Historical Development And Key Elements Of UK Travel And Tourism Industry Essay. (70 Characters)

1. Identify significant factors influencing the historical development of UK travel and tourism
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts and characteristics of tourism as an area of academic and applied study
3. Examine the different agents and elements of tourism development
4. Outline the key private and public/voluntary organisations which make up to UK travel and tourism industry 

Historical Development of UK Travel and Tourism

The aim of this report is to focus on the elements of tourism, tourist and tourist destinations. The study also highlights on the historical and current developments in tourism. Tourism signifies travel for business or pleasure and the practice of touring. Tourism is basically the business of entertaining, attracting and accommodating the tourist or the business of tour operation. The UK is ranked as the eight largest tourist destination in the globe with near about 36.7 million tourist visiting in the year 2016. Historical data reflects that domestic tourism has been one of the biggest components of tourist expenditure in this nation. Tourism has huge significance in the economy growth of UK. This nation offers huge range of tourist attractions and hence makes huge contribution to GDP growth rate and employment level in the nation. The reasons behind tourist visiting particular destination are also highlighted in this report. The elements to be considered while developing new destination is also analyzed in this study. It also reflects on the identification of organizations involved in tourism supply chain.

The tourism sector in UK has grown increasingly with change of the behavior and expectation of human beings. This change in behavior and expectations of people from this sector has been possible for tourism for keeping phase with other sectors. The historical developments of tourism in UK shows that during the period of 1880-1910, the people urged to discover new cultures and hence several exhibitions were held at many places in UK ,so that the visitors can be able to witness variety of goods (Sörensson and von Friedrichs 2015). From the middle of 1950 onwards generally in UK , the growth of tour operators began to change its industry’s character from business activities to highly integrated activities. Since the year 1992, the tour operators in UK offered package holidays that was subjected to the package travel, tour regulations and holidays. From those historical periods, several factors came into notice that includes increment of time availabilities, growth in individuals per capital income, enhancement of tour packages and inclined client interest for long trips.

The recent development of the tourism sector is largely affected by the various industries that has been established in such segments. Now- a- days, tourism involves not only travel areas but also those areas that are ancillary to the clients comfort. Due to huge competitiveness environment of the tourism industry, the tourism business includes not only the travelling services but also manages everything for the clients and changes it according to their requirements. The tourism structure in present period has been categorized with respect to diversification of tourism business. However, the working patterns of the tourist operators have changed in the recent periods. In UK, there has been increase in contract and part-time working of people in this sector, while advancement of technology permitted them in working with much ease than in the past.  Moreover, huge development in technology and transport also took place in this sector. In fact, legislation referring to laws as well as rules implemented by UK government also improved and this turn positively influenced this sector.

Current Developments in UK Travel and Tourism

According to AIEST ( International Association of scientific experts in tourism), tourism mainly comprises of three elements including-

• Non-residents involvement in travel
• Temporary nature of the individuals in those visited areas
• Not staying connected with those activities that involves earnings

Tourism is mainly classified into two types that includes- leisure and educational. At present, there are various types of tourism such as-

• Cultural tourism- This type of tourism indicates the culture of particular region. It encompasses history of the region, lifestyle of individuals, festivals, religions etc. It also includes pop-culture as it main subsets.
• Mass tourism- This category refers to the tourism where several people visit the leisure destination at a particular time. In addition, growth of mass tourism has been parallel to the development of technology (Ghimire 2013).  Transportation as well as internet has also improved with time, which in turn creates communication faster. This in turn contributed to the increase in mass tourism. It also creates extreme environmental pressures owing to various activities involving several visitors in small areas.
• Special interest tourism- This tourism refers to the stipulation of customized activities of tourism that provides to interest of individuals. In this situation, tourism has been undertaken for satisfying the need or interest of individuals. This category involves four major experiences that includes- rewarding, enriching, learning and adventuresome experiences.

