Tour Operator's Role and Decision-Making

The report contains an evaluation of the tour operator's sector with a focus on destination planning for Africa. Various factors influencing customers and earning profit are discussed, including recent trends and development stages, timescales, suitability of methods, prices, and strategic/tactical decisions. The report also includes references to relevant literature in the field of tourism management.

Developing a Holiday
Package and Tour Operations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Recent trends and developments in the tour operations industry..........................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 The stages and timescales involved in developing holidays.................................................4
2.2 The suitability of different methods of contracting for various components of the holiday
and types of tour operator............................................................................................................7
2.3 Calculating the selling price of a holiday from given information........................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 The planning decisions taken for the design of selected brochure........................................8
3.2 The suitability of alternatives to a traditional brochure for different types of tour operator.8
3.3 The suitability of different methods of distribution used to sell a holiday for various types
of tour operator............................................................................................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
4.1 Emerging trends in UK tour operations sector and the response of various tour operators 10
4.2 Tactical decisions that are tour operator in different situations...........................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Tourism and hospitality industry has acquired development among the service sector in
the world. Billions of people travel every year to different places to spend their vacations. It has
become the world largest economic sectors and supports the country in various forms.
Contribution to economy, capital investments, jobs, import and export, wealth, rising taxes and
many more things (Robinson and et.al., 2016). Tourism is mainly the private sector of the
industry internationally. This sector greatly impact on the economic and social condition of
country. During the vacations people like to travel to different places which are rich in heritage
and culture, terrains, environment. It should be adventuress and full of excitement where they
can see the natural beauty. It also promotes the foreign exchange and contributes to earning of
more than millions of people and business sectors. Following report contains the understanding
regarding the recent trends and development in the tour operation industry within the travel and
tourism sector. Moreover, it contains the details regarding the stages, timescales, suitability of
various methods and prices are calculated. Furthermore, brochures and methods of distribution
are used to sell holidays are reviewed. At last, strategic and tactical decision making for tour
operators are evaluated and compared. I am working as a Package Tour Development Manager
in Thomas Cook, UK.
The Role of tour operator is to organize, provide service and complete other activities
which travellers required. They have to decide the wide range of tourist destination places,
accommodation and transportation services so that customer are willing to pay for that.
TASK 1
1.1 Recent trends and developments in the tour operations industry
Tour operator can be defined as the person who integrate the tour and travel elements to
create beautiful and remarkable package holiday for consumers. To promote their business they
advertise and make brochures (Felicen, Ylagan and Buted, 2014). From the starting of the
journey to safe passage home it is the responsibility of tour operator to manage all the things.
Their services includes carries, accommodation and services which are sold through travel agent,
internet and phone. There are various types of tour operator such are direct, domestic, inbound,
mass, outbound, retail, specialist and wholesale. They all provide services within their respective
boundaries. There are various types of tour operator available such as Thomas Cook Group, Cox

and Kings, Gray & Co. and many more. Thomas Cook is the public firm and organize tours for
group of people. It was formed in the year 2007. The company ownership is under the Arcandor
and MyTravel Group with the ratio of 52-48% but later the sales were divided. It operates in all
the continents and is 2nd largest travel industry in EU and UK. There are more than 30000
employees along with 20M annual customers. The major competitor of the company are TUI and
Cox and Kings. According to current trends in the industry china has been more profited from
this sector. There is business growth of more than 21% from the previous year. According to
current trends there are 1,186b international tourist arrivals globally. France and U.S. are best
tourism destination in the year 2015 and UK was at the eighth position with over 35m people
visiting the place. More than 500 million people are engaged in this business providing services
to billions of customers every year (Byrnes, Buckle and Arthur, 2016). There is bright future in
this industry and many more changes will come in this sector. There are various things which are
promoting this business sector such as low budget travellers, rise of Boutique hotels, exploration
of new destination places and travel tradeshows who are promoting this business worldwide.
Further, the sector is linked with many other sectors and promote their business.
TASK 2
2.1 The stages and timescales involved in developing holidays.
Stages 1. Research- Destination and Market.
For the following destination package as per the customer preference I have chosen
Morocco and Tanzania. The location are best as for me as the political, economic and climatic
factors are more influential. Further, the places are rich in heritage sites, wildlife parks and
topical locations. The alternative destination place can be Kenya and South Africa. The policies
decision can be easily gained. For the place marketing research is already carried out.
Stage 2: For the following destination location following itinerary was developed which is
accordingly to customer’s choices, possibility and profitability.
Stage 3: Negotiations with vendors and suppliers: As our company is having contacts and
relationship with the other business areas so the prices and availability can be easily maintained.
Further, their profit is also considered (Medlik, 2016). As there are more number of customers so
the prices can be reduced. Profit from the travel agency and hotels are effectively carried out
through negotiations.

