Contemporary Issues in Travel & Tourism: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the contemporary issues and trends shaping the travel and tourism sector. It examines the impact of factors like security, technology, and socio-economic conditions on the industry's growth. The report also analyzes niche tourism markets, such as sports tourism, and explores the strategies employed by companies like Whitbread and Trailfinders to adapt to changing market dynamics. The study concludes by highlighting the consequences of businesses failing to respond to these evolving trends.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN TRAVEL & TOURISM
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................15
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................19
Reference Lists..............................................................................................................................20
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Introduction:
In recent times, the government of every nation has realised that, travel and tourism sector is one
of the major industries contributing to the nation’s GDP and hence development in this sector
would fetch even higher revenues. Various factors are linked to the development of this sector,
which includes security, socio economic condition of a country the political scenario and the
legislations framed by the government. The trends in this sector have also undergone a huge
change over the years. Tourists are now visiting developing nations, instead of developed
countries.
This study focuses on the impact of various factors on the tourism sector and the changing trends
in this sector and the major developments that this industry has experienced in the recent times.
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Task 1
1.1- Analyse issues currently driving change in the travel and tourism sector. You have to
include at least three issues and give a detailed explanation of the issue and its impact on
the travel and tourism sector.
The travel and tourism sector is a major industry that is contributing to the GDP of the nation and
therefore the government is slowly shifting its focus to this sector, to maximize the revenues
from this sector. However, various factors affect the development of this sector. Some of these
include increased security, latest developments in technology, the socio economic condition of
the nation, and the government in power several laws governing the tourism sector and the taxes
imposed by the government. A few of them are discussed below:
Security: In the current scenario, when terrorism is on the rise, majority of the tourists are scared
away by the slightest chances of terrorist attacks. Thus, a politically unstable nation, which is
more prone to terrorist attacks do not gain much of tourist’s attention. Tourists would rather visit
a place, which is more secured and protected, than a place with a great natural resources but no
protection. Every business needs a safe secure and tension free environment to establish it
successfully. The tourism industry is no exception from this. An unstable socio political situation
in the country, which gives rise to increased incidences of corruption, robbery, religious conflicts
terrorism, kidnapping, militancy, assassination and conflicts among ethnic groups, are the factors
that push away majority of the tourists (Han and Hyun, 2015). Thus maintaining safety and
security in a nation is the key to promoting its tourism sector
Advancements in Technology: With the advancements in the field of science and technology,
every industry must adopt it to sustain the increasing market competition. The same applies for
the tourism sector. Digital technology must be adapted by the sector to minimise its operational
cost and therefore maximize profit margins (Kim et al., 2014). Online booking facilities for
tickets and accommodation must be provided. Additionally, the tourist organizations might use
social media platforms for advertising and for connecting all across the globe almost instantly.
The information regarding various offers and discounts or events taking place in different parts
of the world can be conveyed to tourists all over the world using social media platforms. Thus,
technology improves the ease of access and ease of transaction. The use of latest technology is
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extremely cost effective and time saving and hence serves to maximize profit margins (Huang et
al., 2016).
Socio-economic situation: The socio-economic situation of every nation is vital when the
tourism sector is considered. After Brexit, the tourism sector in UK has suffered major losses.
The socio economic situation of the entire world, determines whether tourists all over the world
would be able to afford trips and include tourism in their annual budget (Fang et al., 2016). If
there is a fall in the economy of any nation, the tourism sector of every other country would
suffer. In order to, keep up with the downfall in the economy, the prices of the tickets and the
accommodation costs must be lowered, so that it is affordable by majority of visitors all over the
world. Moreover the fall in economy of the host nation, implies that the country would be unable
to maintain its tourist spots and cultural heritage sites properly and hence its tourism sector will
not experience any development. Moreover, the taxes imposed by the government also have a
major effect in the tourism sector. Higher taxes tend to push away tourists largely.
1.2- Analyse different current issues using appropriate methods and resources.