Some of the vital characteristics of mass tourism include-

• Spatially polarized- This kind of tourism tends to be largely spatially polarized. The tourist gaze has been increasingly signposted. These signposting usually identifies less number of visitors nodes.
• Segmented markets- the destinations of mass tourist also tend in having segmented markets. Various examples at international level shows that German tourist dominates in other places such as Austria, Japanese tourist dominating in South East Asia.
• Price- this tourism usually involves movement of many tourists with less surplus income. Price has been considered vital factor in this type of tourism. Moreover, the demand for mass tourism services is elastic in relation to price as well as income.

The characteristics of special interest tourism includes-

• This tourism is significant in keeping several cultures as well as interest alive
• It caters various markets and makes the individuals find the destination that they enjoy
• It also contributes in keeping tourism dynamic to several events.

One example of mass tourism is explained below:

• Since the year 1970, Bali became one of the tourist destination. However, several hotels in this state use freshwater reserves with each room consuming 300 litres per day. Thus, Bali faces drinking water crisis during the year 2015. The statistics in 2011 shows that, large number of visitors visiting this state doubled from the last year but this crisis left more than 202 persons dead.
• One example of Special interest tourism reflects that this category of tourism has developed in East Neuk, UK. It has been featured by the marine climate and hence is well known for specialty of food. Nevertheless, this sector was not developed while the business were not connected. Hence, this industry did not generate satisfactory income.

There are several factors behind tourist visiting the specific destination, which are illustrated below:

The demand for tourism has been defined in numerous ways based on the political, economic and geographic viewpoint of the author. From geographical perspective, tourism demand defines as the number of individuals who wishes to travel and utilizes facilities as well as services at area away from work. Tribe (2015) identifies that, there have been two kinds of demand curve. Firstly, the direct demand curve defines that the product of tourism is attributed to the relationship between price and quantity.

Secondly, the inverse demand curve signifies that the demand for quantity of tourism reduces with rise in price that is connected with tourism.

The potential determinants of the demand for tourism includes-

Population- The extent of international tourism usually depends upon rise in population leading to increase in tourism demand.

Expenditure- Consumers income or spending positively affects on the demand for tourism. This means higher the income of tourist, higher will be the expenditure on tourism.

Substitute prices- The effect of competing tourist destinations enters into demand function for tourism in two methods- a) the cost of living of tourist is particular in form of tourist destination value in relation to its origin value. b) The living cost variable of tourist is specified as tourist destination value relative to average value of other destinations.

Marketing- Promotional spending plays vital role in determining foreign tourism demand level. This however expands the tourism sector of the respective nation.

• Inbound visits that refers to visit to UK from overseas
• Domestic outbound visits that indicates resident of UK spending within UK on abroad trips
• Day visits that refers to residents of UK making trips within domestic market  including overnight stay
• Domestic overnight visits that refers to residents making trips within UK including overnight stay

Push factors refers to the internal motives that causes the visitors in seeking activities for reducing their requirements.  Push factors are usually intrinsic motivators that include rest and relaxation, health and fitness. On the other hand, pull factors refer to destination created forces as well as the knowledge that visitors holds about destination.  Pull factors generally emerges owing to attractiveness of the particular destination such as recreation facilities, cultural attractions etc. In addition, the push factors have been considered vital in initiating desire for travel whereas pull factors have been considered highly decisive in illustrating the destination choice. However, pull factors relates to travel destination attributes whereas push factors are usually internal to the people and mainly deals with visitors motivation. As push factors predisposes people in travelling, pull factors helps the individuals in making decision about destination selection. Chen and Chen (2015) pointed out that, the motivation of tourist must be assessed in two tired model, which is push or pull domain. Therefore, this two factors influences the tourist decision in visiting any particular destination.

