An expanding niche market for youth travel:
The student gap year and tourism

One of the growing trends in youth travel in the last decade has been the phenomenon known as the gap year, where prospective college and university students defer entry for a year to undertake paid employment, or volunteer to undertake charitable work, raising the funds to engage in this activity. This experience is still part of educational tourism or a special category where the work is not remunerated. In the study of Special Interest Tourism by Weiler and Hall (1992) they identify some of the motivations for such travel as helping to broaden one’s horizon, to learn something, helping with self-discovery, contact with nature, social contact but above all, something which is REAL – Rewarding; Enriching; Adventuresome and a Learning experience. In the UK, the Universities and College Admission Service indicated that the number of entrants deferring their first year place to work or undertake a gap year was 25,310 in 2001 and 29,139 in 2003 but some estimates indicate it could be as much as 60,000, popularized by Prince William at the end of his first year at St Andrews University in Scotland, when he intermitted from his studies to undertake a gap year and engage in voluntary work overseas. A study by Jones (2004) provided estimates as wide-ranging as 60,000 to 350,000 students pursuing gap years while a best estimate was viewed as 200–250,000 a year in the UK.

The earlier examples of the gap year were popularised by Raleigh International (formerly Operation Drake and the forerunner Operation Raleigh) (http://www.raleigh.org.uk) in 1978 for 17–25-year-olds. Between 1984–88, Operation Raleigh involved 4,000 volunteers engaged in expeditions and charitable work with non-governmental organizations to help less fortunate people. A current example of such volunteer organization can be seen in Image 1.2 – Global Vision International (http://www.gvi.co.uk) which has projects operating in 20 countries. There is a growing interest among researchers in the volunteer tourist, as they have been termed, where they contribute to a range of projects. For example, the largest such organization in Australia, Conservation Volunteer Australia (http://www.conservationvolunteers.com.au/) has around 1,200 annual volunteers engaging in conservation holiday experiences such as clearing up a coastal area as examined by Davies (2002). Jones (2004) depicted the choice in gap year activities in terms of a series of choices comprising: UK or overseas as a destination?; then a choice of organized or independent travel; learning versus paid work or voluntary work and consideration of the wider leisure activities which would be undertaken.

Clearly a wide range of experiences, motivations and outcomes arise from being involved as a volunteer tourist, not least the experience and personal development, a feature which is discussed in detail by Wearing (2001). Given the growing importance of such markets in youth trade, specialist travel operators such as STA Travel (http://www.statravel.co.uk) have dedicated advice on their websites for this market, along with brochures. A wide range of websites dedicated to the gap year also exist including:

http://www.gap-year.com
http://www.realgap.co.uk
http://www.travel.guardian.co.uk
and various books and sections in travel guides now devote space to this growing phenomenon in the developed world. A number of companies have seen significant growth in patronage of the services now tailored to gap year clients. What this example illustrates is that no reliable data exists on a rapidly expanding area of youth travel and tracking its growth is extremely difficult, despite its significance globally.

References

Davies, J. (2002) ‘Exploring open spaces and protecting natural places’, Journal of Ecotourism 1(2/3): 173–80.

Jones, A. (2004) Review of Gap Year Provision. Department for Education and Skills: London.
Wearing, S. (ed.) (2001) Volunteer Tourism. CABI Publishing: Wallingford.

Thomas Cook 1919–1922: Battlefield tours and dark tourism

Tourism researchers in recent years have come to focus on the attraction of death and disaster associated with locations now recognized as ‘dark tourism’ – the fascination with famous battlesites and places connected with death (Lennon and Foley 2000). A recent review of the area of battlefield tourism (Ryan 2007) illustrates how visiting battlefields has now created a new genre of attractions and visitor experiences now incorporated through re-enactments and also as a focus for national remembrance of a nation’s fallen soldiers.

Lloyd (1998) has shown that battlefield tourism, that is trips by relatives and other visitors to battlefield sites, developed in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Lloyd (1998: 102) described the desolate landscapes which visitors and relatives confronted when visiting the Western Front (Belgium and France) which was almost desert-like. What is interesting is that Thomas Cook responded to the market opportunities which this demand to visit the battlefields created, launching its programme of Tours to the Battlefields of Belgium in June 1919, advertised in the Traveller’s Gazette. The company provided two forms of tour: either luxury travel or more popular tours by motor car from Paris. The popularity and fascination with dark tourism meant that these tours continued into the early 1920s, building on the growth of air services launched after the First World War with a programme of Battlefields from the Air tours in May 1920. A feature in The Traveller’s Gazette of August 1919 entitled Cities and Battlefields of Belgium highlighted the sites on the Flemish coast:

All along the route to Zeebrugge are seen tremendous coastal forts, dug-outs and gun emplacements, with numbers of damaged guns in position-telling evidence of what the Dover Patrol had to face in its fights up and down this coast… And not far from the extreme sea end of the Mole may be seen another sunken ship, the Great Eastern Railway Company’s passenger steamer, Brussels.

The dramatic depiction of the horrors of war and the battlefield site of Ypres in Belgium was described thus:

Of many places little, if anything, remains but the name! Towns and villages whose names have become familiar as household words such as Dixmunde, Nieuport, Ramscapelle, Pervyse, Hooge, Gheluveltand others are simply ‘heaps’. Some are so completely wiped out that indication-posts have been erected pointing to where they stood. All along the river Yser, between Nieuport and Elsendamme, the country is a veritable wilderness…In some areas every tree has been blasted by poison gas. Once beautiful woods are now merely rows of naked trunks…Many objects meet the eye which appeal to the sensibility of the traveller, such as roadside graves and their crosses; aeroplanes that have been brought down and lie where they fell; empty trenches and dugouts; derelict tanks battered by enemy shell; transports and debris of all kind.

For 35 guineas (£36.75), first class luxury travel to the cities and battlefields of Belgium in 1919, leaving every Saturday, visited Ypres, Zeebrugge, Malines, Louvain, Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp by Pulman railway car in England, and by private car to visit the battlefield sites accompanied by a Thomas Cook representative. This was a one-week tour. In contrast, the ‘popular’ package, a one-week independent tour, was only half a guinea (£0.55p), leaving every Tuesday and Saturday and lasting five days with a one-day trip to the battlefields of Ypres.

A March 1920 advertisement in The Traveller’s Gazette, Easter Tours to the Battlefields, offered a £35 seven-day first-class tour ‘Selected Escorted Party’ incorporating battlefields at Ypres and a £43 first-class tour visiting Lille, Armentieres, Neuve, Chapelle, La Bassee, Loos, Lens, Vimy Ridge, Arras, Doullens, Amiens, Albert, Bapaume, Peronne, Trones Wood, Delville Wood and Mametz Wood, the location of many major wartime offensives. Tours to Ostend and the battlefields for £6-10s-0d (five days), The Somme, The Marne, Rheims and Paris battlefields (seven days) for £17-17s-0d and The Somme, Arras and the Vimy Ridge (four days) for £14-5s-0d were on offer. This not only highlights the scale and diversity of battlefield tours on offer but the decision to develop a new product in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, themed around the major interest in dark tourism as well as the desire among relatives to visit the areas where loved ones and relatives died fighting for their country.

Further Reading

Ryan, C. (ed.) (2007) Battlefield Tourism. Oxford: Elsevier.

References

Lennon, J. and Foley, M. (2000) Dark Tourism. London: Continuum.

Lloyd, D. (1998) Battlefield Tourism. Oxford: Berg.

The Chinese outbound boom

Grace Wen Pan and Eric Laws

The development of Chinese outbound tourism

Until 1983 the Chinese government placed tight restrictions on outbound tourism. Then the slightly liberalized policy first eased Chinese leisure travel to Hong Kong and Macau, because of ethnic, cultural and political connections. At that time, ‘outbound travel’ was defined as VFR. Thus the trip was sponsored financially by overseas relatives and friends so there was no drain on China’s foreign exchange reserves. With the development of Chinese travel to Hong Kong and Macau, more people expressed a desire to visit their relatives in other regions. In 1990, with the approval of the State Council, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), the Foreign Ministry, the Public Security Ministry and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office declared ‘the Provisional Regulations on Management of Organising Chinese Citizens to Travel to Three Countries in Southeast Asia’. The regulation enabled Chinese citizens to visit friends and relatives in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia if sponsored by their overseas relatives and friends. The Philippines was added in 1992. Cross-border tours were also permitted. The flows include north-east China to Russia, North Korea and Mongolia; south-west China to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar (Burma); and from north-west China to Russia and other former Soviet Union countries. With the development of travel services, trips evolved from VFR to holiday leisure travel. In 1991, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand witnessed the rush of the first tour groups from mainland China when the country began to permit its residents to travel to selected South-east Asian countries for personal and leisure purposes.

Subsequently, other South-east Asian countries were awarded Approved Destination Status (ADS) by the Chinese government. Australia and New Zealand were granted ADS in 1998. The total number of Chinese outbound tourists grew rapidly between from 3.73 million outbound trips in 1994 to 5.32 million in 1997 and to 10.4 million in 2000. Of the total outbound tourists from China, 54 per cent were for business and 46 per cent for private purposes in 2000, including leisure and VFR (http://www.cnta.com). In 2000, Asia accounted for 8.8 million of the overseas trips, with 4.1 million to Hong Kong, 1.6 million to Macau, almost 600 000 to Japan, 707 000 to Thailand, 523 000 to the USA and 1 million to Europe with 150 000 to Australasia, of which 126 000 were destined for Australia. The UN-WTO stated that the number of Chinese outbound tourists in organized tour groups increased by nearly 130 per cent to 1 640 000 between 1993 and 1996. The most common form of travel for Chinese tourists visiting outbound destinations is the all-inclusive package tour. A typical package includes international travel, private chartered coach within Australia, sightseeing excursions, local guides, accommodation and meals (mainly Chinese food with some Australian-style meals such as a barbecue or an American breakfast). This form of tour arrangement can be compared with typical Western inclusive holiday packages, providing Chinese clients with similar advantages, particularly the benefit of knowing beforehand what to budget for their holiday, and relieving them of any concerns about the difficulties of making their own arrangements in a foreign country.

Three main categories of destinations were identified by the National Tourism Administration of the People’s Republic of China. These are Chinese outbound tours, cross-border tours, and tours to Hong Kong and Macau. It should be noted that only cross-border tours do not need a visa. Although Hong Kong and Macau have now become Special Administration Regions (SARs) of China, Chinese tourists still have to apply for a visa to visit them. On 1 July 1997 the ‘Provisional Regulations on the Management of Outbound Travel by Chinese Citizens at Their Own Expense’ were issued jointly by the CNTA and the Ministry of Public Security after approval by the State Council, establishing a new management system for outbound travel to meet the growing demand of Chinese citizens to travel outside of China. Under the regulations, outbound tours by Chinese citizens must be conducted in a planned, organized and controlled manner. Only approved travel agencies can assume the responsibilities of managing outbound travel by Chinese citizens. Category A agencies are authorized to operate international travel business. Category B agencies are allowed to receive and entertain international tourists to China while Category C agencies are only allowed to operate domestic travel business. China has 360 Category A travel agencies. In addition to seeking their own clients directly, some of the authorized outbound Category A travel agencies receive passengers from Category B and C travel agencies. Therefore, Category A agencies can be regarded as wholesalers as well. Of 360 Category A travel agencies, 67 were authorized to handle Chinese outbound travel services because of the demand for international services; 22 of whom were authorized to handle the Chinese tourism market to Australia. These 22 travel agencies are located in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The Ministry of Public Security is responsible for the management of passports for outbound travel, and its procedures are based on the Chinese exit and entry laws and regulations. These regulations determine that the major pattern of the Chinese outbound leisure travel is package tours, not fully independent tours (FITs). Compared to other markets, the Chinese government is still very careful with outbound tourism, especially the outbound tourism market to Australia, mainly because it was the first non-Asiatic destination granted ADS status.