Stage 4: Costing of package: After consulting the price and other things from the other sector and
including our profit which can be affordable to customers was decided. To our final price the
customer wants to stay one more day at South Africa so they can enjoy the beach and beautiful
gardens.
Stage 5: Financial evaluating and costing: For this we considered marketing oriented tour pricing
in which demand of the customers, time period, price sensitivity and profit margin is considered.
Stage 6: Administrative staff was chosen. Our company is having the best tour operators who are
friendly, having good humour, ethics, decision making ability, organisational skills and can
speak multiple language. After choosing the operator marketing was done to promote more
people. According to Anderson and Marcus (2015), marketing is done to promote the business
and achieve sales volume and encourage more customers.
Stage 7: Then marketing's strategic and plans were developed. The stage also required
participation in the conference, meetings at international level so that tour operators at other
location can be inbound.
Stage 8: After that brochures was made which contains all the details regarding the tools. After
which operation and execution of a tour has taken place and at last post tour management is
done. In the last stage several reports and assessment was done.
The tour of 6 days and nights and total visit by

Day 1
Arrival day at London airport
Departure to Morocco flight at 11:30 A.M.
Check in Hotel at Hotel Riu Palace Tikida Agadir.
Evening snacks will be offered
Visit to the wind power and explore to Marraheck
Dinner will be served at 9:00P.M.
Day 2
Breakfast at 7:00 A.M.
Explore the Spectacular Ameln Valley by 10:00 A.M.
Afternoon Lunch at 1:00 P.M.
Visiting the 'Gateway to the Sahara' by 5:00 P.M.
Evening dinner at hotel
Day 3
Breakfast at 7:00 A.M.
History and Culture in the Museums of Marrakech by 9:00A.M.
The Rejuvenation of the Fez River at 5:00 P.M.
Then midnight travel to Tanzania by 9:00 P.M.
Dinner will be served at Airport.
Day 4
Arrival at Tanzania 5:00 A.M.
Visit to Hotel Coral Azur and breakfast there.
Then visit to Mount Kilimanjaro at 10:00A.M.
Lunch at the local restaurants.
The beautiful Serengeti National Park by 5:30 A.M.
Dinner at the Hotel by 9:00 P.M.
Day 5

After the breakfast visit to Zanzibar Beaches by 10:00 A.M.
Enjoyment at the bars and hotels their till 5:00 P.M.
Dinner at Hotel by 9:00 P.M.
Day 6
After the breakfast visit Mafia Island
Lunch at the local restaurants
Then visit to Stone Town by 4:00 P.M.
At last back to airport by 9:00 P.M.
Back to London.
2.2 The suitability of different methods of contracting for various components of the holiday and
types of tour operator.
To make the travel experience more exciting and special we are focused towards
providing the prime choices, structured business and professionalism. Further, we have
confidence and trust on our stakeholder and can believe on them at any point of time. The
business sector is sub divided into three segments. The firm is the best chosen company in the
market by customers and is mostly preferred by them. We provide better facilities and
experience to our customer by providing them world class tour operators and destination places.
Thomas Cook provides the various events which includes holiday packages, destination
plans, tours, accommodation, meetings and many more things. We provide best services which
includes the hotels, transportation services (Baur, Klein and Steinhardt, 2014). The company is
expanded in many countries and is present in almost all the continents except Antarctica. Our
customers are our first preference. The firm promises to their customer's only three things which
they provide these are quality, service and reliability. Our holiday offering includes Airlines,
hotels, restaurants and various other services. We follow complete ethics and corporate values
which help us to improve our services in better aspects. Thomas cook is mainly focused on the
online growth, low travel air travel cost and our value proposition. Condor, Jet tours,
Neckermann, Spies, Tjäreborg and Ving are our best regional brands which are included in the
sunny Heart. There are various brands included in this company which helps the organization to
make the travel experience more effective to customers. We are also focused towards the society

