P1 The three main types of tourism Domestic tourism Domestic tourists are people who take holidays in their own country. For example Mr and Mrs McBride from Blackburn are going to take a weekend break to Blackpool for two nights to celebrate their anniversary. Inbound/incoming tourism Inbound tourists are people who come from other countries to the UK. For example Mr Smith and his two kids came from Florida to visit their Grandma in Blackburn for two weeks. Outbound tourism Outbound tourists are people who are from the UK who go to other countries.
For example Mr and Mrs Jones took their three kids for a family holiday to Disney land Paris for one week. Accommodation The accommodation industry is an important component of UK travel and tourism. It includes all types of accommodation that people use for leisure or business tourism and visiting friends and relatives, such as hotels, self-catering, guest houses, chalets, villas and cottages. The accommodation industry in the UK is dominated by, commercial enterprises providing a wide range of hotels, guest houses and self-catering accommodation.
The main non-commercial suppliers of accommodation are: youth hostels because they’re not there to make money. Serviced accommodation Serviced accommodation means when the service is provided along with an overnight stay, housekeeping and meals. Hotels are most common type for example bed and breakfasts, holiday inns and youth hostels. He British hospitality association estimates that there are approximately 22,000 hotels and guest houses registered with the UK tourist boards with an additional 16,000 bed and breakfast establishments. If unregistered premises are included the total rises to above 50,000 establishments.
Hotels are either independently for example Whitehall country club, or part of a hotel group or chain like Hilton and Premier Inn. Budget hotels offer a no frills service for a fixed low price such as Travel Lodge and Holiday express. Non-serviced accommodation Non-serviced accommodation in the UK (also known as self-catering accommodation) includes all rented premises used for holiday purposes, self-catering holiday centres and caravan and camping sites. A lot of holiday makers like this type of accommodation because it gives them the freedom to bring what they like along with them and no set meal times.
The market leaders in self-catering accommodation in the UK are Butlins, Haven, Pontins and British Holidays. Self-catering cottages throughout the UK are particular popular with the more wealthy social groups who appreciate the rural locations of many locations of many of the properties and the convenience of booking through one of the many agencies specialising in self-catering accommodation. Examples of self-catering accommodations are Ho seasons, English country cottages and Blake’s. Self-catering on farms is very popular; many farmers have converted their farm house buildings to self-catering lets.
Time share is a type of self-catering involving the purchase of time, usually a block of weeks in a holiday property. Most time share developments are found in rural areas of the UK. Camping and caravanning are also excellent choices for those looking for a good value non-serviced accommodation? Touring caravan is also quite popular with particularly the older age groups. Transport Having good transport networks is essential for a successful travel and tourism sector, whether people are on a business trip, travelling for leisure or visiting friends and relatives.
The transport for tourism is divided into road, rail, sea and air. The most common types of transport for road are car, bus, coach, motorbike and taxi. The most common types of transport for rail are train and tram. The most common types of transport for sea are boat, ferry, cruise, barge and yacht. The most common types of transport for sea are scheduled flights aeroplanes, charter flights aeroplanes, low cost aeroplanes private and air taxis along with helicopter and jet. Road travel
Increasing car ownership and access to private transport has meant that the use of cars for tourist trips has grown dramatically over the last 50 years at the expense of the rail and coach/bus travel. Coach travel has traditionally catered for two particular markets, elderly people and young people. An example of coach travel is national express which is the largest scheduled coach service provider in Europe. Car hire is provided by a variety of global companies such as Enterprise, Hertz and Avis. Rail travel
The UK rail network has suffered from under investment over many decades, but the government is investing ? 60 billion over the next 10 years to develop bigger, better and safer railway systems. Network rail is a non-profit engineering company which aims to maintain improves and upgrade every aspect of the rail way infrastructure. There are 24 train operating companies (TOCs) in the UK, which together make up the Association of the Train operating companies (ATOC). Rail travel is a more environmentally friendly more of transport than travelling by road and one of that is growing in popularity with tourists.