When Australia was granted ADS by the Chinese government, the Australian Tourism Commission (ATC) and the CNTA set unified prices on package tours for Chinese tourists visiting Australia. For example, a nine day tour departing from Beijing or Shanghai is priced at RMB 18 000 (approximately AU$3371), and departure from Guangdong Province is RMB14 000 (AU$2622). These unified prices are a condition of visa approval for Chinese tourists visiting Australia. In contrast with the literature suggesting that Chinese people are highly price sensitive, unified pricing implies that Chinese tourists do not have any bargaining power if wishing to visit Australia as a leisure destination. Furthermore, most of the package tours available to Chinese tourists are very similar, offering trips to Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane, and itineraries which include at least two of the three theme parks on the Gold Coast, Movie World, Sea World or Dream World. The lack of variety in the products available to the Chinese outbound tourism market could ultimately detract from Chinese tourists’ interest in visiting Australia.

In contrast, the Chinese outbound travel agencies are highly price-sensitive. They try to reduce the price of land services provided by Australian inbound tour operators to obtain a higher profit margin from the fixed sales price. Price competition also results in a poor quality of services being provided to Chinese tourists, and there was evidence in this study of dissatisfaction among Chinese tourists with the standards of accommodation provided on package tours to Australia. Differentiating and developing products with unique Australian characteristics appears to be the best strategy to minimize price competition between them for the inbound tour operators in Australia. Disposable income is the most important factor influencing visitors’ decisions whether to travel or not and this directly impacts on Chinese tourists’ decision to travel to Australia.

What this case study shows is that government policy towards outbound tourism can be a major constraint and controlling factor in the development of overseas travel and that existing links with friends and family overseas was a strong pull on overseas travel along with disposable income. It is also notable that analysts view a major outbound boom as a long-term proposition, with overseas travel available to a wider section of Chinese society, given that a large proportion of the population have less than US$5 000 in disposable income, which is commonly seen as the threshold at which discretionary spending on overseas travel begins.

Further reading

Messerli, H. and Bakker, M. (2004) ‘Travel and tourism – China’, Travel and Tourism Analyst.
Pan, G. and Laws, E. (2001) ‘Attracting Chinese outbound tourists to Australia’, in D. Buhalis and E. Laws (eds) Tourism Distribution Channels: Practice, Issue and Transformations, Continuum: London, 259–81.

Motivations and activities of ecotourists at an ecolodge in Ecuador

Katrin McInnis and Stephen J. Page

According to the UN-WTO, the Latin American tourism industry is likely to generate US$186.4 billion in 2007, a figure which is expected to rise to US$304.3 billion by 2017. Ecuador’s contribution to this growth is around US$ 4 553.5 million. Within Latin America, and especially in Ecuador where ecotourism has played a major role (Weaver and Schlüter 2001), the development of the Galapagos Islands as a wildlife tourism destination has raised many of the issues of managing nature-based tourism (see Chapter 19). The Galapagos Islands were given UNESCO world heritage site status to help preserve the protected area in 1990 (de Oliveira 2008) which highlighted the pressure which many ecotourism sites were facing in Latin America, a feature also observed by Weaver and Lawton (2007). In Ecuador, this interest in ecotourism has also shifted to mainland Ecuador, due to a growing number of ecotourism projects which have highlighted its biodiversity. For example, the country has one of the world’s highest proportions of protected areas such as the Amazonian rainforest. For this reason, ecotourists have become a significant niche market for tourism in Ecuador. This Insight will show what type of factors influence and motivate visitors to choose to visit an ecolodge (which is an ecologically sustainable form of tourist accommodation in an ecotourism location) as part of an ecotourism experience and the types of experience they consume.

According to the majority of studies on ecotourism, ecotourists tend to be well-educated (Eagles and Cascagnette 1995) and fall within a higher income bracket. Most researchers profile these visitors as aged from 25 to 55 years of age (Weaver and Lawton 2002). Younger ecotourists are generally only found if ecotourism involves more extreme and adventurous activities (see also Insight 4.2). No agreement has been reached on the gender of ecotourists, with some surveys reporting a male dominance (Fennell and Smale 1992), while others note an equal gender distribution (Boo 1990) and others again refer to gender as an activitydependent statistic (Eagles and Cascagnette 1995). Other studies suggest a dominance of females (Weaver and Lawton 2002), causing Wight (2001: 43) to consider whether this is due to ‘women’s increasing independence and incomes’. One example of the significance of ecotourism development can be illustrated by the development of Liana Lodge.

Liana Lodge, Ecuador

Liana Lodge is a privately run ecotourism lodge on the banks of the Arajuno River in Ecuador’s Napo region of the southern Amazon basin, amid rainforest. The lodge is located 45 km south-east of Tena, which marks one of the main gateways to the jungle due to its relatively easy accessibility. It lies six to seven hours (186 km) south-east of Quito and five to six hours (140 km) north-east of Baños by road. From Tena, tourists travel further into the jungle by road for two hours, before reaching Puerto Barantilla, where they are met by Liana Lodge canoes and taken to the lodge. The lodge’s remoteness means it can only be reached by waterway for the last two kilometres. The secluded location of Liana Lodge adds to its charm and represents a pull factor in the ecotourists’ motivational process. The lodge was founded by Angelika Raimann and Remigio Canelos in 1998. It is part of a larger ecoproject which has been in existence since 1993. It consists of the nearby animal rescue centre amaZOOnico, the community-run low budget lodge Runa Huasi, and Selva Viva, a 1200 hectare protected rainforest, which surrounds all projects and is the perfect location for many Liana Lodge tours, due to its unspoilt environment and local wildlife. The lodge employs 16 members of staff and there is emphasis on employing only members of the local Quechuan community (Ecuador’s largest indigenous group living in the Andes and the jungle regions). Thirty-six tourists can be accommodated in eight double cabins. In 2006 the lodge had 4722 overnight stays, of whom 29 per cent were free independent travellers and the remaining visitors came on tours organized by operators. Prices include all meals and tours and rates for 2006 were US$91 for 2 nights/3 days, US$146 for 3 nights/4 days and US$200 for 4 nights/5 days.

A survey of visitors during 2006 found that interest in saving the environment was their main motivation to visit. However, a small number of respondents stated that they had been specifically searching for an ecotourism project and chose Liana Lodge because of its location or because of its features. Wight (1996), suggests that ecotourists show preferences for cabin-style accommodation and lodges, making them an ideal tourism location. Other reasons included curiosity such as ‘the lodge seemed a unique experience’, word of mouth and nearby amaZOOnico. Some 24.5 per cent of visitors were younger than 25 years of age and the main nationalities of visitors were German (41.2 per cent), Swiss (19.6 per cent) and French (14.7 per cent). While at the lodge, the types of activities which the visitors undertook are shown in Table 1.

What this case study shows is that ecotourism has a specialized range of motivations and a unique appeal to visitors who are interested in the natural environment, its fauna and flora and issues associated with conservation and forms of tourism which have a lower impact upon the environment. Yet as de Oliveira (2008) shows, public policy responses are often needed if the scale of ecotourism development starts to become unmanageable which can set in chain a circle of decline, as visitors motivated by the ecological qualities of the destination are displaced by the growth in visitor numbers and the scale of development.

Further reading

Weaver, D. and Lawton, L. (2007) ‘Twenty years on: the state of contemporary ecotourism research’, Tourism Management, 28(5): 1168–79.

References

Page, S.J. (1997) ‘The cost of accidents in the New Zealand adventure tourism industry’, report for the Tourism Policy Group, Ministry of Commerce, Wellington.

Page, S.J. (2003) The Market for Adventure Tourism in Perthshire. Dept of Marketing, University of Stirling.

Page, S.J., Bentley, T.A. and Walker, L. (2005) ‘Scoping the nature and extent of adventure tourism operations, in Scotland: How safe are they?, Tourism Management, 26 (3): 381–97.

Weaver, D. and Lawton, L. (2007) Twenty Years on: The State of Contemporary Ecotourism Research, Tourism Management, 28 (5): 1168–79.

Wight, P. (2001) ‘Ecotourists: not a homogenous market’, in Weaver, D., ed., The Encyclopaedia of Ecotourism. Wallingford, UK: CABI International.

Managing costs as a tool to stay competitive:
The case of the airline sector

One of the main features which characterizes the success of low-cost airlines is their ability to control their costs (see Table 1). Even so, there are many examples of low-cost airlines which have collapsed in the USA and Europe due to underestimating the market and management challenges posed by developing a new venture and controlling costs. In the airline sector, Seristö and Vepsäläinen (1997) outlined many of the cost and revenue factors associated with airline operations and this helps to show where operational costs occur and how airlines might make savings, given the predictions of global airline losses discussed in Chapter 8. Seristö and Vepsäläinen (1997: 11) argue, ‘for many a carrier ever more critical measures will be needed to achieve sustainable profitability’ and they looked at 42 different airlines and their main costs. Among the main factors which contributed to operational costs were:

• the fleet composition of airlines
• personnel, particularly the number of flight crew per aircraft
• the route network
• the composition of traffic, route structure and salaries/remuneration levels.

This led the researchers to build a model to show how costs were related to the supply and demand for airlines services (i.e. what interdependencies and relationships exist) and they identified areas where cost reductions could be made. One strategy is that airlines might choose to divest themselves of non-core activities by outsourcing the provision of services and activities to other companies. Contracting other companies to supply them would reduce the overheads and staff costs the airlines would incur from hosting them in-house. Seristö and Vepsäläinen (1997) then summarized the areas where cost savings could be made in terms of route structure, fleet composition and company policies. One recent example of an airline pursuing a cost reduction strategy is British Airways (BA).

BA introduced its two-year ‘Future Size and Shape Strategy’ to restructure the company (www.ba.com). One goal was to reduce staffing by 13 000 from the 2001 staffing level of over 50 000 staff worldwide, while releasing capital to refocus attention on core activities. In its 2003/2004 Annual Report BA stated that it had made savings of £869 million against a target of £650 million with the target of 13 000 staff cuts exceeded at 13 082. It also made savings on distribution costs in 2003/2004 of £257 million against a £100 million target through greater use of technology and restructuring of travel agent commissions. The ultimate aim was to reach a 10 per cent operating margin. The ‘Future Size and Shape Strategy’ also sought to cut costs by a gradual reduction in fleet types (standardizing where possible as the low-cost airlines have done, reducing engineering costs), and through the reduced costs of supplies by a procurement strategy and greater use of information technology as well as a low-cost fares strategy on its 180 short-haul routes to regain market share from the low-cost airlines. For BA, the ‘Future Size and Shape Strategy’ was followed in 2005/2006 by further measures to control costs, such as modernizing labour practices and reducing overheads to compete in a global context. The follow-on to the ‘Future Size and Shape Strategy’ is the ‘Fit for 5’ strategy, as the company prepared to move to its own dedicated Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport in 2008. This strategy also included the pursuit of operational efficiencies along with investment in training for staff and new product development to enchance the company’s reputation as a global airline. In November 2005, the company targeted a 35 per cent reduction in its managers, reducing the number by 1 715 by March 2008. This was in pursuit of a 10 per cent operating margin to further invest in the airline. This will reduce the number of middle managers by 30 per cent, helping to simplify its core business. In addition, BA sought to restructure the company’s pension scheme and in September 2007 announced US$8.2 billion of orders for new Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of long- and medium-haul aircraft. This was also seen by analysts as an important step forward for the company after a protracted period of financial restructuring in pursuit of its 10 per cent operating profit margin which it achieved in 2008.