and find ways to support them as possible. All this factors helps us to promote our business.
Further, as discussed above the firm have different types of tour operators which helps to manage
our process. Direct, domestic, inbound, mass, outbound, retail, specialist and wholesale all this
tour operator helps to manage the business in more appropriate ways.
2.3 Calculating the selling price of a holiday from given information.
The pricing of the holiday packages depends on various factors such as economic,
political and according to the customer's perspective. As the package was organize during the
time of vacation so special pricing strategies were used. After clearing all the data following
were the outcomes regarding the prices of the places and the selling price.
The prices are based on per person and final cost for the whole group is decided at last.
For this as the tour started from the airport so the travelling charge of going and coming will be
£2000 which includes only travelling (Buckley, 2014). Further, the travelling at the destination
place will be around £300. The cost at the 4 star hotel and food their will cost them £500. Other
cost like at the parks, historical places and safaris would cost around more than £200. Additional,
pricing of the services gained by the customers will depends. Further, our company will provide
the free currency exchange which will be beneficial for you. The total cost for the customer will
be around £3000 but as they are having the group of 20 people so it will cost them £2900. Also,
they have order during the time of vacation so they are getting the discount of £1800. The selling
price given to the customer's was £2850. For the whole group the holiday package will cost
around £57000.
TASK 3
3.1 The planning decisions taken for the design of selected brochure.
Completed in other doc.
3.2 The suitability of alternatives to a traditional brochure for different types of tour operator.
As the technology are developed, brochure are rarely used in the business process.
Earlier, only brochure were used as describing the holiday package. They were best things which
were used to describe the holiday package. It contains complete information regarding the tour
which helps the customer to understand in better ways. There are millions of brochure distributed
every year to the tour operators but many of them are found to be in dustbins. As traditional
brochure where costly and also polluting the environment so the alternative option chosen for the

company is the E-brochure where information are made online and details are transferred
through mails, social media and online sites. This helps to reduce lots of money. The actual
printed traditional brochures have made the success to the company but innovative technique
used by the company has saved millions of cost every year (Okharedia, 2017). From the e-
brochure customer can easily calculate the prices from other places and can finds the advantages
which company is going to provide. Also, as sometime brochure contains booklets which
includes the experience of previous customer's so such details can help the customers to explore
new destination places.
3.3 The suitability of different methods of distribution used to sell a holiday for various types of
tour operator
There are mainly two ways to reach to a customer, either directly or indirectly. Directly,
the visitors can be targeted by means of advertisement, websites, brochures etc. and indirectly is
by including a third party such as by travel agents etc. The tourism distribution chain consists
tourists, retail agents, wholesalers, ITO i.e. Inbound Tour Operator and the local operators. Five
distribution channels are actually available for a tour operator and i.e. email, mobile phones,
internet, retail and conventional mail. These means can be used either directly or indirectly. In a
marketing strategy, all the channels used has the same role. Taking an example, Internet is not
that required in sales but it helps in being an information source. Social networking website also
help in improving and promoting the holiday packages well because these websites are
developing as marketplaces with enlarging tourism and various travel packages and products are
being promoted by these ways (Abrate and Viglia, 2016). Whether it is about any field, Internet
has always benefited the customers as some want to promote by means of it and some wants to
buy. Rather than emails, mobile phones, other advertisements, social networking is the most
efficient way of selling holiday packages because this is the only way by which people are most
connected with these days. These websites provides information regarding the most current
matters. Travel agents create their profiles on these websites and then promote their tourism or
holiday packages on it. All their subscribers who are interested in the packages can take the
initiative and the tourism will contact them as soon as possible because they set their goals of
selling a number of packages for a particular time period. Then if they found that less people are
interested, they modifies it with some more attractive features.