In recent times, after Brexit, the tourism industry in UK is majorly affected by terrorism and the
socio economic condition in the country. The impact of these two factors on the tourism industry
is discussed in the following section with the help of secondary data. The secondary data are
gathered from highly reliable information resources. This method is also appropriate as this is
beneficial in gathering huge information in a cost effective and time bound manner.
Impact of terrorism:
The unstable socio political situation in UK has been inviting many terrorist attacks in the recent
times, which has affected its tourism industry largely. The incidences of armoured robberies are
on the rise in UK. The amount of corruptions, assassinations, religious conflicts are also
increasing. As per reports, it has been seen the kidnapping of young girls In UK is not a rare
incident anymore. The conflicts between several ethnic groups residing in UK are major area of
concern too. All these factors, tend away to push away the tourists, who would rather prefer a
safe and secure destination for holidaying rather than a place which is extremely rich in both
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natural beauty and cultural heritage, but which does not guarantee safety and security to its
visitors.
Impact of socio-economic condition:
The socio economic condition prevailing all over the world is the key factor which determines,
whether tourists all over the world would be able to afford trips within their budget for annual
expenditure. A fall in the economy of UK implies that, the value of pounds decreasing on one
hand and prices of commodities rising on the other. The increase in prices of commodities push
away tourists whose main attraction is shopping. On the other hand, value of pounds decreasing
implies the country would suffer major losses in every industry that is functioning. With an
economic downfall, comes the inability of the industry to develop its tourism sector that is the
inability to maintain its natural beauty and cultural heritage. The taxes and laws imposed by the
government in this sector, also plays a major role in attracting tourists. Extremely stringent rules
and regulations in this sector and if the tax rates are high, this is has a negative impact on the
tourism sector.
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TASK 2
2.1 You should evaluate current trends influencing change in the travel and tourism sector.
The travel and tourism industry have undergone some major changes over the past years,
whereby tourists are now willing to visit developing nations instead of only planning vacations to
the developed nations (Marušić et al., 2017). Some of these have been illustrated below:
Adventure tourism:
Adventure tourism, is a kind of niche tourism where tourists travel to distant remote places in
order to explore those places or in order to enjoy certain physical activities such as bungee
jumping or river rafting.
Sports tourism:
UK is the best destination for sports lovers. Apart from the rich cultural heritage of the country
and visually appealing nature, UK is sports lover first choice. The Open Championship,
Wimbledon and Cheltenham festival all attract tourists all over the world every year.
Rural tourism:
It is a varied form of ecotourism whereby tourists visit different villages and follow a rural
lifestyle during the duration of their visit. Many villages in UK are now promoting rural tourism
in order to give the visitors an idea about the culture and social backgrounds of the rural areas
and also an overview about the rural industries, which henceforth helps them to serve these
industries.
Gastro tourism: This kind of tourism mainly aims to give the visitors an idea about the varying
tastes in food across different parts of the globe. Every nation and every region has their own
cuisine which is are reflections of their taste, culture and diversity and hence gastro tourism not
only involves food from different places, but also involves the varied cultural backgrounds of the
people across the globe.
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Dark tourism:
As the name suggests, this kind of tourism mainly encourages visitors to visit places which are
associated with tragedy and in most cases death. Individuals who believe in occult science are
the major target group for dark tourism.
Medical tourism:
Individuals travel; across geographical boundaries in order top avail the best healthcare facilities
so that they can experience a quick recovery. During such tourism, the visitors make it a point to
visit the important tourist destinations which in turn contributes to the nation’s GDP
Green tourism:
This is also known as Ecotourism. The main purpose of this tourism is to give the tourists a feel
of the intact undisturbed natural biodiversity of a place. The tourists can experience nature in its
purest form and get an idea about the natural biodiversity of a place which includes its flora and
fauna in the natural habitat (Kapiki, 2012).
Grey tourism:
This involves planning tours for the senior citizens of the nation and is recently on the rise in
UK. Various old age homes are also conducting such tours, whereby the senior citizens can
travel the world comfortably and does not feel excluded from the rest of the society.