The aims and objectives of DMOs and e-marketing and distribution

Overall, the DMS represent and should afford digital platforms providing the functionality and the services to synthesize and meet the divergent needs of all destination stakeholders (e.g. DMO, accommodation providers, intermediaries, visitors’ attractions, residents and activists’ groups ...) as well as e-empower them to achieve their roles in a more sustainable way. In other words, the DMS can and should play a catalytic role in sustainable destination management and marketing by aiming to (Sigala, 2012d; Sigala & Marinidis, 2012):

1. support and foster the economic development of the destination. The economic role of DMS can be subdivided into the following aims:
• empower tourism firms (specifically the SMTEs) to exploit and use ICTs for e-commerce and e-marketing purposes in order to reduce their expenses (e.g. distribution costs and commission, attract a wider international audience with less resources, globally disseminate and update multimedia information in an effective way) and increase their marketing effectiveness (e.g. provide personalized services, develop customer relations, collect and exploit customer intelligence).
• improve the performance (reduce costs and/or increase outcomes) of tourism information centers by digitizing their operations related to: the provision of tourism information; customer services; and sales-marketing activities such as public relations, development of customer relationships and communication.
•  globally e-promote the destination, create, manage and e-disseminate its image, brand name and resources in order to create and attract more tourism demand and increase tourism spending at the destination
• diffuse tourism demand at the destination spatially but also through time in order to reduce seasonality; manage the flow of travellers and carrying capacity as well as to support regional development for enhancing the socio-economic development and quality of life of citizens located at peripheral areas. To achieve this, DMS should promote, educate and inform tourists about all the geographically dispersed tourism resources in destinations so that tourists visit wider geographical areas instead of concentrating and staying in all-inclusive resorts. This would lead them to spread their expenditures, spending money across more tourism firms and all over the year, avoiding using specific tourism capacities extensively during certain time periods.
• increase the competitiveness of the destination in order to: attract more investors; maintain local entrepreneurs and increase their entrepreneurial activity; provide and create employment opportunities etc.
• providing a platform in order to increase the collaboration and networking of tourism firms, e.g. e-procurement services, collaborative e-marketing, co-development and co-marketing of thematic routes such as wine tourism.
2. promote the socio-cultural development of the destination: this DMS role can be achieved by meeting the following sub-aims:
• create an electronic platform enabling the local community and travellers to meet and communicate with each other, exchange and share their cultural values and interests, overcome stereotypes and cultural misunderstanding and achieve a better cultural mix
• electronically preserve, promote and interpret the cultural and heritage resources of the destination
• enabling the local community to actively engage in the creation and promotion of the destination image and resources
• support e-democracy and collaborative destination management by providing the local community with the tools and ways to participate in the tourism development policy making and implementation processes: to that end, DMS should first educate and make the community aware of the current situation and problems, and then, provide a platform for gathering, consolidating and synthesizing different stakeholders' voices for designing and implementing tourism development strategies
3. support the environmental development of the destination by achieving the following aims:
• using ICTs (like geographical information systems) for measuring and managing the carrying capacity of regions and identifying areas that need protection, further development and/or better management
• inform the local community, the tourism suppliers and the travellers about the environmental sensitivities of the destination, while also promote and educate them to adopt certain codes of behavior and ethics for protecting the destination while they are exploring the destination and developing their economic activities.

Despite this multi-dimensional role of DMS for the sustainable development, management and marketing of destinations, the majority of tourism literature has focused on discussing the marketing services and functions of DMS as well as their role in interpreting and promoting destination heritage and cultural resources (e.g. Wang & Fesenmaier, 2008). On the other hand, ICT exploitation by DMS for supporting environmental protection and management of destinations, as well as destination governance and stakeholder collaboration, is very limited. This is in contrast to the increasing adoption of e-government and e-democracy practices afforded by Web 2.0 in order to empower and allow a larger part of the population to participate in the decision-making processes and public governance issues. These e-democracy applications also offer numerous opportunities to DMOs to further engage the various tourism stakeholders in the collaborative decision-making and policy development processes related to destination management. Current trends to move towards community-based destination management and development governance models, as well as more collaborative destination management practices for balancing the (conflicting) stakeholders’ interests, also justify the adoption of e-government and e-democracy practices by DMS that wish to support sustainable destination management (Sigala & Marinidis, 2012).

e-Democracy aims to enhance the quality of democratic processes by broadening citizens' participation in democratic processes and assisting the application of direct democracy on a large scale. Broadening refers to the increased active and effective participation of citizens in all stages of public decision-making (referring to: problem identification, setting and understanding; development of policies, directions and solutions; implementation of decisions; and evaluation of decisions) with increased power, interactive communication and collaborative decision-making and with possibilities to set and negotiate the agendas of decision-making processes. Thus e-democracy empowers people to participate in bottom-up decision processes, to make informed decisions, and to develop social and political responsibility, create transparency and reduce corruption.

In a similar vein, DMS can develop e-democracy and e-government functionality for empowering tourism stakeholders to actively participate in destination development and governance. Sigala & Marinidis identified and gave numerous examples of e-democracy functionality and services that DMS could develop to empower tourism stakeholders’ in destination management and governance. This functionality should support stakeholders' participation in collaborative decision-making at the following levels:

1. e-information referring to a one-way channel that informs stakeholders about a variety of resources available and the current destination situation/problems;
2. e-consultation  which is a limited two-way channel aiming to gather feedback from stakeholders, but without DMOs being obliged to use and incorporate this feedback into their decision-making processes;
3. active e-participation which is a more enhanced two-way channel where stakeholders have more power over policy formulation and decision-making processes.

Table 1 provides several examples of DMS services and functionalities for supporting destination marketing and e-governance.

Table 1 DMS services and functionalities for destination marketing and e-governance

References:

SIGALA, M. & Marinidis, D. (2012). e-Democracy and web 2.0: a framework enabling DMOs to engage stakeholders in collaborative destination management. Tourism Analysis, Vol. 17
SIGALA, M. (2012). Developing Destination Management Systems (DMS): roles, functionality and future trends. In Goncalo Poeta Fernandes, Anabela Oliveira da Naia Sardo and Antonio da Silva Melo (Eds.) "Innovation in Tourism & Hospitality (with proceedings of the international symposium on innovation in tourism and hospitality - ISITH)", published by Instituto Politecnico da Guarda, ISBN: 978-972-8681-31-9

The Thomas Cook–MyTravel merger in 2007

In the UK, around 65–66 per cent of the population take one holiday a year, with 25 per cent taking two or more holidays a year. The recent growth in the Internet as a preferred tool for booking around 50 per cent of these holidays has placed pressure on the profitability and traditional model of the high street travel agent–tour operator relationship for selling packages. With the rise of online travel agencies like Expedia, who are estimated to spend over £10 million a year on advertising, the high reliance upon a diverse range of distribution channels and integrated operations has placed financial strains on travel companies to remain viable. One strategy to respond to the rise of growing volumes of independent travel and the low-cost airline phenomenon (see Chapters 5 and 8) has been to increase market share by increased concentration. This is a European strategy given that in 2006, TUI AG was the largest integrated tourism group with a 114 billion turnover followed by the German-owned Thomas Cook Group, the MyTravel Group in the UK, the German Rewe Group, First Choice in the UK and Kuoni in Switzerland. The announcement in 2007 of the Thomas Cook–My Travel merger placed the new Thomas Cook Group in second place as Europe’s leading integrated tourism company, but the largest in the UK. Much of this is driven by the pursuit of new business models with consumers seeking modular tourism products they can pick and choose in the tour operator and airline sector. This is why most tour operators have expanded their web presence and in the case of TUI, it merged its new brand – TUIfly.com (its airline) to assist in creating a low-cost and modularized product. Other companies like Thomas Cook saw a strategic merger as a means of competing with TUI AG. The merger sought to reduce costs across the new group in June 2007 by announcing £95 million of savings from rationalizing the high street travel agencies and savings in the aviation sector. It also wanted to compete directly with major online businesses like Expedia.

The merger had to seek approval from the European Commission in view of its possible impact on market given the combined shares of tourism business they would control, as well as the possible implications on consumer prices. However, the impact of online distribution in the sector as a route to market for smaller travel agents and tour operators was seen as providing competition to the enlarged Thomas Cook Group. The new company aimed to use Thomas Cook as the main retail brand and the MyTravel ‘Going Places’ brand was retained in towns with more than one retail store. The merger was expected to affect 2500 to 2800 employee positions. As a company, Thomas Cook will be the main higher level tour operating brand with its prestige factor and MyTravel will be the mass market brand. The airline fleet will be renamed under the Thomas Cook name. Some 1000 jobs were expected to be lost at the former MyTravel headquarters in Rochdale. The impact on the group’s retail network was to reduce it from a combined 950 stores by 150 to 800. In its future growth strategy, the Thomas Cook Group was aiming to achieve a 1620 million operation profit by 2009/2010, by refocusing attention on independent travel and financial services and a shift away from tour operating. This is based on a forecast of revenue for the new Group of 113 billion in 2009/2010, with a significant growth in independent travel revenue from 12.2 billion in 2005/2006 to 13.3 billion in 2009–2010. It also set out to grow online sales by 2009–2010 to 35 per cent of its sales.

The evolution of cycle tourism in the USA

According to Tobin (1974), the nineteenth century saw a ‘bicycle craze’ between the late 1880s and early 1890s, with millions of Americans purchasing two-wheeled bicycles for leisure and tourism activities, including the development of racing. Such racing events attracted large spectator crowds and contemporary commentators attributed this new trend to the mass marketing and consumption after 1884 when the air-filled tyre first appeared and the development of the ‘safety’ in 1886, a bicycle with two equal-sized wheels. This opened up the market to a wide range of social and demographic groups. Bicycle tourism emerged as a result of the growth of use of the bicycle linked to staying in overnight accommodation on defined cycling routes. In 1896 it was estimated that bicycles contributed US$75 million to the economy, with 2.5 million riders, 250 bicycle factories and 30 000 retailers selling bicycles. The sales of bicycles rose from US$2.5 million in 1890 to US$31 million by 1896. Much of the ownership was among the urban middle classes and higher social groups due to the cost of purchase which dropped from US$100 to 150 in 1893 to US$80 in 1897 (Tobin 1974). Contemporary publications such as the Goods Road Magazine of the League of American Wheelmen indicated that most members were urban and so the typical itineraries sometimes included a railroad trip and then travel onwards by bicycle, giving travellers independence of movement as well as the option to travel alone or in a group. The emergence of tourist services for the growing cycle market led to the development of tours to Yellowstone Park and the Rocky Mountains as well as trips beyond the urban fringe. For example, Tobin points to the 430 000 bicycles carried by US railroads and the emergence of guide books for the cycle tourist. Inns and hotels with repair shops nearby were promoted and the League of American Wheelmen developed an evaluation system to rate around 7000 official League hotels. This was very similar to the modern day TripAdvisor system where tourists left their remarks on the sign-in book, as the urban middle classes sought home-from-home comforts.