Sea travel Sea travel in the UK tourism is dominated by the ferry companies such as P&O which operate between the UK and Ireland, Scandinavia and the near content – France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Dover to Calais is the most popular ferry route because it is the shortest, cheapest and a few operators operate it and compete with each other’s prices. Then in 1994 Euro Star and the Euro Tunnel came and made even more competition. The Euro Tunnel is transports customers by a drive on train and the Euro Star transports customers by a train. Cruising
Cruising is an area of the travel that is growing steadily and attracting different types of customers such as adults, families and the elderly. Air travel The fast growth in international tourism in the last 50 years has been closely linked to the growth in air travel. For statistical purposes, the international Air Transport Association (IATA) classifies air travel services into one of the three categories: Domestic for example a British Airways flight going from Manchester to London. International scheduled for example Virgin Airways. International charter for example Monarch.
Airports According to figures from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), UK airports handled 218 million passengers in 2009 and there were more than one mission air transport movements at London’s airports alone which are Heathrow (the busiest in the UK), Stansted, Luton, Gatwick and London City. The British airports authority (BAA) is the largest single airport operator in the world. It was established in 1987 as a private company and now operates 6 of the UK’s busiest airports which are Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton.
Some other airports in the UK include Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Belfast there are also many more. Attractions The tourist boards estimate that there are approximately 6,400 tourist attractions in the UK such as Stone Henge, The London Eye and Alton Towers. Tourist attractions are usually built for one of two purposes which is either natural or purpose. Natural means the attraction has always been there and was not man made. Purposely built means the attraction was built for a reason, usually for tourism for example theme parks. Heritage attractions
Many of Britain’s most popular attractions are heritage attractions, depicting life at a particular point in time in the past. For example Hadrian’s Wall and Carlisle castle. Events Events attract tourist to an area as well as serving the needs of local people. These can range from mega events such as the Olympics or a festival to local and regional such as Blackpool illuminations and Darwen Live. Tour operations Tour operators are the holiday companies that many customers use when booking a UK or overseas trip. In the UK, there are around 900 tour operator members of ABTA.
Unlike travel agents who sell holidays and a range of other travel products, tour operators actually assemble the different parts of the holiday; buy dealing airlines, hotels, coach companies and other service providers. If we consider that travel agents are the retail arm of the travel business then tour operators can be likened to the wholesalers, since they buy in bulk from these suppliers of travel services – hotel beds, airline seats, transfer coaches, package them together and offer the finished product for sale either through a travel agent or directly to the customer.
Some examples of mass market tour operators are Thomson’s and Thomas Cook. Specialist holidays that tour operators offer include wine tasting, safari, winter holidays such as skiing and scuba diving. Travel agents Travel agents are in business to sell holidays and other products to a wide range of customers. There are more than 5000 travel agent outlets that are members of ABTA. There are different types of travel agents for example multiples such as Thomas Cook, miniples such as Althams, independents such as Cltheroe Travel and vertical integrations such as first choice who are a part of TUI and Thomas Cook who are part of Going Places.
Business travel agents Business travel agents specialise in travel arrangements for business people and design intinarys, flights, hotels and pay premium rates as they travel at such short notice. Call centres Where people book holidays over the phone with no restrictions to area where you sell holidays. On-line travel agents They allow you to go on-line to a their website and book a holiday for yourself such as icelolly. com Tourism development and promotion Tourism development refers to all activities associated with providing facilities for tourists in a destination, whether in the UK of overseas.
Tourist promotion is concerned with publicising destinations so that they visit, spend money and go away happy. Public sector tourism Regional development agencies (RDAs) Regional tourism is the launch of regional development agencies (RDAs) in England in 1999 marked a change in government support for regional tourism. Up to that time regional tourists boards took the lead in all tourism related matters. RDAs are funded from central government to promote tourism in their areas. There are currently 9 regional tourist boards in England and 4 regional tourism partnerships in Wales.
Local authority tourism departments The local government act of 1948 gave the local authorities the powers to set up information and publicity services the tourists local authorities use their resources to provide as wide a range of tourism facilities and services that finances will allow. Trade associations and regularity bodies ABTA – association of British travel agents ATOL – association of tour operator’s licences Ancillary services These include add ons, insurance and car hire.
