Relationship between Travel & Tourism - Essay Example

Travel & Tourism Traveling is one of the most delightful experiences of mankind. People have always enjoyed going from place to place seeing people and places. It provides an experience of the world and calls into action and practical use of various qualities of mind. Tact, firmness, engaging personality and lively conversation are some of the products of wide and extensive traveling. Tourism in its modern sense of term has developed on account of economic prosperity in many part of the world during the post-war years, together with greater leisure and the revolutionary development and growth of transport system. Tourism is, however, not a phenomenon. Only it has made new strides. People have been undertaking hazardous journeys for thousands of years either on pilgrimage or in quest of new lands and ideas. Tourism today is a movement which not only gears up several other industries but also creates new employment opportunities. Tourism comprises the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes. Apart from being major foreign exchange earner, tourism helps in promoting human understanding and cultural exchange. Relationship between Travel & Tourism The coming decades are a crucial time for the relationship between travel and tourism and sustainable development. The need to preserve the worlds inherent assets for future generations is becoming an imperative goal not only for travel and tourism, but also for all other industries that use the earths natural resources. The scale of travel and tourisms contribution to the global economy and its potential for enabling sustainable development are becoming more evident for governments, non-governmental organizations and industry alike. The development of tourism has been characterized by continuing geographical spread and diversification of tourist destinations. Travel and tourism, if utilized effectively, can be a force for positive growth and economic success for both developed and developing countries. The travel and tourism industry simultaneously thrives upon this trend and is threatened by it. Tourism products and services that demonstrate ‘greater sensitivity to the environment, traditional culture and local people at the destinations can create such an experience, whereas tourism in a context of uncontrolled growth which puts increasing pressure on the natural, cultural and socioeconomic environment, risks diminishing the visitor’s experience. In short, increased market demand for experiences can contribute to social, economic and environmental sustainability only if the resulting pressures from growth are properly planned and managed. Travel and tourism also plays a crucial role in encouraging governments to reduce their barriers to growth. Thomas Friedman in his book ‘The Lexus and the Olive Tree’ suggests that governments need to don a ‘golden straight jacket’ in order to allow pure free market capitalism and enable both developed and developing countries to achieve full economic growth within a sustainable development framework. The social, political and economic world has developed at a rapid pace. The encroaching globalization of the world, the increasing necessity and use of technology, and its inherent liberalization, have altered the way business is conducted and in so doing have affected the relationships between people and the environment. The inevitable global shift towards ‘globalization’ is transforming the workplace, the job market, lifestyles, communities, industries and markets. The impact of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and Washington DC were felt in all areas of the travel and tourism sector in developing and developed countries. The atrocity has badly damaged parts of the travel and tourism industry. However, it has also highlighted the need, now more than ever, for travel and tourism to be recognized as a vital part of the global economy, a view that has yet to be fully acknowledged by governments. Travel and tourism has the potential to reduce the conflict between economic, social and environmental objectives and deliver development in a sustainable way. Travel and tourism is reliant on a human service, yet is increasingly using technology to facilitate the sector in competitive pricing. The growth in tourism forecast for the next ten years, will lead to a greater dependency on information technology, which will become more important in the future as the industry copes with rapid expansion and sophistication of the tourism and hospitality supply. Travel and tourism generates jobs throughout the economy, both in companies directly involved in the business and in related supplier industries such as retail, construction, manufacturing and telecommunications. The tourism industry is one of the largest industries in the world and has seen significant growth throughout the 1990s and into the millennium. International tourist arrivals in 2001 alone totaled 689 million. Europe accounts for 58% of international tourism but, the fastest developing region continues to be East Asia and the Pacific. At the beginning of the new millennium, Travel and Tourism employment accounted for over 207 million jobs, or 8.2% of total employment. Not only does tourism generate jobs within its own sector but also in financial services, retailing and telecommunications. Travel and tourism is the leading job creator of the 21st century with one new job created every 2.4 seconds. (Anthony 87) Travel and tourism is now one of the largest industries in the world. Economically, it creates jobs and contributes over 10% Gross Domestic Product , as well as brings in capital investment and exports. Socially and culturally, travel and tourism offers the opportunity of providing jobs for minority and disadvantaged groups, creating adequate training in management