Further reading

Tobin, G. (1974) ‘Bicycle boom of 1890s: development of private transportation and birth of the modern tourist’. Journal of Popular Culture, 7 (4): 838–49.

Solar eclipses as a natural attraction

The magnitude of non-permanent natural attractions as generators of tourism demand is evident in the example provided by solar eclipses. Total solar eclipses are witnessed in various parts of the globe sporadically. Eclipses often attract large numbers of spectators: in Zambia where, in 2001, some 20 000 tourists were recorded, more than the country had seen before, and about US$15 million of tourist spending was generated. In the 1999 solar eclipse witnessed over Europe, 100 000 visitors to southern Belgium and 400 000 to Cornwall, southern England, were recorded. Several hundreds of tourists travelled to Antarctica in 2003 for the first recorded eclipse. Future eclipse paths are likely to attract international visitors to witness the event in forthcoming years. Such forecasts also enable tourism organizations to prepare strategies that manage and maximize opportunities to welcome and accommodate visitors, while boosting the local economy.

J.D. Wetherspoons: The growth of a hospitality chain

J.D. Wetherspoons is a large hospitality chain created in 1979 by entrepreneur Tim Martin (www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk). He strove to offer good value for money and cask-conditioned beers. The concept was extended to offer all-day food, non-smoking areas and a clean, convivial atmosphere. The company’s pubs were initially located in north London followed by other areas of London and theHome Counties (south-east England). After stock market floatation in 1992, the company began a national plan ofpub acquisitions, beginning in the Midlands (Birmingham) followed by other major cities: Liverpool, Bristol and Manchester. The company adopted a strategy of acquiring sites or pubs in key locations and competing locally on its strengths. In 2004, the company had over 640 premises (including lodges) selling its products, which is a massive growth for any company. In 2004, its turnover was £787 million with a profit of £77 million; 40 per cent of sales are from food and soft drinks.

The pattern of growth in the period 2001–2004 shows the company’s entry into the UK’s main conurbations up to 2001 and a gradual consolidation and further expansion into other regions such as Scotland after that date.

Among some of the critical factors that distinguishes Wetherspoon’s from the competition are:

• good quality food and drink provision
• being ahead of the competition with its use of nonsmoking areas, in view of impending changes to UK smoking law
• the use of well-trained and friendly staff
• individually designed pubs to create a unique experience as opposed to a McDonaldized homogeneous experience
• high standards of repair and maintenance
• low operating margins (around 9–10 per cent) to keep prices low
• including food sales and service as a key growth sector for leisure spending
• holding beer festivals to promote traditional ales from British, Irish and micro breweries to exceed the capacity sold by the Annual Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Great British Beer Festival
• using a non-music policy to deter a binge-drinking environment and introducing family areas for early evening dining
• working in an environment of deregulation of the pub trade in the 1980s when the major breweries were required to divest a large number of their tied pubs to improve competition
• operating annual performance-related bonus schemes for all staff, based on profitability and operating standards. It also operates a share scheme to motivate staff, especially those who interface with the public
• developing its own brand (Jones et al. 2002)

Reference

Jones, P., Shears, P., Hillier, D. and Clarke-Mill, C. (2002) ‘Customer perceptions of service brands: a case study of J.D. Weatherspoons’, British Food Journal, 104(10): 845–54.

Empowerment, HRM and the Southwest Airlines model

One of the growing areas of interest in HRM and services in recent years is empowerment (Lashley 2004), which sets out to enable employees to feel more in control and able to use their power in dealing with work issues, especially human interactions with customers. It gives them the discretion to make decisions and is designed to give employees a positive emotional state in the workplace. In service delivery situations it should help employees to feel a commitment to the customer. Lashley (2004) points to relational elements of empowerment, which means the power relationships that exist between an employer and manager. Yet empowerment also has a motivational element, meaning that the employee needs to be able to perceive their ability to be empowered and to use the power effectively in everyday situations. A feeling of empowerment has to be followed by the power to take decisions which make a difference. Both the relational and motivational elements of empowerment need to be recognized if an organization wishes to empower employees.

The Lashley model, based on Lashley (2004: 205–206), (see Chapter 11) outlines five stages to empowerment in a practical tourism and hospitality operational context to combine the relation and motivational elements of empowerment. It illustrates how teams in organizations can be led so that the emotional state of empowerment is engendered to engage employees progressively through a number of stages. Organizations such as McDonald’s have used empowerment models for employment, as many of its managers have previously trained as part of the operational ‘crew’ with the new recruits trained in all aspects of operation so as to provide a foundation for leading a team or progressing to a managerial role.

One high-profile example of a tourism-related business which has used empowerment as part of its HRM practices is Southwest Airlines, the original low-cost airline in the USA. As Gittell (2003) explains, the company transformed itself from a regional carrier to a national carrier by:

• building an organization able to build and sustain relationships, with shared goals, knowledge and mutual respect
• having an intense focus on quality
• using a non-unionized workforce in a highly unionized industry
• having influential leadership and a clear strategy
• creating a unique corporate culture
• having a quick turnaround of aircraft
• having high levels of coordination.

As the airline is built upon the efforts of its staff, the airline has a highly empowered culture of inclusivity for its staff and well organized teams where all staff work together. A high ratio of supervisor to team members (1: 12 or 1: 10) is the highest in the US airline sector, but it empowers managers and supervisors also to perform the work of other staff. So they work as ‘player-coaches’ to use a US football team analogy, undertaking the work of frontline staff: a policy that is conducive to building shared goals, relationships and problem-solving. It also helps to eliminate staff not suited to working at Southwest. As a result, Southwest’s HRM focus is on employing people with teamwork abilities. Internal promotions also create internal job mobility so staff acquire knowledge across the organization, helping to break down barriers between departments. The organization also has a well-established conflict resolution process for staff, when conflicts are not addressed immediately, to improve working relationships.

HRM strategy at Southwest encourages staff to be themselves, so employees identify with the company, and seeks to maintain the family–life balance by having flexibility in scheduling of staff. One innovation is in ‘shift trading’, allowing staff to negotiate their work–life balance to fit the workplace. The airline does not endorse negative controls through functional accountability (i.e. finger pointing when things go wrong), seeking instead to learn from mistakes so as not to undermine the corporate culture. It does this by looking at the overall results and performance of the organization rather than narrow functions, department by department, and their outputs. By having flexible job boundaries, staff can help each other so they can cross functional boundaries and managers can work alongside frontline employees. As a result Southwest is characterized by:

• investing in frontline leadership
• empowering staff via job flexibility and team working
• training staff for competencies such as an ability to build relationships
• using conflict to build rather than destroy relationships
• being a caring employer
• investing in people, their careers and thereby their organizational commitment via flexible working practices.

Underpinning much of the culture at Southwest is its empowering of staff at all levels to work towards shared goals, which involves caring about relationships inside the organization, with its customers and with its suppliers.

The role of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC):
The Human Resources Taskforce and the future role of HRM

The WTTC is a global business leader’s forum for travel and tourism from all sectors of the industry. It has representatives and offices throughout the world and it sponsors a WTTC human resource centre which has produced a publication entitled Global Good Practices in Travel and Tourism Human Resource Development with the publication sponsored by American Express. It provides case studies of good education and training across the tourism sector with a view to disseminating real-world experiences to a worldwide audience of human resource professionals. Pizam (1999) reports the results of a study funded by the WTTC and American Express on tourism and human resource issues in Latin America. In 2001, WTTC also undertook an in-depth study of the main human resource challenges facing the global tourism sector, given forecasts of 4.5 per cent growth per annum and the need to supply well-trained staff. This resulted in the WTTC Task Force report (WTTC 2001). The six areas the Task Force focused on were:

• the future role of HR and e-HR
• the attraction and retention of staff
• education and training
• leadership and management development
• gender and racial prejudice
• raising the awareness of tourism as a generator of employment.

The Task Force indicated that HR functions in the future will be very different, especially as HR moves from a localized to a global function, with locally led teams in different locations. Above all, employers need to be flexible so that employees can have a decent work–life balance. With the growth of technology, it will be possible to deliver HR services electronically, via e-HR computer systems. What is clear is that organizations in tourism of the future will move away from the traditional, highly structured, hierarchical form (see Chapter 5) to more flexible forms that might resemble a spider’s web containing smaller clusters of teams distributed across the organization.

This, according to management theorists such as Drucker, Peters and Handy, is to accommodate continuous innovation (see Chapter 12), to cut implementation times and to head off competition. A more goal-oriented form of organization with ICTs will need to be used to communicate and manage these teams, collaborating to achieve a common goal. As a result, a hierarchy will be replaced by a looser corporate umbrella, with more empowered teams working in a flexible manner. Self-managed and empowered teams will be a key element of this new organizational structure.

One consequence for tourism organizations may be a greater use of part-time staff and contractors and consultants rather than full-time employees, with a greater use of online recruitment. Part of this culture change will also be creating organizations people want to work in and in e-HR, which can help in facilitating a greater interaction between staff and the organization so people feel they can participate in the management of the organization. Using web-based training and e-learning offers employees more flexible training options.

In terms of the recruitment and retention of staff, the Task Force noted some of the high costs and reasons for staff turnover, which results in lost knowledge, were due to:

• inadequate opportunities for promotion
• dissatisfaction with company management
• dissatisfaction with pay
• lack of flexibility and lack of empowerment to take responsibility
• poor career paths
• bad working environments
• conflict with manager/staff
• unhappy with employee benefits.

To address such issues, the Task Force pointed to good practice across the tourism sector by companies to address such issues by:

• improving internal communications about the organization and strategy
• improving remuneration and benefits
• taking a greater focus on retention strategies
• focusing on new recruitment audiences such as retirees, returners and the disabled
• providing employment flexibility
• recruiting based on competencies to do the work (i.e. Southwest Airlines) and improved recruitment literature.

Even so, the major challenge for tourism employers will be:

• recruiting employees with industry experience
• retaining good staff
• introducing performance-based rewards
• providing a better image of the sector.

In terms of education and training, the value of human capital and the importance of integrating new HR practices will be dependent upon organizational leadership to recognize and implement these issues. However, changes are gradually filtering into larger organizations (as opposed to the SME sectors) as they recruit effective leaders, and Figure 1 highlights some of the essential leadership qualities which the Task Force identified. The tourism sector also has to address gender and racial prejudices to reduce dissatisfaction and turnover and to comply with the legislation in different countries. This involves recruiting a diverse workforce.

Reference:

WTTC (2001) Human Resources Task Force: HR Opportunities and Challenges. London: WTTC.