Tourism Elements and Tourist Destinations

Tourist motivation is meant by the world integrating network of cultural forces that provides value as well as direction to destination choices. Molz (2012) opines that tourist motivation is an important element in understanding the decision making behavior of the tourist. Additionally, tourist motivation is significant in knowing about the behavior of tourist with respect to their destination choice and hence it relates to goals, preferences and needs of tourists. Goeldner and Ritchie (2012) state that motivations of tourist are linked with basic needs of individuals for participating in tourism activities. Horner and Swarbrooke (2016) suggests that travel motivations is viewed based on two various standpoints , which includes extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.  Extrinsic motivation means that motivation occurs from external influences to tourist while intrinsic motivation considers the requirements of tourist.  According to Gössling (2012), the plog’s typology generally relies on asking the tourist about their lifestyles by using perpetual data gathered from interviews. This typology is used for assessing tourist motivations and attitudes to specific destinations and travel modes. One of the most popular tourist motivation typology is push and pull framework that emphasizes that choice of tourist for travel destination is affected by these factors (Neuhofer, Buhalis  and Ladkin 2014). It is important for every tourism business to understand tourist activities and motivational factors as it facilitates them in improving their services and products.

   The motivational factors have been classified into four categories that rely on Maslow’s model. These categories includes-

• Intellectual component
• Social component
• Competence of gaining skills
• Competence of avoiding stimulus

 As motivation has been considered as the dynamic concept, it might vary among the individuals, decision making procedure, market segments and destinations. There are several factors that influence motivation of tourists for travelling to a particular destination. These factors includes-

• The personality of individual
• The lifestyle of the tourist, which includes various reasons for those individuals who are concerned with health
• Previous experiences of the individuals visiting the places
• Nostalgia of tourist for few destinations
• Perceptions on strengths as well as weakness of the individual
• Status that means the method that the tourists perceives by other persons

It has been noted by Tribe (2015) that, the motivational factors varies over time with respect to variation in situation of personal life of the tourists. These situations might include economic growth, health, income of consumers, experiences etc. In addition, the motivational factors also depends on the specific time , which signifies the purchase of tour packages done in that time.

Identification of the key organizations involved in the tourism supply chain in public, private and voluntary sector of UK travel and tourism

The supply chains involve suppliers of products or services that move into delivery of tourism services to the consumers. The components involved in tourism supply chains includes- accommodation, transport, restaurants, food production, handicrafts, disposal of waste that supports destination tourism. The tour operators hugely influences over the activities throughout the supply chain of tourism. As they directly influence the tourism volume, tourist destinations etc. however, the tour operators utilize this for facilitating in promotional activities in sustainability performance (Dong et al. 2012). The organizations thereby benefits from adoption of good practices of tourism supply chain, which includes- client retention, increase in revenue, reduced production cost, improvement in operational activities. Tourism mainly consists of various industries goods and services such as Hotels, transport, accommodation, destination etc. The tourism organizations modify the supply chain strategies for suiting the product nature. Moreover, the integration strategy of supply chain links all the business organizations in the supply chain of the products or services (UKEssays 2017). Therefore, higher the process of integration, larger is the success of the system of supply chain.

Tourist Motivation

Most of the business of tourism belongs to the private industry. The key organization involved in the tourism supply chain in private sector in UK include-

• Thomas cook
• Alton Towers
• British Airways

The UK government mainly funds the public sector companies, whose aim is to provide education and information to their customers. The public sector companies involved in supply chain includes-

• Museums
• National gallery
• Regional development companies

Voluntary sector companies are usually charities, whose aim is to promote, preserve and protect their main cause. The main organization involved in the voluntary sector involves-

• Tourism concern
• The National trust
• The Sealed knot

Conclusion 

Tourism industry in UK has expanded over the years and this directly contributes to this nation GDP. In the year 2016, the direct contribution of tourism to GDP accounted to 89.8 billion U.S dollars. Advancement of technology and development of transportation in UK expanded the tourism industry. In fact, inbound tourism also continues to grow at faster rate in this sector in UK. Moreover, special interest tourism and mass tourism also occurs in this nation. Tourist motivation is also considered as one of the vital factors to the success in UK tourism industries. Moreover, the organization involving in the tourism supply chain also facilitates in enhancing their business operations and satisfy their customers. Thus, it can be concluded that tourism helps in creating beneficial impact on the environment as it contributes to environmental conservation as well as protection.

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