skills, education and technology to local people and increasing incomes in rural and local economies, thereby contributing to the alleviation of poverty in developing countries. Environmentally, it is essential for travel and tourism to maintain an optimal balance of its natural resources to ensure the ongoing arrival of tourists to destinations. The way forward for travel and tourism is to create strong partnerships between the private and public sectors, NGOs, institutional bodies, and local communities, in order to ensure effective active participation by all. Governments are only just beginning to take a more decisive role in developing sustainable, economically successful tourism. But, strong partnerships by all players will bring valuable networking processes, workable policies and logical planning and development, transforming travel and tourism’s sometimes negative environmental image to one of sustainability and stewardship. The challenge is to move from the existing adhoc approach, to one that can integrate the current social, economic and environmental programmes, funds and initiatives, and evolve new patterns of managing travel and tourism businesses in a more systematic and dynamic way. The inevitable transition to sustainable development strategies gives the travel and tourism industry an opportunity to confirm itself as a solution, rather than a contributor to the economical, social and environmental challenges facing the future. One of the main barriers to achieving this goal in the past has been the inherent fragmentation of the industry, and the relative fragility of viable operating margins, especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises that make up most of the industry. This has indirectly led to a deficiency of accountability both by the private and public sectors. This lack of responsibility towards travel and tourism is leading, at an ever-increasing rate, to an eventual environmental, economic and cultural crisis. In order to avert this crisis all players including, the public and private sectors, NGOs, trade unions and consumers need to begin to co-operate to make travel and tourism work for everyone. The challenge for all the players involved in all industries is to find a balance between sustenance, prosperity and people’s desire to improve their financial or material well-being, with the underlying need for identity, community, religion, home and family. Travel and tourism can play a vital role in balancing these forces. It not only provides the livelihoods for both rural and urban communities, but has the capacity, when planned, developed and managed properly, to enhance community relations and build bridges of understanding and peace between nation. Both the inter-governmental WTO/OMT and the private sector WTTC consider the travel and tourism sector to be one of the largest in the world, particularly in terms of its contribution to the world economy. Annual research undertaken by WTTC demonstrates that the impact of travel and tourism on the whole economy is much greater than the size of the industry itself. For every dollar spent on travel and tourism, a further dollar and a half is typically contributed to GDP in other sectors of the economy. (Dyjan 145) The Pattern of Tourist Flows on an International Basis People travel for a number of reasons. International tourist flaws have become one of the most important components within the total assemblage of social and economic transactions among countries of the contemporary world. Simply in terms of absolute volume of movement and monetary exchange, the growth of international tourism is most impressive. Although agglomerated regional data show certain patterns in this regards, they conceal a great complexity of individual country situations. Although, internationally, holiday travel appears to be the largest motivation, it is not always, from individual countries perspective and in terms of economic benefits for tourism companies and destinations, the most important part of international tourism. It also appears that the best economic results are found in providing services to business travelers, who can also spend some time of their trips at leisure by engaging in entertainment. Good results are obtained by the destinations and companies who are able to specialize and achieve competitive advantages. Comparative advantages are no longer enough. A barrier-free business environment for trade is good for tourism which in turn supports all other trade. Transport, in particular passenger transport, is an irreplaceable component of tourism experience and part of the tourism product. Further, it is a crucial vehicle of access to travel destination services. International tourism will continue to be a major source of income and employment for many countries and an important contributor to national economies around the world. Globally, international tourism is not only one of the fastest growing industries, but now also the third biggest industry behind petroleum and the automobile (Collier 37). The actual size of global market in terms of international arrivals and international tourism receipts is 9.4% and 5.5 % in 2005, which represented its highest growth in nearly a decade. If look at regions, they will show a highly irregular distribution of tourism flows where Europe takes the lead and is followed at still a long distance by the Americas and East Asia and the Pacific. Although conventional "regions" encompass a variety of national social, economic and geographical characteristics, a similar to arrivals distribution pattern is repeated with respect to tourism receipts . In either case the share of Africa and South East Asia is especially small, which by far does not correspond to these regions human, environmental and cultural potential for tourism. (Dyjan 149) The United States is the