Pizam, A. (1999) ‘The state of travel and tourism human resources in Latin America’, Tourism Management, 20 (5): 575–86.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou and the easyGroup

Born in Athens in 1967, Stelios obtained an economics degree from the London School of Economics in 1987 and a Master’s in shipping trade and finance from the City University the following year. Joining his father’s Troodos shipping company, Stelios became the founding chairman of the Cyprus Marine Environment Protection Association in 1992; this group of Cyprus-based business people pursue a common interest in sustainable development.

Stelios’ first venture, Stelmar Tankers, was formed in 1992, involving his older brother and younger sister as shareholders. Three years later, easyJet was launched as a low-cost carrier flying out of Luton. In 1998, a holding company called easyGroup was formed in order to build on recognition of the ‘easy’ brand. The first of these new ventures was easyEverything – more than cyber-cafés, these internet access outlets contain between 400 and 600 terminals offering cheap ‘surfing’; the first began trading in June 1999 and more are planned across Europe. In spring 2000, easyRentaCar was launched, taking on the might of the established companies Avis, Hertz, National and Europcar, with the unique idea of only one model of car and very low hire cost.

Stelios says that what motivates him is ‘succeeding in using new technology, particularly the internet, to bring down the price of goods and services to consumers’ and he enjoys the challenge of developing an idea from inception to implementation and then moving on to a new project, such as the easyhotel.com, while leaving the former business in competent management to run unimpeded. Website address: www.easy.com

fastjet – Launching Africa’s first low-budget airline using digital marketing

James Kennell, University of Greenwich

fastJet is Africa’s newest low-cost airline, which launched in November 2012.  Originally conceived along with the founder of Easyjet, the largest carrier in the United Kingdom, it offers a similar service based on low and transparent pricing coupled with a simple service offer.  fastjet’s hub airport is Julius Neyerere International Airport in Tanzania and it currently flies to destinations in Tanzania and South Africa.  The airline has plans to expand its operations to other international African destinations and has recently signed agreements allow it to fly to Zambia and Rwanda. Ultimately, the company aims to become Africa’s first pan-continental low-cost airline.

fastjet faced a number of marketing challenges before their launch:

• The company was entering a new market and launching a completely new brand, which had no recognition from their target consumers.
• The market they were launching into is an immature market as regards air travel.  Local consumers have huge concerns over the safety and reliability (liquidity) of air carriers and they are not used to purchasing their tickets in advance.
• The large distances involved in the market were a factor, creating the need to profile and target potential travelers in specific geographic regions using social media.
• fastjet needed the means to identify and engage the local audience from a distance.

fastjet enlisted the support of British digital marketing agency BozBoz to help them to develop a digital marketing strategy that would allow them to compete in a growing and highly competitive marketplace.

The digital strategy involved two key areas of fastjet’s marketing: Sales and Social Media.  Have a look at http://www.fastjet.com and www.facebook.com/fastjet to see how these have been implemented. 

In common with other low-cost airlines, fastjet only offers sales direct to passengers via its website.  In Europe and the USA this method of booking has seen huge growth as high-speed broadband has been rolled out to domestic markets.  However, the African market has instead seen huge levels of penetration of mobile internet technologies, with mobile telephone infrastructure being installed across Africa at a faster rate than costly new fixed-line systems.  Because of this, fastjet’s website has been developed to be fully responsive to the different modes of mobile access that its potential customers make use of – helping it to sell to a huge market of mobile internet users that other airlines had no means to access.

Secondly, a social media strategy was developed to help fastjet to build a customer base.  In the first twelve months following fastjet’s launch, the company gained over 100,000 Facebook likes and the website saw almost one million visitors.  21% of all its bookings are taken on mobile platforms and this is growing.

Mike Hollingbery, Chief Executive of BozBoz, explains:

“In 12 months fastjet grew to be one of the most recognized brands in Tanzania on Facebook, earning a great reputation by pioneering western standards of travel in an emerging marketplace with a poor safety record. Gaining market share quickly with no existing brand presence required careful planning and technological and cultural understanding in equal measure. Using social media channels effectively allowed us to connect directly with the local population and to amplify the mood on the ground from thousands of miles away. This aided awareness and adoption of the brand to a tipping point which has helped springboard it to further success.”

References

BozBoz (2013) ‘fastjet’ [online]

Available from: http://www.bozboz.co.uk/projects/fastjet

The marketing and promotion of Berlin as a tourist destination

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH has had the task of promoting Berlin as a tourist destination. It is among the most visited cities in Germany and was designated a world heritage site in 1999 by UNESCO. The city has over 170 museums and 400 art galleries making it an art and culture city (see Chapter 21 on urban tourism). The city has a fascinating history after its division in 1945 and its subsequent reunification. Berlin Tourismus (BT) works with other tourism partners in the city to market and promote it, as the destination received over 17 million overnight stays in 2007. BT’s role is to develop products suitable for the city’s tourism markets and the provision of information on the range of attractions in partnership with the local tourism industry. This Insight focuses on how BT has promoted Berlin as a tourist destination, using a themed campaign, supported by seasonal marketing and PR campaigns to create an internationally recognizable image among consumers and the tourism sector. Its most recent campaign – Berlin, Berlin wir fahren nach Berlin (Berlin, Berlin, we’re going to Berlin) – was developed in 2007 with a budget of D8 million. It sought to showcase Berlin’s cultural landscape in a glossy and emotionally appealing manner using images of a fascinating metropolis. The campaign emphasized the friendliness and confidence of Berliners along with the unique brand of art, culture, nightlife and history. For this reason, the campaign identified a number of core themes:

• Trends (design, club scene, galleries, fashion, modern art, music scene)
• Entertainment
• Opera/classical music
• Art (museums, special exhibitions)
• History in the making to position Berlin nationally and internationally as a unique cultural capital. The promotion uses a wide range of communication mechanisms such as:
• Print media
• Online media
• A website: http://www.fahren-nach-berlin.de
• Additional PR campaigns
• Joint advertising with partners to attract the German and selected European markets over 40 years of age and young event-oriented visitors. BT identified the following target markets for the geographical marketing of the city including:
• Within Germany, the regions which were already the focus of the Winter Magic campaign
• Europe, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland
• In the US a wider focus on the ‘Central European Experience’ joint marketing campaign.

As BT state in relation to the advertising campaign they have employed:

Each image presents one particular aspect of the vast array of events in Berlin‘s cultural sector and links it to an inspiring Berlin headline. The copy then embeds the images in their context and narrates an appropriate story (or stories). The claim sums up and expresses the enthusiasm in and for Berlin, and is simultaneously used as the campaign logo. The claim has deliberately been left in German: Berlin, Berlin, wir fahren nach Berlin.

Source: Developed from http://www.berlin-tourism.com

Gromit Unleashed: The economic impact of a film and TV tourism product

James Kennell, University of Greenwich

Wallace and Gromit are the characters who star in the popular, Oscar-winning series of animated movies made by Aardman studios in Bristol in the United kingdom

‘Gromit Unleashed’ was an art and tourist trail around the city of Bristol, in the west of England.  It consisted of 80 giant fiberglass statues of the dog Gromit, one of the two main characters in the animation series.  Each of the statues was different and had been designed by artists who had won commissions for their work.  The main aim of the trail was to raise £3.5m for a local children’s hospital charity, but the secondary aim was to increase the numbers of tourists and other visitors to the city and to generate economic impact from this increase.  The project was inspired by other similar trails in cities around the world, most famously the ‘Land in Sicht’ project from artist Walter Knapp and the worldwide ‘Cow Parade’, which has taken place in 75 cities since 1999 and which aimed to raise money for charities by creating tourist trails based on artist-designed cows.

In order to calculate the economic impact of the tourism associated with Gromit Unleashed, the organizers commissioned a survey that measured visitor spending.  A total of 6728 people completed the survey – 505 on-site and 5782 via a website.

A total of 1,184,000 people visited the Gromit Unleashed trail and other attractions associated with the project.  The total visitor spend was calculated as £77,035,230, or an average of £65 per person, which included money spent on accommodation as well as spending on travel, food, refreshments and souvenirs. 

In order to calculate the total economic impact of this spending, the researchers used a multiplier.  The multiplier that they used was a government recommended figure of 1.6.  This meant that for every £1 that was spent by tourists, £1.60 of economic impact was judged to have been created in the local economy. The reason that multipliers are used is because any injection of extra money into an economy creates additional economic activity as businesses use their income to pay staff, carry out refurbishments and pay additional local taxes, for example. 

Applying this multiplier to the to visitor spending associated with this project, a total economic impact of the project for the city of Bristol was calculated as £123,256,367.

In addition to this economic impact, 91% of tourists who visited for the Gromit Unleashed project said they would recommend the city to friends and family as a direct result of their own visit and 91% also said that they had visited parts of the city that they would not have visited without the tour, showing that the impacts of the project on future tourism to the city were wider than just additional spend.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, summed up the impacts of the project by saying: “The Gromits had a tremendous impact on Bristol, not only in terms of the money raised for a good cause but in the wider sense of boosting our economy and attracting visitors.  They’re a great example of the way in which the city’s creative and cultural offerings have a really positive effect on Bristol’s growing reputation for doing things differently.  In doing this, the city is staking its claim as a major attraction for visitors from all over the world, showing everyone a little bit of the spirit which makes Bristol so special.”

References

Aardman Animations (2013) Gromit Unleashed Evaluation, Bristol: Aardman

The Arctic – socio-cultural impacts of tourism in an emerging destination

James Kennell, University of Greenwich

The Arctic region is the polar region at the northernmost point of the Earth.  It is made up of the Arctic Ocean, which is permanently frozen, as well as the bordering northern areas of seven countries: Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, the United States of America and Sweden.  The Arctic region is demarcated by the Arctic Circle, a line of latitude, and covers 4% of the Earth’s surface.  Average temperatures inside the Arctic Circle in July (the warmest month) are below 10 degrees Celsius and average winter temperatures are around -40 degrees Celsius. 

Because of the extreme climate, the Arctic region is sparsely populated, with fewer than 8 million inhabitants.  There are towns and cities north of the Arctic Circle that range from 5,000 to more than 300,000 inhabitants.  There are a number of nomadic communities and small settlements of indigenous peoples.  The majority of the Arctic’s population lives in Russia. 

Tourism to the Arctic region began to increase in the 1890s, when steamships and railroads made the region more accessible to a growing middle and upper class with increased personal wealth and greater leisure time.  Today, tourism in the arctic is split into five main categories:

• Mass tourism, mostly involving cruises
• Sports tourism, including fishing and hunting
• Nature tourism
• Adventure tourism
• Cultural tourism

Due to climate change and the demilitarization of the Arctic region that followed the end of the cold war, tourism numbers in the Arctic are rapidly increasing with the region seeing in excess of 5 million tourist arriving per year, with that number increasing annually.  In the last fifteen years, cruise based tourism arrivals rose by 430% and land-based arrivals by 757%.

The increase in tourism has led to a number of social and cultural impacts that call into question the sustainability of the Arctic as a tourism destination.

During the tourist seasons, huge pressure is placed on local social infrastructure and institutions, including hospitals and medical care, law enforcement, public spaces and community facilities.  It is possible to reduce these negative impacts through local tourism taxes and specific arrangements between tourism operators and host communities.  However, cultural impacts that go beyond capacity issues are more complex to negotiate.

