The travel and tourism industry is one of the faster growing industries in the world. This shows due to amount of employment this trade has created by the year 2007 there will be another 300,000 jobs created. This does not only affect holiday resorts abroad or in places such as Cornwall or Blackpool. Even in our hometown Bristol 1 in 10 people work within this industry.
This has a massive economic impact on the destinations that are visited.Tourism can be defined as people taking short-term break away from their home communities where they live and work. Which will include their activities during their trip this will include travel and day visitors (travel means the form transport used getting to the destination and on the actual holiday itself such as car hire and aeroplane).People travel many different reasons, which can be placed within 3 groups either for business, leisure or visiting friends or family. We are then ale to categorise these people depending on the length they stay.* Tourists - these are people who stay away from their communities for one or more nights.
* Day visitors - these people will return to their homes after spending they day within a destination such as Alton towers.Tourists are placed in three categories which is dependant on where they live, these are:> Inbound-overseas visitors visiting the UK> Outbound-UK residents visiting countries abroad> Domestic-UK residents taking day trips or holidays in the UKWithin this portfolio there will be two sections part one will contain the reasons why the post war developments have supported the growth in the tourism industry, I will investigate the scale in which it has grown and what significance it has had. I will also be looking at the structure and the components of the tourism industry. I will do this by examining, evaluating, and analysing each factor.Within the second section, I will be investigating the nature and the range of employment within the tourism industry. I will then identify a job related to tourism that will match my interests and abilities.
The growth and developments within the travel and tourism industry since the 1950's has been influenced by four main factors these have been combined to generate the increase in the consumer tastes and demands of the facilities and services created especially for their needs. These factors are considered both in the UK and abroad, these are:* Socio-economic conditions* Developing technology* Product development and innovation* Changing customer needs expectations and fashions.This term socio-cultural means the combination of social and economic factors, which have influenced the growth within the travel and tourism industry since the Second World War.Socio-cultural factors in the increase of tourism include people having more disposable income. Money, which is left over after they have paid for their necessities, can be spent on leisure and travel.
Domestic tourism increased due to people started to own their own cars which enabled easier access to different attractions within the country such as Butlins. Over the last couple of years people are starting relationships ad due to dual income and not having children, more money can be spent on leisure.Leisure time has increased. This increased in 1938 due to a legal requirement for all employers to give their employees paid holiday entitlement. This started of to be a slow impact on the tourism industry, due to only 66 percent of manual workers were only entitled to two weeks of paid holiday in the year 1951 and 28 percent were entitled to 1 week.
In 1970, 52 percent of workers within the UK had three weeks of paid holiday. Over the years, his legal requirement gradually increased to the majority of workers having an annual five weeks paid holiday.This had an obvious effect due to manual workers had more leisure time which enabled them to have not only one main holiday but day trips and short breaks. This influenced seaside camps and resorts such as Butlins in Skegness and Pontins in Weston-super-mare to develop. Due to the decrease in working hours per week (50hrs in1950's) it had easy accessibility and people had longer time to travel especially the working class.
Within the last couple of years the amount of retired people has increased now people are generally living longer (due to better health) and want to experience different activities. Different companies need to meet the needs and expectations in this new trend of customer, this has made a massive growth on such companies as SAGA who only cater holidays for the over 50's.Technology development is also a key factor in the development within the tourism industry. Two main technical developments are transport ad communications and information technology.Communication and information technology was is desperate need to develop due the increase in demands.
Travel operators used charts on the walls of their offices to take booking either by phone or by writing this became very time consuming and not very reliable during the increase of demands. The computer was ten developed which enabled tour operators and airlines to create their own programmes to help organise their bookings. The first programmes were very much like the wall charts that were earlier used but as technology advanced so did these programmes, which were later linked into terminals within the travel agencies themselves (view data systems)This was known as a huge leap forward within the 1980's and by 1987 85% of all the package holidays were booked via this system using approximately 23,000 terminals. Today these viewdata systems have now been advanced to computer reservation systems (CRS), which means that travel agencies have direct access to the airline information.
Many tourists are now finding in more cost effective t book their holidays at home via the Internet or teletext (teletext was launched in the 1980's). a main reason for the increase in bookings via the internet is quick and easy to use, special offers or cheaper flights can usually be accessed online on sites such as www.holidaydirectuk.com.Airports and railways both have to cater for millions of passengers every year, this means that the increase of demands needs to meet up with the expectations and requirements of each customer, the improvement in transport technology has enabled these transport providers to do this safely, quickly and cost effectively. There was a change in aircraft design since the Second World War, which meant that the aeroplanes were capable of carrying large amount of customers, this made in the fashion of travelling in the 1970's.
Technology then increased and the development of the new jet engine provided customer's form of transport that was fast, comfortable and less expensive than sea travel.The biggest Transport factor has been the rise in car ownership within the UK over the last couple of years. It is estimated that today within the UK there are over 20 million owned cars this averages out to about 2.5 cars per household. This has had a rise in popularity to attractions visited within the UK due to cheap and easy access, which has had a dramatic increase on the amount f domestic tourism.The channel tunnel was opened in the year 1995 for passenger traffic, this and ferry services have had to compete with airlines and become more comfortable and cost effective.
Packaged holidays were introduced this meant that transport, accommodation and often food were all included in one price. Today over 20 million holidays are booked every year as package holidays which has lead to an increase in both long-haul and short-haul flights.Consumer needs and expectations are rapidly changing. Charter flights have made it more affordable and accessible to visit destinations out of Europe. The more people are travelling the more exotic the holiday the tourist will want adventure.
Change I consumer tastes means different activities and exciting activities. Expectations are also increasing so hotels need to constantly change and refurbish to cater for these."The more experience we have, the greater the expectations become. What was once an extra is now expected as a standard part of any holiday."Here our some of the basic expectations of many tourists that visit any destination:* Affordable and have good value for money* A reasonable quality accommodation (2 star and above depending on price)* AvailabilityHere are some added value products* Entertainment within the resort itself* Special deals such as first childfree* A wide range of excursions