TASK 4
4.1 Emerging trends in UK tour operations sector and the response of various tour operators
The pace of competition causes various changes in the decisions taken by different types
of tour operators. Current and emerging trends in UK with regards to tour operations sector is
social media marketing. This tool has completely transformed the way in which businesses
operate and their perspectives towards customers (Shivakumar, 2014). It is quite important for
every tour operator to catch up with these emerging trends so that their businesses can be
progressive rather than retarding. The need of customers to have all the operations at their
convenience has caused the emergence of online shopping websites and easier transactions over
the internet. This trend of booking the entire tour package online has affected the tour operations
sector of UK positively. There is sudden increase in the number of individuals coming from
foreign countries.
Considering Thomas Cook, there is consequent use of social media marketing as a main
tool for delivering and communicating the details of products and services sold by the company
to the customers. This information is well managed by the organisation through information
systems which is also an emerging trend in the European markets after the boom of IT industry.
Other tour operators like TUI Group or KUONI and SOTC have also evolved with the use of
social media as a strategic tool for both customer research and marketing. The response of
various other tour operators or competitors of Thomas Cook is quite positive and they get ready
for the competition in a more planned manner. Once a particular strategy or trend has been used
by Thomas Cook, the competitive awareness of other tour operators lead them to engage further
with the same tool.
Modern day tour operators in UK's tour operations sector are focused over customer
centric approach which wasn't a famous trend few years back. This emergence has caused the
companies to shift their focus from complete business profits to earning customer recognition
and maintaining their brand value (Müller, Fries and Gedenk, 2014). Henceforth, the competitors
have also shift their targets from complete profit orientation to customer satisfaction which has
been visualised in the case of Thomas Cook and its competitor TUI Group.

4.2 Tactical decisions that are tour operator in different situations.
Following table depicts the major differences between tactical decisions and strategic
decisions in the tour operations industry:
Tactical decisions Strategic Decisions
The present state of working is more focused
when tactical decisions are to be considered by
the company.
The future orientation is considered before
taking any sort of strategic decision by a
company.
The analysis of competitive environment and
current trends in the market with relevance to
the current structure of company is performed
through use of tactical decisions (Luís,
Lickorish and Pollard, 2015).
For companies like Thomas Cook their future
perspectives and direction of working is
visualised by the decision makers in this type
of decisions.
Thomas Cook shall use tactical decisions in
those strategies and planning which are
responsible for solving the issues and conflicts
of present and nearest future.
The trends and patterns that are emerging
currently have to be identified through strategic
decisions of the company working.
Thomas Cook has always followed the aims and objectives that are defined for
directional flow of the company's functions. But there are at times when tactical decisions could
have helped the company to facilitate and address the situation in a better way. The use of
renewed customer focus for marketing its products and services is a strategic decision which
lasted for 12 months. However, tactical decisions helps in analysing the current situation of the
company. The state of competitor strategies and their impact over customers and stakeholders are
addressed while planning for tactical decisions (Fattahi, Mahootchi and Husseini, 2016). The
complete focus of the organisation however was to serve for better marketing strategy which
shall help in making consumers more aware about the products and services. If customer centric
approach with better marketing tools could have been used as per the current functioning then
tactical decision would have helped.
The present scenario of UK's tour operations sector deals with sustainability as the main
aspect. Thomas Cook has perceived this attribute for its future strategies which is not a tactical

decision. If in the current market scenario, Thomas Cook would have acquired higher profits and
customer share because that would be through tactical decisions.
CONCLUSION
Following report contains the details regarding the tour operator and their role in the
tourism industry. For this purpose evaluation of this sector with tour operators are done. The
report contains the destination plan to Africa consisting of 20 people. Various factors are
included to influence the customers and earn profit. The report contains like recent trends and
development, stages, timescales, suitability of various methods and prices, strategic and tactical
decision which are taken by the tour operator are discussed and evaluated.

REFERENCES
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