Especially in areas of indigenous peoples, large numbers of tourists can generate major cultural impacts.  This can happen in three main ways.  As tourists consume natural resources on which indigenous people’s subsistence and cultural traditions depend, it becomes increasingly difficult for these ways of life to be maintained.  Secondly, the economic opportunities provided by tourism will encourage many members of host communities to become tourism entrepreneurs, as the economic return from tourism outweighs the advantages of more traditional activity.  Finally, through the ‘demonstration effect’, the presence of tourists with what will often be novel patterns of behavior, speech, dress, technology use and so on, can create conflicts between traditional and imported culture that erodes traditional values and practices.  Despite this, it is also possible that the presence of tourists will support the preservation of traditional practices through their commodification as tourist products, such as the ways in which Inuit Arctic survival practices have been drawn upon to provide adventure tourism products for tourists in the Nunavik area of Northern Quebec, in Canada.

References

Horejsova, T. & Paris, C-M. (2013) ‘Tourism and the Challenge of Arctic Governance’ in International Journal of Tourism Policy, Vol.5, Nos. 1 / 2, pp.113-127

British Airways environmental report

BA as a global airline had a turnover of £8.4 billion in 2006/2007. The recent group statistics are shown in Table 1 and the company operated a fleet of 242 aircraft in 2006/2007 to 147 destinations in 75 countries. Air travel impacts on the environment are discussed in their widely used Environmental and Social Report (now retitled Environmental Overview) under the following headings.

Noise

BA (2003) show that they have made considerable progress towards noise reduction targets with a 5.8 per cent reduction 2002–2003 (which rises to 8 per cent if Concorde is excluded) and it has 78 per cent of its fleet already meeting the new ICAO Chapter 4 noise standards, up from 60 per cent in 1998–1999. The global distribution of noise pollution by BA aircraft at airports it uses is shown in Table 2 which illustrates the pattern of operations, dominated by its London bases. To further help reduce noise pollution on arrival at airports, the airline has a code of practice – the Continuous Descent Approach, which seeks to reduce noise and improve fuel efficiency when it is safe to use this approach.

Emissions, fuel efficiency and energy

The growing concern over global warming and ‘greenhouse gases’ (e.g. CFCs, CO2, NOx and methane) arising from aviation (Table 3) are significant as BA estimated that civil aviation accounts for 400–500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from 20 000 million tonnes of fossil fuels. This recognizes that almost 50 per cent of global warming may be a consequence of man’s activities, with civil aviation’s contribution accounting for 3 per cent of the total effect of global warming. BA also indicated that NOx emissions remain the main airport-related pollution issue for airlines. BA also reports that 97.6 per cent of its fleet conform to the new ICAO certification levels for NOx emissions, and that by making modifications to almost half of its Boeing 747–400 fleet it has been able to reduce NOx emissions in-flight. It also points to the combined effect of CO2, NOx, particles and water vapour which combine to produce radiative forcing, that is a process resulting from airline pollution which contributes towards global warming. They indicate that global aviation contributes about 3.5 per cent to this process. Since 1990, the company has improved its fuel efficiency by 28 per cent and in five years, reduced UK emissions by 23 per cent through its involvement in a voluntary UK emissions trading scheme

Congestion

Congestion is viewed by BA as one of the most pressing problems it faces. For Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester the cost of additional fuel burnt due to congestion was £3.6 million. BA points to the additional fuel burnt by aircraft being held in locations above the airports they want to land at (known as stacking). Additional fuel was also burnt due to aircraft carrying excess fuel in case of delays occurring at Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester.

References

BA (2003) 2002/2003 Social and Environmental Report. Harmondsworth: British Airways.

BA (2004) Environmental and Social Report 2003/2004. Harmondsworth: British Airways, www.ba.com.

Sardinia: Implementing approaches to sustainability at the destination level

James Kennell, University of Greenwich

Sardinia is a large island in the Mediterranean Sea and is an autonomous region of Italy.  It is the second largest Island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily.  Tourism is the main industry of the Island and has been developed vigorously over the last forty years.  The population of the Island is 1.6 million, and it receives more than 2 million tourists per year.

Until the 1950s, the town of Alghero was the main tourism destination on the Island and was visited mostly by up-market tourists, mainly from the United Kingdom.  From the 1960s onwards, the Island saw significant levels of tourism development including the construction of marinas, the development of ‘3S’ tourism products for the mass markets and increasing urbanization of the Island’s coastline.  In common with other southern European destinations in this period, the increasing levels of tourism development led to a number of negative impacts on the environment, as well as overpopulation and high densities of development in some of the coastal areas of the Island.

New tourism development in Sardinia is now taking place guided by the principles of sustainable development.  On the east of the island, in the province of Medio-Campidano, researchers have developed a framework for promoting the development of eco-tourism as a strategy that will both protect the fragile local eco-system (which includes the Parco Geominerario Storico e Ambientale della Sardegna - Sardinian Historical and Envi-ronmental Geo-mining Park, an  example of the new worldwide network of UNESCO Geosites/Geoparks) and attract high-spending, low impact tourists.

In the south of Sardinia, five municipalities working together, Caligari, Domus De Maria, Muravera, Pula and Villasimius, have created a new DMO called ‘Visit South Sardinia’.  The DMO’s first action has been to implement a new set of international sustainable tourism standards in the DMO area.  Key tourism stakeholders were invited to consultation events to discuss tourism planning and the management of the destination.  In this consultation, the topics of economic development, community involvement, heritage protection and heritage conservation were discussed.  The DMO has agreed to implement the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s  (GTC) ‘Sustainable Tourism Destination Criteria’ which covers the following areas:

• Sustainable Destination Management
• Maximizing economic benefits to the community and minimizing negative impacts
• Maximizing benefits to communities, visitors and cultural heritage and minimizing negative impacts
• Maximize benefits to the environment and minimize negative impacts

You can read the GTC sustainability standards in full at www.gstcouncil.org

The local outcomes of implementing these standards has included regulation and specific programmes to include local producers in tourism industry procurement, recognition and promotion of local community groups in the tourism destination management and marketing process of the DMO and a consistent approach to local sustainability monitoring.

References

Bourse Loic (2011) Profile of Sustainability in some Mediterranean destinations, Plan Bleu report, UNEP: Nairobi

Ioppolo, G., Sija, G. & Salmone, R. (2013) ‘From coastal management to environmental management: The sustainable eco-tourism program for the mid western coast of Sardinia (Italy)’ in Land Use Policy, vol.31, pp.460-471

GSTC (2013) ‘South Sardinia completes ‘early adopter’ assessment of global sustainable tourism criteria for destinations’ [online]
Available from: http://www.gstcouncil.org/about/news/
Accessed 31st October 2013

Urban regeneration and tourism in the ‘Big Apple’:
New York and the 2012 Olympic bid

Urban regeneration has been widely used in a global context to redevelop areas of cities which have lost their main economic function in the changing world economy. Many inner city areas and former port areas offer exciting opportunities for urban regeneration when the potential for harnessing tourism is recognized. A number of classic studies in urban tourism and regeneration (e.g. Law 1992, 2002) have highlighted successful examples of tourism being linked to economic regeneration, including Manchester and Baltimore, USA. In most cases, the process of regeneration has to be initiated when large areas of private and public land are involved. A lead agency with a public sector lead or public–private partnership stimulates development, typically forming an agency or organization to drive the process. Although tourism is not always involved in urban regeneration, it has had a significant impact in waterfront areas, where leisure and tourism uses often feature as a dominant element.

Where the development process is initiated it often follows a similar direction as that of a product or resort lifecycle: there is a need to constantly reinvest to retain a vibrant development. In particular, at maturity stage, additional intervention may be required to drive the process forward once it has lost impetus. In this respect, Law (2002) highlights the significance of developing a coherent and focused strategy towards redevelopment to visualize and communicate the purpose of redevelopment, who will be the beneficiaries and the expected outcomes of a regeneration plan. Law (1992) examined the tourism-economic regeneration issue in considerable detail, and Figure 21.5 highlights the critical links between economic, physical and social regeneration in redeveloping an urban area as well as the importance of marketing in developing a new image of the area, to reposition it. One recent and notable example of seeking to harness regeneration to expand and drive redevelopment forward is the New York City 2012 bid to host the Olympic Games (www.NYC.com, accessed 19.1.2005), which comprises the New York City Bid Book.

New York City (NYC) is already in a global position as an urban destination, also comprising one of the USA’s leading gateways to the east coast. It has a mature tourism product, with a resident population of 8 million in NYC and 11 million in the metropolitan area, making it a global city. It receives over 39.6 million visitors of whom 34.3 million are domestic and 5.3 million are international. They generate US$15.1 billion in spending and US$220 million in hotel tax revenue, with a hotel occupancy rate of 83 per cent. One strategy which has helped to popularize NYC is its entertainment district (e.g. Broadway) and its harnessing of film tourism. According to the NYC Mayor Office this has led to over 40 000 media shoots in NYC each year. There are around 60–90 on any given day and 100 000 people are employed in the entertainment sector.

The existence of over 578 miles of waterfront and a variety of brownfield sites (i.e. development sites previously developed which will need environmental improvement and decontamination in some cases). While the NYC area has seen over US$1 billion of investments in regeneration schemes directed at waterfront areas, the Olympic bid provides NYC with an opportunity to push these schemes further. Underpinning the NYC bid is an X plan, where three clusters exist: Olympic Square (including areas around Madison Square and other icons), the Olympic Riverfront and Olympic Park, with an Olympic Village positioned at the centre of the X plan. The combination of these areas into a plan for the Olympic Games will:

• expand the business sector in the central business district
• revitalize the waterfront
• lead to the provision of new parks and sport facilities as part of the post-Olympic legacy.

The waterfront adjacent to the Hudson river with old railway yards would be a potential site for an Olympic stadium and feature as part of an integrated sport, tourism and residential redevelopment. The proposed Olympic Village would provide housing after the Olympics and the Williamsbury Waterfront Park would comprise two anchor projects to stimulate redevelopment. The NYC bid expects the Olympics would yield a US$12 billion economic impact for the city, generating 135 000 jobs. What is notable in the NYC bid, in line with the requirements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is the inclusion of sustainability principles in its development, operation and legacy phases. It embodies six environmental and sustainability principles which highlight the growing significance of sustainability. The six principles are:

• urban transformation, with the environmental transformation of degraded land to new uses such as parkland, sport and leisure as part of the proposed waterfront transformation
• environmental awareness, with the creation of partnerships to make redevelopment environmentally focused
• global partnerships, with redevelopment informed by collaboration with international agencies like the United Nation’s Environment Programme
• sustainable development, with the project conforming to the IOC’s Agenda 21 principles
• innovative technology, which is embodied in buildings (e.g. 40 per cent of the energy to run the Olympic stadium would be from renewable energy sources) so they are environmentally sustainable
• clean air and water, so that any generated effects such as the impact of transport on sustainable (e.g. the use of clean fuel buses) and able to use existing transport infrastructure.