worlds leading exporter and importer of tourism services, with annual receipts of $95 billion and payments of over $81 billion, including passenger fares. European markets have had steady marketing investments from destinations and industry businesses. At the same time, Asia has regained its position in providing strong growth for inbound markets and Japan alone has been responsible for the majority of the travel trade surplus. The global pattern of tourist flows is being redrawn with one out of every five international tourists now choosing a destination in Asia and increasing numbers of Asian themselves travelling overseas. An estimated 156 million tourists visited the region in 2005, up more than 7% over the previous year. (Source : UNWTO report) There are notable differences among regions with respect to the use of transport modes in international tourism. Those depending on air transport are basically developing countries in South Asia, the Americas and Africa, in particular island States. Road transport is more important for Europe, and transport by sea in East Asia and the Pacific and in the Middle East. It is appropriate to assess the relative importance of trade in tourism services as compared to overall trade. Although it is still not possible to measure entirely the volume and structure of tourism trade, in particular with respect to all the modes of supply, we can readily compare tourism receipts which largely correspond to consumption abroad, and we can compare the international passenger transport receipts which can be related to cross-border supply, to the overall volume of trade in goods and services. This comparison shows that tourism and passenger transport receipts put together represent a considerable percentage of over 40% of internationally-traded services. By adding the not accounted for modes of supply this percentage will certainly increase and a more detailed analysis will show a great variety in this relative importance among regions and countries. (Dyjan 162) In 2020 the number of international tourism arrivals is expected to reach almost 1.7 billion. However, if the present economic and societal trends continue, still no more than 9% of world population only will have effective access to international travel. This can be deducted from the fact that as many as 81 countries have been identified as having spent less than US$ 30 per capita for international tourism in 2001, and only 21 more than US$ 700. Nevertheless, the notion of international travel, that is between Nation-States, will become more and more obsolete. The distinction between intra-regional, short-haul and long-haul travel will become more important. Already today people perceive that they really travel to specific, particularly local, destinations and it is such destinations, not whole countries, that compete for both the international and domestic visitor. (Dyjan 165) The structure of the travel business, its key features, managerial structures, processes and imperatives relating to the provision of travel services. The outbound tour operator has emerged in the past 50 years as a useful means of distributing leisure air travel and accommodation services to consumers. Consumers in one country wishing to visit another require information and want to book travel arrangements in advance. Tour operators obtain information, make contracts with suppliers of services, and publish their holiday offers in brochures, which are distributed directly to consumers or by travel agents. Tour operators judge overall demand and the expected demand for each destination and seek to satisfy that demand if it can be accomplished profitably. Tour operators assemble the component parts of holidays. Air travel and other sections cover the hospitality and cruise lines industry. There is limited value added as reflected in profit margins that represent 1% to 2% of turnover. Present in substantial numbers in Europe and in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, South and Latin America, tour operators remain small in number where tourism is less developed. Globally, they represent around 12% of international arrivals, while in Europe they account for 35% of leisure air holidays. There are five substantial European outbound tour operators, the remaining being SMEs employing five to 100 people, which often cater for specialist interests or low volume destinations. (Kelkar 381) Travel agencies, tour operations, airlines, hotels, cruise ships and ground handling, have integrated activities but these are not exclusively used by the one integrated organization. For example, owned airlines are used for some of the flight requirements, but large tour operators can have contracts with more than 160 airlines and owned airlines, and contract seats out to non-owned tour operators. Tour operating employs relatively few people across the world, but their activities can stimulate hotel and infrastructure development. These include water, sewerage, airports, roads etc, transport services, agriculture, information technology, restaurants, entertainment and media, education and training, consumption of pharmaceutical products, clothing, equipment, medical services, excursion venues and public administration concerned with policy-making, marketing and management of tourism. While tour operators have a limited number of staff in some of their receiving countries, a huge network of activities and jobs across the economy depend upon delivering the demand for tourism. The marketing efforts of tour operators are what the suppliers of services and governments look for. Tour operators have many sub-contracted suppliers that are expected to deliver quality services under some form of supervision. They rely upon close relationships with people working in the destinations – at airports, hotels, restaurants, excursion venues, public