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| HA100 : The Class : Travel : Travel : Lesson2-1-1 |
In this segment of the book (Chapters 3, 4, and 5) we are going to present the overall picture of the tourism / travel industry. Especially Chapters 4 (Resort, Clubs, Attractions, and Events) and 5 (Casino Management) should be a lot of fun, because you will ride roller coasters, hang out at a resort, and play some craps.
Introduction
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Picture yourself on this beachŠŠ. not difficult, right? It is actually a beach on Aruba in the Caribbean.
(For more information on this island, click on the picture) |
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Before you went on your vacation to Aruba you visited a travel agency. They booked for you a hotel, a flight, and a rental car. While you are on the island you are eating in Mathilda's Restaurant, and having fun at Johnny's Bar. You are also going on a snorkeling trip with "Uncle Yanny" on Malmok beach, play a little at the casino, and you are going to shop for a great outfit at the Harbor Shops, since you are on the island for a special event: Mard i Gras.
All the bolded words are part of the travel / tourism industry. It is very diverse and fragmented. And it is a huge industry, just take a look at the following statistics:
Lots of other research facts on the travel and tourism industry are found at the Travel Industry Association of America homepage.
Class Lecture
How did this industry grow to these proportions? Are you ready for a little travel history?
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Indeed everybody (and my brother) is traveling. The question that rises to mind is, of course, why do they travel?
What motivates the tourist in the picture? Is it the same motivation as the tourist who visits the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome? |
Push and pull factors.
There must be a force (the push factor, see page 77) that drives them away from every day life and working environment. Some of these travel motivations are listed below:
Physical motivators: People travel to
There is also a pull factor, which is the drawing power of the destination area. The push and pull factors always work together to motivate desires to travel. (I will ask you later to discuss your travel motivations with your peers.)
Attractions provide the pull factors, which energize individual needs to travel. It is the job of attractions to pull people toward them to satisfy their needs. Attractions awaken a sleeping or dormant need and energize the individual to act by traveling to the attraction. They are the reason people travel instead of doing something else to satisfy their needs. Another important role attractions play is to create an image that distinguishes one place from another.
One attraction is normally not enough to create a tourist destination although there are some exceptions. It is the concentration of a number of attractions or the intensity of a specific attraction that determine if people will come and how long t hey will stay. From the perspective of the tourism industry, the drawing power of the attraction is the key to their success. The ability of an attraction to draw and keep tourists begins at the local level and expands outward in proportion to the uniquen ess of the attraction and its visibility or promotion. The drawing power of an attraction is measured in terms of the number of tourists who will travel a specific distance to visit the attractions, how long those tourists will stay at an attraction and t he number of repeat visitors. Drawing power is dependent upon the proximity of a tourist attraction to major population areas, its accessibility via transportation, the size of the target market, its promotional efforts, the cost and the competition.
The book explores attractions using the following categories (page 78):
Please visit the following pages. I think I do not need to explain in what category they fall.
You probably agree with me that there are other attraction categories that compete for tourists, such as shopping, gaming, sightseeing, outdoor recreation, and entertainment. We will look further into these types of attractions through some assignments.
Purpose of Travel.
Here, in the United States, the purposes of travel are grouped into five categories. (In brackets you will find the percentage of people traveling for that particular purpose.)
Visiting friends and family (38%)
Business (16%)
Outdoor Recreation (13%)
Sightseeing and Entertainment (25%)
The latter part of Chapter 3 discusses:
The chapter ends with a little piece on Social Costs of Tourism Development. So, wait a minute, it is not all roses that we smell then ?????
You must have heard people, living in tourism destination places, complain about littering, increased crime, no parking spots, no pressure on their water pipelines (because all the hotels are using up available water resources), increase of prostitution,
tax monies going to more police and search & rescue teams, etc.
Tourism has been used as an economic justification for the restoration of historic sites and archaeological treasures, for the restoration of heritage and culture and for the conservation of natural resources.
On the other hand, critics of tourism say travelers cause overcrowding, noise, litter, a disruption of animal life and vegetation. Some critics contend that when tourists visit other cultures, irrevocable changes occur. It is the challenge of the tourism industry to keep its products fresh, preserved for tomorrow's generations, keeping a high quality of life for the residents of the tourist destination.
Solutions
1. Some have suggested that limits should be placed on the number of visitors that any one attraction should allow. Look at some examples of possible impacts visitors have made on the natural environment:
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This is a picture from the Lascaux caves in France. Unfortunately, these caves had to be closed, because too many visitors were breathing on these paintings, and destroying them. A replica of the cave has been build, so that tourists still can enjoy this piece of art. |
One of the answers that have been proposed to reduce damage to the natural environment is to set limits on the number of people that can visit a tourist site. But it is difficult to determine how many people are too many. One answer to this problem proposed by researchers and planners is the need to establish an appropriate carrying capacity for each tourist site.
2 Eco-tourism could be a solution, but is it a fad or a fact of the future? The premise of eco-tourism is to develop a system that is sustainable. For an understanding of sustainable tourism I would like you to visit two sites:
Go on to Assignment 1
or
Go back to Travel and Tourism
E-mail Lenka Hospodka or call (928) 523-2845 (Lenka Hospodka)
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Northern Arizona University
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