Faith tourism:
In this kind of tourism, visitors travel across the world in order to visit various religious places
such as temples and church and worship deities or be a part of hymns or prayers. Such type of
tours are extremely common especially in the oriental countries.
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2.2 You need to analyse one niche tourism market and provide detailed description about
it, including reasons for its increasing popularity, and most recent travel statistics. (Poster)
UK is the country of sports enthusiasts. Along with exploring the natural beauty and cultural
heritage of the place, millions of tourists from all over the world, visit UK as a part of Sports
tourism. Due to the historic importance of the places, where various sports activities are held,
even the ones who aren’t fond of sports visit these places every year.
Some of these sports activities have been illustrated below:
Henley Regatta: It is a rowing race taking place in River Thames since 1830 (Lamont, 2014).In
recent times it is no more a just a sport, but has gained a historical importance over the years.
Tourists attending these sports events are decked up, drink c\wine or champagne and play with
water.
Manchester Derby: The name is given to two matches which are played at City’s Etihad
stadium or United’s Old Trafford between two teams namely Manchester city and Manchester
united. Every year tourists all over the world, visit UK only to experience these matches sitting
in the stadium.
The open championship: It is the only golf tournament that does not take place in UK and has
gained historical importance over the years. It is one of the oldest major golf tournaments in
addition to Open, the Masters and PGA Championship and therefore attracts thousands of golf
enthusiasts (Yeh et al., 2016).
Cheltenham festival: It is one of the major horse racing competitions taking place in England
and very similar to Henley Regatta in the sense, that the spectators dress up for the occasion, sip
wine and enjoy the event. Fans are so obsessed with this event that they start planning months
ahead and constantly update themselves with the information available about these events.
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TASK 3
Whitbread PLC is a multinational British company, which deals with hotel, coffee shop and
restaurants. It has two business divisions. One is Premier Inn, which is largest hotel brand in UK
with 750 hotels (Whitbread, 2018). Another is Costa coffee, which has 3,401 shops around
world. This management report aims at analyzing the micro and macro environmental factors,
which affects business operation and how it responds to different changes.
3.1 Analyse how Whitbread businesses could respond to change.
Whitbread is influenced by many micro environmental changes. This can be understood based
upon two frameworks such as PEST and SWOT Analysis.
PEST Analysis:
PEST analysis deals with external factors, which has a significant impact on business. This will
help an organization to identify and evaluate obstacles in advance. Therefore, it can develop
strategies before approaching an upcoming risk. It gives an opportunity to business owners in
evaluating their strategic plan (Ho, 2014).
Political Factors Economic Factors
Legal frameworks like tax rates, trade regulation
and pricing regulation by government affects
business in terms of decreasing the boundary free
float of business operation.
Political stability in the country influences the
growth of business without any difficulties.
Intellectual property protection has enabled
business to protect its copyright.
Fluctuation in exchange rate impacts home
currency value, which ultimately affects business
Increase in unemployment rate has an impact on
labour costs (Gupta, 2013).
Efficiency in financial market helps Whitbread to
raise capital in global market.
Globalization has allowed Whitbread to connect
with other hotel industry all over the world
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Social Factors Technological Factors
Leisure interest of individuals lead in increasing
number of travellers
Educational standard of employees in Whitbread
results in enhancing customer services
Demographics level of population helps business
to offer variety of products as per the
requirement.
Technological developments in Whitbread allows it
to compete in global markets
Technological advancements affects value chain
and cost structure of business
Increase in technical diffusion rates has a negative
impact on employee’s key skills and capability.
Table: PEST Analysis
(Source: Created by Author)
Business operation is also affected by some environmental factors like weather and climate
change. The pleasant climate of the place attracts customers to travel. It analyzes the
environmental factors in detail, before entering into a new business.
SWOT Analysis:
SWOT analysis is an important strategic tool for WhitBread. It helps to understand company’s
current position and allows comparing it with future opportunities and risks associated with it
(Balls, 2012). It gives a wide perspective in determining success factors of business. A company
can make advanced plan for upcoming issues. By effective analysis of SWOT allows
organization to allocate resources in an effective manner.
