of UK. But due to some issues and challenges, the growth of such industry may get affected thus compulsorily required for such tourism companies to identify such issues and resolve them as quickly as possible. Such issues are discussed under the below:
Lack of proper infrastructure: Such issues should affected the experience of visitors due to which they may show less willingness to visit at such destination having inadequate infrastructure once again. Therefore, it is important for private tourism companies and government to focus on implementing an effective infrastructure so as to maximise the interest and satisfaction level of tourists. Such infrastructure includes transportations mode like developing roads, electricity, water supply and telecom. Providing such facilities will easily attract lots of customers thus need to spend money on adopting such infrastructure (Hall and Page, 2014).
Service level: Every tourists expect from the travel and tourism companies to provide better services and facilities in return of their money paid to them. As having different cultures and backgrounds, the tourist may find difficulties in interacting with local people which may affected their travelling experience. Therefore, it must required for travel and tourism companies to provide them various services such as immigration staff, taxi operators, hotels, tourist guides and many more which increases their interest in travelling at different destination places.
Increasing in cost of fuel: It is considered as important issues which is essential for companies to focus on resolving in order to achieve growth and huge revenue. Most of the countries are much affected due to rising in fuel cost due to which the number of tourists visited at such country goes down. Due to affects of gasoline on such sector, the fuel prices increased due to which the customers may drop their idea of travelling to such country. Thus, required by Whitspread Plc to find an alternative way of avoiding such issues in order to large number of tourists towards their destinations (Hannam Butler, and Paris, 2014).
Also Read: Contemporary Issues in Travel & Tourism - Thomas Cook
1.2: Analysis current issues through appropriate resources and methods
There are various issues which has been discussed above has made huge impact on the interest and decision of tourist to visit at various destination places in UK. Due to such issues, the income of travel and tourism companies falls. Therefore, it directs tourism companies such as Whitspread Plc to use different methods and resources in order to identify such issues and resolving them as quickly as possible. Such methods and sources includes:
Primary source: It is considered as an effective tool which help Whitspread Plc to analyse the current trends, situation, competitor's strategies, customer's preferences etc. Under this method, Whitspread Plc required to conduct research or survey in order to collect data and information from the tourists in order to find out their perceptions and issues they faced while travelling. For this, different tools and techniques has required to be adopted such as interviews, observations, questionnaires through which they can exactly find out the current issues or trends exist in travel and tourism sector.
Secondary source: It is another tool which need to adopted by Whitspread Plc in order to identify and analyse the current issues and problems that may faced by travellers while visiting at various destination places. It is an effective tool which gives result to company at less time and money due to which the Whitspread Plc are more capable to handle such issues in an effective and efficient manner. Informations regarding issues and trends can be collected by Whitspread Plc through different sources such as books, online texts, journals and many more. Such data are not reliable and accurate as compared to the information collected through primary methods and it will help in making an effective decisions with less time and money (Kim and Ritchie, 2014).
TASK 2
2.1: Current trends that influence change in travel and tourism sector
Travel and Tourism company is engaged in providing various tourism related services which are required by customers during travelling at various destinations. There are number of tourists who are visited every year with their different purposed such as business purpose, educational purpose, leisure purpose etc. In United Kingdom, there are several trends which can occurred due to changing in interest and preferences of customers. Following are the some current trends as well as activities that can make impact on travel and tourism industry of UK:
Sports tourism: It is form of tourism which attracts large number of tourist for providing them sports related activities. Mostly the youths are preferred to visit at such place where they can get sports activities thus required for Whitspread Plc to manage and prepare a plan in order to arrange such activities over destination places so as to attract maximum number of visitors. Paralympics and Olympics plays an important role in increasing such trend and attracts lots of customers to visited at once to gin valuable experience (Luh Sin, Oakes and Mostafanezhad, 2015).
Adventure tourism: The tourist which are visits at various destination for the purpose of spending some leisure and joyful time are preferred to get some adventurous in order to make their journey memorable. Therefore, it must required for Whitspread Plc to make an effective plans and strategies regarding arranging all such activities through contacting with merchants and service provider in advance. In United Kingdom, Urban Jungle, Bungee Jump etc. are some adventurous places where the customers get memorable experiences during travelling.
It has been seen clearly from above picture that UK has attained large number of visitors at every year due to which the income of travel and tourism industry are increasing over a period of time. In 2016, the inbound number of visitor are 37.6 which rises to 39.7 in 2017 which is a good sign for such industry.
2.2: Analyse current trends by using appropriate techniques and resources
At present times, Niche tourism market is an effective due to focusing on diversity thus become more popular in travel and tourism sector. Such niche market includes agro-rural tourism, adventure tourism, gastro, dark tourism, medial and health tourism etc. among of these dark tourism is considered as more preferable tourism places by the customers. As maximum number of tourist may show their willingness to visit at such places where they can get adequate information related with ghosts, death, tragedy and mystery. They show more interest in getting information about historical values and stories about different tourism destinations. Dark tourism consists of various types of destinations such as disaster, doomsday, suicide, poverty and grief tourism (McKercher, 2016). Information about such destination can be collected through different methods such as primary and secondary. London is such a country which is more popular in attaining such dark tourism destinations due to which such city is successfully attracts large number of people across worldwide. The Tower of London is an example of such type of destination which was used for prison and menagerie where the lions, tiger, jack the ripper tours etc. are keep for the purpose of visitors.