What the NYC bid highlights is the role of the sports tourism in seeking to stimulate and continue the regeneration of NYC’s waterfront area. This is a departure from the experience of many Olympic bids and locations that have hosted the Olympic Games where regeneration has not been sustainable, especially where greenfield sites have been degraded instead of principles of sustainability being embodied. The competing bids for 2012 Olympics included London, Paris, Moscow and Madrid and a comparison of each bid can be found at their respective websites. The successful bid announced in July 2005 was the city of London.

Rural tourism in Namibia

Namibia, a large country in south-west Africa with a population of 2 million, is a country of unspoilt landscapes and significant populations of wildlife, from the Big Five to unusual insects and plant life and is among the world’s driest countries. The world’s largest cheetah population lives here. Some 15 per cent of the country is covered by National Park designations. Since the country gained independence in 1990, tourism has been viewed as an important source of economic support. Tourism is the country’s third most important industry and foreign exchange earner, after mining and fishing. Between 1993 and 1997, tourist numbers increased by 18 per cent to 500 000. In 2002, numbers had slipped to 430 000 which dropped further in 2003 to 300 000 but grew to 777 890 in 2005. One result has been promotion in key markets (e.g. Germany and the UK) with a campaign in 2005 to target high-spending visitors. In 2006, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC 2006) outlined the economic aspects of tourism in Namibia:

• it employed 18 840 people directly
• it may support around 71 000 jobs overall, equivalent to almost 18 per cent of employment
• the tourism economy may be worth US$1.1 billion, equivalent to 16 per cent of GDP.

The objectives of Namibia’s Development Plan are to revive and sustain national growth, create employment, reduce inequalities in income distribution, and eradicate poverty (Jenkins 2000). The government is committed to developing tourism based on sustainable development which must support the objectives of the Plan. The draft tourism policy was published in January 1999 and subsequently revised for the period 2001–2010 (www.namibweb.com) by the Ministry of the Environment and Tourism. The national mission statement for tourism development is: ‘To develop the tourism industry in a sustainable and responsible manner to significantly contribute to the economic development of Namibia and the quality of life of all her people’ and tourism is highlighted as a priority area in the National Development Plan 3 as a key factor in ‘Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment’ (WTTC 2006: 4) to stimulate entrepreneurship. In fact WTTC (2006) describes tourism as one of the country’s most promising industries.

A significant amount of accommodation is available on farms as farmers seek methods of economic diversification. These enterprises are generally working farms, often extensive ranches, and offer the visitor the chance to experience life in rural Namibia. Some offer activities and excursions while others emphasize the opportunity to relax and enjoy what the local area has to offer. Guest farms are viewed as a way of generating economic benefits in harmony with the environment. However, there is some concern that tourism is less labour intensive than ranching, and that jobs are being lost as a result of tourism (Shackley 1993). The following four important principles guide the implementation of the tourism policy.

Management of the industry

The future success of Namibia’s tourism sector requires appropriate marketing and management at an international level. Government intervention is needed to enhance Namibia’s ability to compete in the international tourism market. The government controls about one-third of accommodation in the National Parks under its Wildlife Resorts initiative (for example, self-catering camps in Etosha National Park) and is based on low-volume/high-spending tourists. This has been facilitated by the world of NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the US aid organization, US Aid (www.USaid.org) to bring local economic benefits.

Local participation

The benefits of tourism will be most effectively translated at the local level if there are opportunities for local participation and equity. Local people will be encouraged to take ownership and control of tourism and its management. By 2008, there were 77 community-based tourism projects operating (see Novelli and Gebhardt 2007 for a review of one such project).

Environment

The protection of biodiveristy and the natural resource base is crucial: this includes environment, wildlife and culture. Natural resources must be used in a sustainable way to create employment and income.

Government’s role

The government’s role in tourism development should be that of a facilitator and not an operator. It should guide and facilitate the direction of tourism and provide an enabling environment for small-scale operators and the informal sector. This will lead to the achievement of sustainable and socially desirable tourism in Namibia. Recent government legislation, designed to actively encourage communities to establish conservancies, gives to communities the right to earn revenue from tourism on communal land. The Himba nomadic people living in Puros, north-west Namibia, are a good example of an indigenous community which has developed a wildlife tourism initiative. While retaining their traditional herding practices, the local community has initiated game-monitoring and protected wildlife from poachers, devised guidelines for appropriate tourist behaviour and started a camp site. Local people act as guides, tourists are charged a daily levy which goes directly into the local community and local crafts are sold to tourists. While, almost inevitably, some sociocultural effects have arisen as a result of this initiative, this example demonstrates that local people can create the type of development that suits their needs without destroying the natural resource base. In the National Development Plan 3 for 2007/2008 to 2011/2012, a number of culture villages were also envisioned, to assist local rural communities to develop cultural tourism to aid poverty alleviation and promote economic development. This is also part of a wider strategy to reduce urban–rural inequalities in income distribution. WTTC (2006) suggested that Nambia may create 36 000 more jobs in tourism by 2016.

Further reading

Gehrels, B. (1997) 'Namibia: Rhetoric or reality?' In Focus, 23: 15-16. London: Tourism Concern.

Jenkins, C. (2000) 'The development of tourism in Nambia', in P. Dieke (ed.) The Political Economy of Tourism in Africa. New York: Cognizant.

Nambia Ministry of Environment (1999) Draft tourism policy. www.iwwn.com.na/namtour/namtour.html

Shackley, M. (1993) 'Guest farms in Namibia: An emerging accommodation sector in Africa's hottest destination', International Journal of Hospitality Management, 12(3): 235-65.

WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) (2006) Namibia: The Impact of Travel and Tourism on Jobs and the Economy. http://www.wttc.travel

Margate:
Cultural tourism and the British seaside towns

James Kennell, University of Greenwich

Britain’s seaside towns were amongst the earliest tourist resorts to be developed at the coast, but despite their early prominence, the tourism industry in Britain’s seaside towns has been in decline since the mid- 1970s when increasing competition from newly developed holiday destinations and changes in the dynamics of the tourism market made the traditional week-long British domestic seaside family holiday obsolete.

Over a period of twenty years, most of Britain’s seaside towns suffered from the multiple impacts of a declining tourism industry: unemployment, poor infrastructure, redundant buildings and facilities and poor image.  Margate is a seaside town in the southeast of England that has taken an innovative approach to reversing this decline.

Margate in Kent is certainly one of the earliest of England’s seaside resorts. It was first served by coaches and then steamers, which came up the river Thames from London to this destination on the North Kent coast. Later, the opening of the Margate Sands railway station made this one of the most popular seaside resorts of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1830, Margate was receiving more than 100,000 visitors a year by sea and, by the 1960s, annual visitor numbers had risen to 32 million.

The decline of the seaside tourism market from the 1970s was felt particularly keenly in Margate, where the economy was overwhelming dependent on tourism income.  By the 1990s, the economy had failed to diversify and was still heavily dependent on a shrinking tourism market. Thanet, the local government district of which Margate is the most significant area, is the 60th most deprived of 354 local government areas in England.

Local government and funding agencies took the decision to seek new forms of economic activity to stimulate the visitor economy and revive the town. This included the promotion of a cultural quarter in the ‘old’ town area of Margate and the construction of a new art gallery. It was hoped that the economic impacts of cultural tourism, through direct benefits and secondary spending in the local economy, would drive the regeneration of this faded resort.

In April 2011, Margate’s new ‘Turner Contemporary’ gallery opened.  Just two years later it had received more than one million visitors, exceeding forecasts that had said it would attract 300,000 new visitors to the town in this period.  As well as attracting tourists, the gallery has created £21m of economic activity in the area and supports around 130 jobs regionally.  More than 35 new businesses have opened in the town’s old town and existing shops have seen takings double since the gallery opened.

The example of Margate shows how destinations that have been defined by their core coastal attributes and that have served the needs of mass tourism can be re-invented using new forms of tourism and thinking creatively about their markets.  Not every formerly popular resort can follow the cultural tourism route, but diversification into modern tourism markets offers the hope of new economic activity for formerly busy coastal resorts.

References:

Kennell 2011, Arts Council England 2013

Arts Council England (2013) ‘Turner Contemporary: a million reasons for Margate to celebrate’ [online]
Available from: http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/turner-contemporary-million-reasons/
Accessed 28th October 2013

Kennell, J. (2011) ‘Rediscovering cultural tourism : Cultural regeneration in seaside towns’ in Journal of Town and City Management, Vol.1, No.4, pp.364-380

Enclave tourism in Africa

There has been a long tradition since the 1970s of research on enclave tourism in LDCs. These studies question the economic development benefits of such forms of tourism, since visitors arrive in the main urban centre and are then transported to resorts/complexes, organized and managed by large organizations. Often these resorts are in remote areas and do not take account of local community needs, thus few benefits accrue to these areas. This is because of leakage, due to control of tourism spending by the highly organized form of tourism in the resort, a concept pioneered by all-inclusives such as Club Med. In LDCs, the disparities become even more profound due to the need to import luxury goods to meet the needs of enclave tourists, often equated with five-star tourism. This form of tourism is often controlled by a local elite or MNCs.

In Botswana, this model of development has occurred in the Okavango Delta which has a number of transport links via one gateway airport (Maun International Airport). Visitors enter or depart from this gateway and are then transported by air or road to the delta to see wildlife. As Mbaiwa (2005) found, tourism has grown from a standing start in 1996 to the second most important economic activity in Bostwana, with over a million visitors going to the Delta by 2002. An upmarket tourism product has been developed. Yet foreign ownership of the tourism plant (e.g. lodges and transport) as well as concessions to view wildlife has led to an enclave style of development. Low levels of local involvement in the running of tourism enterprises and limited capital have effectively isolated many indigenous people from becoming entrepreneurs.

Much of the revenue from tourism is repatriated from the hotel and transport sector since it is paid for outside Botswana, especially with the international airlines which compete with Air Botswana (e.g. South African Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways). The cost of importing food for tourists and payment of expatriate staff simply adds to leakage of revenue. A lack of taxation, with some companies not liable for local tax, reduces the benefits for the local economy. Weak linkages in the local economy are not assisting in locally beneficial tourism development. Many of the people employed locally experience the low pay and conditions of LDCs. Thus tourism has not been a major catalyst to eradicate poverty. Indeed, Mbaiwa (2005) points out that while there has been economic growth in tourism in the 1990s, rural poverty in the Delta has increased. Much of the effects have occurred because government tourism policy since 1990 to attract low-volume, high-spending visitors has detracted from encouraging casual budget travellers and campers who would add more value to the local economy.

Further reading

Mbaiwa, J. and Stronza, A. (2010) 'The effects of tourism development on rural livelihoods in the Okavenga Delta, Botswana', Journal of Sustainable Tourism 1 (5): 635 - 656

Factors influencing the tourist experience at visitor attractions: Key studies and issues

Clawson and Knetsch (1966: 170) in their seminal work on outdoor recreation point out that ‘the quality of the recreation experience is affected by the design, the investment and the management of outdoor recreation areas’. Likewise Heeley (1989) recognized that design issues, such as signposting and seating provision, present an image of the attraction to the visitor, which may or may not be favourable. Coupled with the physical management of the site is the importance of customer care, acknowledging the crucial relationship between the staff, the service and the needs of the visitor. Laws (1998) observed that each element is important and a lack of care – whether it is in the signage, car parking, quality of catering or cleanliness of the toilets – can destroy the overall visitor experience. Indeed, Schouten (1995: 260) states that the attitude typified by ‘visitors: who cares about them, they come anyway, so why bother?’ is beginning to change at more professionally run and managed attractions. But as Schouten (1995) argued, in many cases there is still a gap between the product and visitor perception, which will be returned to later under service quality issues. Interestingly, Graefe and Vaske (1987) emphasized the influence of other visitors within the tourist site or destination. Visitors respond to perceived levels of crowding and this impacts on the resource base and can lead to dissatisfaction with the site or, indeed, displacement of the visitor.