Strengths Weaknesses
 Whitbread has number of strengths
that has allowed it to thrive in global
market.
 Presence of a strong brand portfolio
 Market leading performances
 Highly experienced in hotel business
 Overpricing of certain products
 Lack of brand awareness in global
market
 Huge gap in the service ranges offered
by the company
 Rate of attrition in work force is quite
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 Presence of highly skilled and
talented workforces through
successful training and continuous
learning process.
 A high level of dedication towards
customer satisfaction.
high as compare to other hotel industry
Opportunity Threats
 Flexible pricing structure
 Huge competition from global
market
 Increase in travel
 Presence of free cash flows in order
to expand with new projects
 Threats from many international brands
 Implementation of sudden Government
rules and regulations
 Continuous change in buying behaviour
of consumers through online channel
Table: SWOT Analysis
(Source: Created by Author)
Whitbread Plc responds to such changes by taking advantages from these factors through
developing ideal strategies in respective scenario.
3.2- Develop strategies on how Whitbread businesses such as Premier Inn & Restaurants,
and Costa could respond to change.
Premier Inn & Restaurants, and Costa should adapt some innovative strategies in order to
prepare business for giving effective response to different internal and external changes.
The hotel must use the concept of marketing mix ensuring the dynamic changes in global market.
It should introduce new products and services in order to persuade customers irrespective of their
economic conditions. It should adopt differential pricing strategies, so that it can stay in front of
the business queue (Nagle and Müller, 2017). Before establishing a new business, it must focus
on the facilities available surrounding the area of business. It should develop innovative
techniques to match with global standards (Whitbread, 2018).
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Apart from this, organization must collaborate with other supportive businesses for assistance
business activities. For an example, it can create bond with travel agencies to establish a good
customer base. It must adhere with compliances of business rules.
3.3 Justify strategies for how selected Whitbread businesses Premier Inn & Restaurants,
and Costa could respond to change.
The implementation of strategies like marketing mix and technological advancement will help
Whitbread to design new product and services, so that a positive attitude will be created in
customer’s mind towards those products. Introduction of varieties of product will give an option
to customers to choose as per their preference and taste. By capitalizing on strategies of PEST
and SWOT analysis, Whitbread can identify its strengths and weaknesses by dealing with
opportunities and threats. Through an effective pricing strategy, it can allow its customers to
avail the services at an affordable price range.
By enhancing relationship with supportive business, organization will lead in improving
performances of existing business. The organization can easily get government assistances
during future uncertainty by complying with rules and regulations.
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TASK 4
Trailfinders Ltd is a UK based travel company having 29 travel centres in UK. It is specialised
with tailor mode travel worldwide. It provides travel arrangements for more than 15 million
customers (Trailfinders, 2018). This management report will focus on understanding the impacts
of issues and trends that drive changes in travel and tourism sector and consequences of
businesses failing to respond to such market changes.
4.1 Analyse the impacts of issues and trends that drive change in the travel and tourism
sector
Issues and its impact:
 Terrorism: The fear of terrorism has increased a lot. Therefore, the safety of travellers
has become a question for travel and tourism sector.
 Lack of trained personnel: Presence of untrained staffs in tourism industry affects the
customer service. For which, there is a chances for reduction in number of visitors.
 Lack of Amenities or overcharging for amenities: Some tourism companies are lack of
proper amenities as they are not conscious for this. In addition, some luxurious hotels
charge a high amount on customers to avail facilities. Travellers may not prefer to opt for
high-class services at a high cost.
 Cyber security and data piracy: Every travel business holds personal data of
customers, staffs and suppliers. There can be threat of stealing these data through cyber
crime. Company brand image may degrade through this.
Trends and its impact
 New Tourism trends: There are some new tourism sectors in modern era like medical
tourism, dark tourism and grey tourism. Medical tourism sector allows people to travel
various countries for treatment. This increases employment and GDP of a country. This
has an important effect on sector structure; organization has to collaborate with different
hospitals to provide health care facilities (Quintela et al., 2016). Grey tourism is another
attraction point for economic development committees. Apart from this, dark tourism has
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allowed researchers to conduct a proper study by visiting places, which are associated
with deaths and sufferings.