administrations, medical authorities, etc. – for without them, holidays could not be delivered. Tour operators have resident staff, or those of their local agents that maintain these relationships and are expected to become familiar with concerns expressed by local communities. Where good quality accommodation for customers is in short supply, many tour operators co-finance developments on a short-term basis. The hospitality industry contributes to the important process of job creation. As a labor intensive industry, it employs large numbers of wage earners, whose taxes and disposable income add to gross domestic output and help to create further employment opportunities. Given that each hotel room typically requires one member of staff, every hotel room built has the potential to create an additional job. The International Federation of Tour Operators (IFTO) acts as the spokesperson for tour operators with municipalities, regional and national governments and international organizations such as the WTO/OMT, UNCTAD,WHO, UNESCO, UNEP, and the EU. Issues range from the broadest level (e.g. Code of Ethics of Tourism at WTO/OMT) to the narrowest (e.g. provision of clean water to particular hotels or districts). Its dealings with the public administration involve ministries of foreign affairs, home affairs, public works, environment, transport, tourism, education, health and finance. In the private sector, all the actors in tourism and related to tourism are involved in discussions. As tourism is a horizontal activity, co-ordination, consultation and partnerships (public-public, private-private and public-private partnerships) are essential for it to be successful. (Dyjan 147). Tourism industry should give primary concern to environmental management and protection of global natural resources. Regulation by governments and international organizations is increasingly influenced by communities and local bodies directly participating in policy making. There should have special attention towards issues such as human rights, labour rights, water rights, religious rights, child labour and indigenous people. There is disagreement as to whether tourism is a victim of the consequences of global warming or a contributor to it. All questions regarding this should be considered and solved according to the prevailing laws of the subject. It would welcome more detail on issues such as energy, water, sensitive ecosystems, and contributions to conservation of biological diversity and protected areas and international environmental regulations through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and WTO. The question of transparency and monitoring of the tourism industry’s activities should vide opened and needs to further addressed. It must provide perfect solutions for travel and tourism, or have all the answers to some of the pressing problems of real concern to the industry. The steering committee and the industry as a whole are well aware that there are still major challenges ahead to ensure preservation and protection of natural resources and local and indigenous communities. It is now time for everyone to share in the responsibility of maintaining and sustaining the natural resources essential to tourism’s very existence. Just as all should share the benefits that can be accrued from travel and tourism, so all, from consumers to governments, should start taking responsibility for their actions in this industry. The industry would aware and responsive to both the negative and positive impacts it makes on countries and destinations where it operates and sees this frank and open approach as a watershed for the way forward for travel and tourism. WTTC has focused much of its resources over the past decade on ensuring that the travel and tourism industry is accountable for its impact on the natural environment and that it accepts its social and cultural responsibilities. The ECoNETT goal is to increase overall awareness of sustainable travel and tourism and in turn stimulate changes in management practices, in destinations and corporations to achieve sustainable travel and tourism development. GATS and trade negotiations refer to the core of tourism business and policy. Therefore, they represent an irreplaceable opportunity for developing countries to see more clearly the need for informed tourism policy measures and their implementation, an opportunity which should not be missed. Protecting the environment and cultural heritage attractions so that they remain attractive for tourists and locals alike is a top concern in a region that is experiencing such rapid development as Asia sustainability requires long-term planning and development, as well as political commitment to fix environmental problems that already exist in some parts of the region. Conclusion Tourism and Travel is expected to be a source of economic prosperity. Foreign exchange, a basic necessity in international trade to buy foreign machinery, capital goods and technology can be earned adequately by developing this industry. So government all over the world should take more effective step to promote tourism. After all al human beings are living in ’One World’ and unless the inhabitants of the globe understand one another well, there can not be any prospect of peace and amity between the nations of the world. Reference Anthony V. “Patterns of International Tourist Flows.” The Pennsylvania State University. 07 December 2006. Retrieved from [http://www.jstor.org] Collier Edward A. “Travel the magic circle ” J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 1999. 381 Dyjan A N. “Global Tourism – A Right Approach” Tata MCGraw Hills Publication. Surat. 2006. pp 137 – 184. Friedman Thomas L.”The Lexus and the Olive Tree”. Anchor. New York. 02 May 2000. 512. Kelkar V “ Travel & Tourism” Eastern Book Company. Lucknow 2006. 381 Read More