In reality, the tourist experience is likely to be affected by a wide range of factors, some of which are inevitably not linked with the destination per se, but which hinge on the mood and personal circumstance of the visitor. Page (1995: 24) notes that the tourist experience may be affected ‘by individual, environmental, situational and personality-related factors as well as the degree of communication with other people’. The experience is also likely to be affected by the expectations and preconceived ideas that the visitor may possess prior to a visit, as well as the cultural origin of the visitor and prior socialization. The recognition of these individual factors reflects the modelling of consumer-based experience when previous product experience or expectations influence the satisfaction/dissatisfaction process. Ryan (1997) highlights the overall importance of a closer understanding of social factors and individual motivations to more precisely identify the range of factors which impact upon the tourist experience in terms of how tourist expectations are shaped and the outcome as satisfaction or dissatisfaction. This is a vital starting point in any conceptualization of the visitor experience, so we can better understand how individuals reach these perceptual decisions on the overall experience of tourism.

References

Clawson, M. and Knetsch, J. (1966) Economics of Outdoor Recreation. Baltimore, MD: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

Heeley, J. (1981) ‘Planning for tourism in Britain’, Town Planning Review, 52 (1): 61–79.

Laws, E. (1998) ‘Conceptualizing visitor satisfaction management in heritage settings: An exploratory blueprinting analysis of Leeds Castle, Kent’, Tourism Management, 19 (6): 545–54.

Page, S.J. (1995) Urban Tourism. London: Routledge

Accidents and injuries in adventure tourism

Following a decade of research monitoring accidents and injuries in the adventure tourism industry, Bentley and Page (2009) reviewed a range of studies to understand what problems contributed to these injuries. One study by Bentley, Page and Laird (2001) pointed to the problems which contributed to accidents and injuries. This led them to construct a model which attributed the risks of participating in adventure tourism to a series of interconnecting factors which combined the:

• problems of clients participating (i.e. human failures in communicating levels of risk and experience levels)
• environmental factors (i.e. the unpredictability of the terrain, natural environment and hazards)
• equipment-related problems, such as failures of safety equipment
• significance of factors outside the control of businesses (i.e. weather and forecasting)
• management and organizational failures, including a lack of experience among employees and failure to brief clients properly and to undertake safety audits and risk assessment of activities, as well as cultural problems in seeking to save money by taking short cuts among some businesses.

Research in Scotland by Page, Bentley and Walker (2005) and in New Zealand (Bentley et al. 2007; Bentley and Page 2009) reinforced the applicability of such a model in adventure activities along with the problem of safety issues for predominantly small operators (i.e. employing fewer than five staff) in this sector. One consequence of research by Page et al. (2005) is that one can begin to construct a distinct geography of injury/accident risk by tourist board region according to:

• the number of clients and type (i.e. day visitor, domestic or international visitor and adult/child)
• activity type (land-, air- or water-based or mixed)
• number of participation hours which are expressed in Figure 2 in terms of injuries per million participation hours (IPMPH) so that the risk can be standardized in terms of the risks faced in terms of how long each activity lasts.

The results indicated that  certain regions with a highly developed adventure tourism sector (e.g. Perthshire) have a high concentration of injuries reflecting the prominent nature of these activities in this region of Scotland.

The consequences of such research reinforce the importance of regulatory bodies and codes of practice to improve client safety as well as a need to raise standards to the levels of best practice that exist within the tourism industry. However, as the legal case history research in New Zealand shows (Callander and Page 2003), there is a trend towards litigation when adventure tourism accidents cause personal injury and loss, despite the provisions of the country’s unique No Faults, No Suing accident compensation legislation. What this case study shows above all is that accidents and injuries attract litigation against a global growth in the participation of adventure tourism. Visitor risk may be understood more fully if the hazards are understood, the behaviour of visitors is appropriate in the adventure setting, effective precautions are taken and warnings on possible hazards are given by adventure operators.

References

Bentley, T., Page, S.J. and Laird, I. (2001) ‘Accidents in the New Zealand adventure tourism industry’, Safety Science, 38 (1): 31–48

Bentley, T. and Page, S.J. (2008) ‘A decade of injury monitoring in the New Zealand adventure tourism sector: a summary risk analysis’, Tourism Management, 29 (5):857 – 869

Callander, M. and Page, S.J. (2003) ‘Managing risk in adventure tourism operations in New Zealand: A review of the legal case history and potential for litigation’, Tourism Management, 24 (1): 13–23.

Page, S.J., Bentley, T. and Walker, L. (2005) ‘Scoping the nature and extent of adventure tourism operations in Scotland: How safe are they?’ Tourism Management, 26 (3): 381–97.

Squamish and event development

Squamish is located in British Columbia, Canada and is 45 minutes north of Vancouver and 45 minutes south of Whistler, a major ski destination, with a resident population of 15 000 people. It has been called the Outdoor Capital of Canada and has a vibrant tourism industry. Squamish has an economy based on transportation and forestry but it has become notable for its increased interest in outdoor activities and its ability to harness these in relation to events to grow its tourism market, which was recently boosted by the decision to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The Games are expected to have a spill-over effect into nearby tourism destinations such as Squamish. One result has been the investment of C$2m in an adventure centre followed by the formation of a DMO to help market and promote the destination and its desire to attract events. Three core products drive the outdoor activity market in Squamish:

• Mountain biking: the area has developed hundreds of trails stretching over 1000 km and established the Test of Metal Mountain Bike Race event with 800 riders competing while local biking organizations have expanded (e.g. Squamish Off Road Cycling Association and Squamish Trails Society). This has helped to create a vibrant bike-related tourism product which supports local bicycle shops and regional biking attractions;
• Climbing: with the world’s second-largest granite monolith and over 1500 routes within a 20-minute drive of Squamish and the successful Squamish Mountain Festival which features clinics, speakers, competitions, international adventure films, volunteer trail maintenance days and parties;
• Eagle watching: emerged after the recording of 3769 Bald eagles in the 1994 winter migration during November to February. By establishing an inaccessible site – the Eagle Run Park – it has provided viewing sites with interactive boards and Eagle Watch explaining the relationship between the eagles/salmon/forests. This is set in over 755 hectares which is protected for the eagles with no trails. Brackendale Art Festival also hosts an event – an annual eagle count where volunteers from all over the world break out into teams to conduct the bird count accompanied by music, slideshow, art displays, and speakers.

This provides a broad portfolio of activities for a relatively small destination. Among the key success factors in developing an events focus to driver visitation, according to Tourism Squamish, is a process of community engagement at all levels to get buy-in to activities among businesses and individuals, with many volunteers contributing to the event development in the destination. Partnerships at a corporate, government, and local business level have been formative in creating synergies and successes in collaborative event development. Tourism Squamish is a community DMO and has a community tourism plan in which events are a key element in growing wider awareness of its tourism products and experiences. To help develop the destination and its position within Canada, community groups in 2001 decided to develop a Municipal Brand which has also attracted an incoming population and has spawned a new list of events/festivals to support the claim such as a white-water festival, the North American windsurfing championships, trail-running competitions and adventure races.

Further reading

http://www.tourismsquamish.com

Future changes in air travel:
The role of technology – the A380

Many forecasts of changes in global air travel recognize that annual growth rates in excess of 5 per cent per annum may pose a significant challenge for airlines and airports in accommodating the level of expected growth. One solution mooted by carriers is the move towards larger aircraft which are currently under development by one leading aircraft manufacturer, the Airbus Industries consortium in Europe. While Boeing examined the viability of such a project, it has focused on aircraft production to meet the medium- to long-haul market, considering that there would only be demand for 400 aircraft larger than a jumbo jet in the next two decades. Its focus is on long-range medium sized aircraft like the new 787 ‘Dreamliner’ to be launched in 2009, with 250 seats and a cost of £60 million. In January 2005 Airbus Industries unveiled the Airbus A380 outlining the potential changes that may occur in air travel over the next decade. The A380 is a £10 billion project which will initially be a jet aircraft capable of seating between 555 passengers (with larger versions planned) which compares with the 400–500 seating capacity of Boeing 747 (the ‘jumbo jet’). The A380 has a wingspan of 262 foot, a tail fin seven storeys high and, at a cost of £150 million per plane, 50 per cent more space on board than a 747. With a top speed of 565 miles per hour (equivalent to the top speed of a Boeing 747), speed has not had to be sacrificed for size, while the range of the aircraft will be 9000 miles (5 per cent further than a Boeing 747). It also offers fuel savings of 12 per cent over the 747, consuming three litres of fuel per passenger per 100 km.

In March 2000, the UK government provided a loan package to Airbus Industries of £530 million to assist in the implementation of the A380 project. One of the major challenges of increased aircraft size is that they will need to fit into the existing infrastructure (e.g. airport aprons and slots) and the A380 is intended to fit within an 80 × 80 m horizontal box so that airports can accommodate the new aircraft without massive redevelopment work. Airbus Industries expect that the A380 will be able to use the existing runways, taxiways and gates although it will place additional pressure on ground-handling facilities, with increased numbers of passengers at check-in gates and in holding areas. The gate-handling facilities will certainly need expanding to accommodate the increased numbers at the gates and ground-handling facilities (e.g. luggage transfer) will have additional pressures placed upon them. Some airport authorities are also concerned about the complementary infrastructure required to serve the needs of passengers to get to and from terminals, where existing airports are already facing growing pains from additional increases in passenger use. British Airports Authority spent £450 million to modify Heathrow airport to accommodate the aircraft, since it is only expected to operate on global trunk routes between the world’s top 60 airports.

There are varying forecasts on the likely demand for larger aircraft like the A380. Airbus hopes to be able to produce and sell 750 A380s and this is based on the assumption that in the period 1999–2018, world airports will be able to accommodate a 95 per cent increase in daily departures. In terms of the usage of aircraft, the top 25 world airports are expected to absorb 30 per cent of all world air traffic by 2018 and half the aircraft will be used on flights from the top 60 airports, which will be located in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. In January 2005, some 149 A380s had been ordered, but the aircraft manufacturer needs to have orders for over 250 to cover its research and development costs: over £5.6 billion has already been spent and this could rise even further. One of the largest orders was by Emirates, which signed up in 2000 for 45 A380s. For global airline operators, the A380 is set to revolutionize long-haul travel with the first truly double-decker aircraft, with a lower breakeven point for profitable operation (i.e. 58 per cent load factor compared to 70 per cent for the 747) which increases the potential profit margins for airlines able to fill the seats. Above all, lower operating costs, typically 15–20 per cent below the 747, are expected to give airlines more flexibility on the configuration of seats/on-board facilities as well as the pricing of air travel.  However, due to costs of production and a relatively low take up rate by global airlines, Airbus announced its decision in February 2019 to end Airbus A380 production by 2021.