 Trend in Technology: Organizations will able to offer innovative service through
advanced technology. This will ultimately help in meeting customer expectations.
Customers are able to book hotels through online, which have reduced effort of
customers as well as organization. With a rise in connectivity and usage of social media,
new places are dragging attention of tourists.
 Holiday Trends: Now a day, people are highly inclined towards entertainment. They are
trying to spend holidays by visiting different places. Both domestic and international
tourists are more interested to explore new and less known places. In addition to this,
some travel agencies are arranging some travel trade shows in order to promote specific
tourists spots to drag the attention of tourists.
These trends have both positive and negative impact on following components of
business.
Impact on business:
Tourism companies are facing high level of profit in terms of growth and development. The
demand of tourism sector is increasing consistently. They are generating a huge profit through
offering various additional premium services. However, due to lack of security and safety
measures has an important effect in changing attitude of customers, as they don’t want to put
their life in risk at cost of scope of entertainment. Tourism business is facing issues in expansion
of business in main cities of world due to this reason.
Impact on product and services:
Tourism companies are more customers centric, for which they are more focused towards
improving quality of product and service. Companies are offering a wide range of service
through mobile application and websites. Customers are able to get connected with company for
24*7. Customers are provided with some digital map for their travel. All these things reveals
that, there has been huge changes occurred in dimension of products and services.
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Impact on Employment level:
This has a positive impact on employment level. Companies are requiring more work forces to
manage a large scale of production and sales. They are focusing on young talent, who can
contribute their knowledge and skills in various fields. Employment level has been increased due
to increase in new trends of tourism sector (Fang et al., 2016).
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4.2 Discuss the likely consequences of businesses failing to respond to market change.
It is important for every organization to maintain a standard in order to respond towards global
market changes. If organization fails to respond the respective changes, it will affect various
success factors of business. Company’s profitability and brand image will be hampered, if it will
unable to provide product or services as per the global standard. Profit margin of company will
get reduced. Apart from this, organization will get failure in investing cost associated with
providing hospitality service. It cannot stay in good books of customer.
Other consequences, that business will face in terms of changing attitude of customer, suppliers
and competitors. Customers will not give priority to company, while choosing hospitality
services. They will prefer other substitution of this service. Competitors will not consider it as a
part of global market and will take the highest advantages of this situation. They will develop
new strategies to grab the attention of new customers. Shareholders will not show their interest in
investing money in the company.
Failure to respond to such changes, company will face other difficulties. It will unable to identify
the current demands of consumers. Therefore, they will rely on existing methods. Customers will
not find any changes, which they are availing. This will create a bad image of company and its
services on consumer’s mind.
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Conclusion:
From the above study, it can be concluded that organizations must develop some innovative
strategies in order to give proper response towards the changes in global market. Impact of
different trends and issues cannot be ignored, as these factors has a huge influence on sector
structure, employment and utility of various services. In modern scenario, tourism industries
should use PEST and SWOT analysis in order to understand the internal and external factors and
its impact on business operation. Apart from this organization must use different trends of
tourism sector; therefore, it will motivate organization to introduce new products and services in
the market ensuring boosting the sales. Travel has become a necessary part of people’s life. If
tourism industries will focus more on improvements of quality and safety, then customers show
interest in visiting places. This will help in maximizing profit of tourism industry.
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Reference Lists
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Marušić, Z., Sever, I. and Čorak, S., 2017. Identifying Trends in Tourism Demand Using
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Quintela, J.A., Costa, C. and Correia, A., 2016. Health, wellness and medical tourism-a
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Trailfinders.com. (2018). Trailfinders Homepage. [online] Available at:
https://www.trailfinders.com/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2018].
Whitbread.co.uk. (2018). Premier Inn. [online] Available at: https://www.whitbread.co.uk/our-
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Whitbread.co.uk. (2018). Whitbread. [online] Available at: https://www.whitbread.co.uk/
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Reference Lists
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