Tourism and Growth of Thomas Cook

This assignment examines the significant role of the travel and tourism industry in boosting the economy. It focuses specifically on Thomas Cook, exploring how various internal and external factors contribute to its growth and development within the tourism sector. A SWOT analysis and market research are utilized to understand the company's performance, while highlighting the importance of different tourism types in Saint Petersburg, such as eco-tourism, food tourism, sports tourism, inbound, and outbound tourism. The assignment concludes by outlining necessary changes and adaptations required for Thomas Cook Group Plc to thrive within this dynamic industry.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.......................................................................................................................................................3
1.1............................................................................................................................................................3
1.2............................................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2.......................................................................................................................................................4
2.1............................................................................................................................................................4
2.2............................................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3.......................................................................................................................................................5
3.1............................................................................................................................................................5
3.2............................................................................................................................................................6
3.3............................................................................................................................................................6
TASK 4.......................................................................................................................................................7
4.1............................................................................................................................................................7
4.2............................................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCE..............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Travel and tourism industry are such which has more demand in the present era. Along with its
demand, it is facing some challenges also. This study will help the reader to know different issues which
affect travel and tourism sector at tourist destination i.e. Scotland. This will analyse these issues by using
appropriate methods and resources (Dickinson, Lumsdon and Robbins, 2011). In this report, different
techniques have been used to understand the current issues and trends in this sector concerning leading
tourist destination Russia. It is the largest country in the world located in the area of 17,075,200
square kilometres. Russia is also listed at the largest populated country of the globe with the
population of more than 146.6 million individuals. The capital of Russia is Moscow. In this report, varied
aspect related to travel and tourism industry within Saint Petersburg will be studied. In the second-
largest city after the capital of Russia. It further has 100 population is living in urban side. Further, both
positive and negative impact of changes will be explained along with methods of reducing negative
impacts. It will also explain the strategies adopted by Thomas Cook Group to respond to change in this
sector. Thomas Cook Group is a British company which deals in hospitality and tourism sector.
TASK 1
1.1
Tourism is such sector where several companies play an important role in the growth of the
economy of visitors Russia is a popular tourism destination in all over the world. Its popularity is rapidly
increasing. There are various destinations for visitors such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk,
etc. Most of the tourists like to visit Saint Petersburg and it is the one place which contributes a lot to
such sector. To increase visitors, the government of UK is taking initiatives in developing more and more
tourism destinations. There are so many places which people preferred to visit in Saint Petersburg; few
of them are Winter Palace, Russian Museum, Hermitage Museum, Church of Savior on Blood.
Currently, there are various issues which are affecting travel and tourism sector (Frey and George,
2010). These are explained below:
Infrastructure: Infrastructure is the main resource for travel and tourism sector. Without this nothing
can be happened. It includes physical framework like electricity, sewerage, water supply, access road,
telecom, etc. The industries which are associated with travel and tourism sector are engaged in airlines,
transportation, accommodation, etc.
Technological development: Technology is another main issue that affects travel and tourism sector.
Today, through this people become more aware of various new places of tourism. Through the internet
they get more knowledge about various destinations and attractions. In present time technology has
grown up to that level where there is no need of any mediator or agent while travelling to any
destination. With the help of internet, it becomes very easy to travel anywhere. So, it reduces the
importance of this sector.

Industry associations: This sector depends on strategies of other industries. The airline, hotel and
restaurant industries are inter related and connected with each other which is on of the main impact on
travel and tourism sector.
Human resource: To avail competent human resource is very important for this sector (Kim and
Ritchie, 2014). For providing better services to its customers, a tour and travel company needs to
appoint trained workforce at each level of business like managerial, supervisory, staff, etc. Therefore at
each level, human resource plays an important role in this sector.
1.2
Russia is such place which is consists of several destinations where people love to travel in bulk.
Saint Petersburg is one of them where travellers which to visit for their vacations. In the above section,
various issues related to travel and tourism sector are discussed which can be analysed by with the use
of appropriate methods and resources. There are two methods through which issues related to Saint
Petersburg can be analysed. These are primary and secondary resources. There are four issues which
affect tourism at Saint Petersburg. Issues are analysed through the following methods and resources:
Primary resource: In tour and travel sector different issues generated due to many reasons. With the
help of primary resources, it can be identified. Under this, information is collected by the personal
appearance of researcher or finder. Here first of all researcher need to study the market conditions in
this sector (Kim, 2010). It can be done by conducting surveys, observations, questionnaire, etc. Through
observation various activities and functions of different travel and tourism industries can be analysed. By
a method of the questionnaire, the finder will get an idea about different thinking and suggestions of
different visitors of this place.
Secondary resource: Under this, information is gathered through sources like books, journals, websites,
magazines, newspapers, etc. Here, the analysis is not done on the information collected by personally.
Second handed data are collected, and analysis is made on this. Through the website of this destination,
researcher will get the knowledge that which area of tourism is more affected. With the help of various
reports of different associations about a particular place may give information about it.
Thus, above two sources helps in gathering information and analysing various current issues in tour and
travel industry.
TASK 2
2.1
The current trends of travel include various types of tourism activities. People travel from one
place to another for different purposes. These different purposes become today’s trend to visit various
destinations. There are various types of tourism such as eco, food, agro-rural, sports, inbound, out
bound, leisure tourism, etc. These are explained below:

Ecotourism: It refers to such tourism which is based on nature experience, and that is very important
for the development of an economy of every destination. The main object of this is to observe natural
beauties of the environment (Moutinho, 2011). At present people love to visit such places which are full
of natural beauties. A number of tourists may harm the destination. Therefore, preservation of it is
required for availability for future generation.
Food tourism: It is such where individual and groups visit a place which is famous for providing various
types of food products. Different persons have different areas of preferences, so people who are mad
for this come to these places. Saint Petersburg is also famous for its food products.
Sports tourism: It is such which become very popular nowadays. It becomes the trend of today's
generation to visit the place for the purpose of any sport. Lovers of any sport preferred to watch it by
visiting such place where it is going to be held. Those people do not arrive such destinations for visiting
purpose but for sports purpose. This tourism has a greater impact on the economy of those places.
Outbound tourism: When person resident of country visits outside the national boundary of the country
known as outbound tourism. It is also a part of the present trend. People want to travel to those places
which are beyond to their national boundaries. It facilitates more benefits to those countries.
Leisure tourism: Other than the above tourism comes under this. When individuals and groups
visit a place without any specific purpose such as for entertainment and fun.
2.2
In the above section, various recent trends are discussed. These have both positive as well as negative
impact on tourism destinations. These have a positive impact on tourism in Scotland. Various types of
tourism have different effects in different fields (Evans, Stonehouse and Campbell, 2012). These all helps
in economic growth of that country or region. By improving public transport service, more tourists will
travel through these instead of going with their personal vehicles. For this unique and attractive
advertisement campaign is required to aware people about their services. The income received from
tourism may be useful for further investment of development of that company or industry. This will
indirectly help in the development of the economy of that country.
Tourism is a combination of infrastructure and physical resources which have an important
impact on the places of attraction. Sports tourism assists different countries in earning lots of profits. As
the chosen destination i.e. Saint Petersburg is the place where so many sports were held. When ever
any sports activity held here, some public or outside visitors visit this place. While visiting here, many
local people get a benefit of it regarding money. If more and more people will arrive there then, more
places will be required for staying purpose (Morgan, Pritchard and Pride, 2011). For this, new hotels will
be established that directly help in developing travel and tourism. Various airlines operators will
facilitate different attractive and less expensive offers to their customers which will help that industry or
company in earning more profits. Inbound and outbound tourism will help countries in exchanging of
different currencies of another country.
Geographical tourism is very important in this term because it points out the flow of tourists
from a place to another. Ecotourism at Saint Petersburg also assists regarding facilitating various
services to visitors. At present this type of tourism attracts more and more people and by this more
currency of different countries will be exchanged and that will help in the growth of the economy.

TASK 3
3.1
Travel and tourism are very important for any business to respond effectively to change. Thompson is a
tourism industry and it is very important for its business to make changes in the strategies of
management. About making any change, first of all, management at this company need to set goals or
objectives which are to be achieved. It is essential for an enterprise to accomplish desired goals and
targets on time (Connell, 2013). After setting up goals, appropriate plans need to be made for further
process. This plan includes all the details that how to achieve targets, who will be involved in this
process, what other things are required for its accomplishment, etc. All the actions need to be
performed by an enterprise for achieving its targets and goals.
To cope up with the changing conditions, Thompson Group made a number of strategies,
actions and decisions so as to deliver services exactly by consumer specifications and thereby strengthen
their competitive position. Looking into the current business conditions, the following strategies are
followed by Thompson Group that are narrated hereunder:
Cruise market: Thompson’s managers took initiatives to emerge the cruise operations in their
business practices to deliver the best leisure services to the global consumers. Splendour of Seas such as
Island Cruise and Thompson cruises are operated by the company in the British market. The main target
of such strategy is to expand the consumer base, enhance business performance and strengthen their
competitiveness to defeat rivalries.
Tailor mode holidays: Thompson Group also started use of tailor made holiday packages for the
audiences that render budgetary benefits to the consumers. It specializes in delivering unique and
personalized travelling experiences to the clients as per their specification as in these; the company
provides flexible offers to the consumers as per their desires and availability of money to spend on the
tour package. It helps business to raise up their customer satisfaction level and maximize their
competitive position.
Emerging long haul destination: Long haul is referred to long duration rather than short
duration, here duration is considered as years and many months in comparison to days, weeks, months.
As per long haul in concern with travel and tourism industry, tour operators are providing travelling
services for long duration and arrange long tours. The Thomson is providing these types of services to its
consumers such as in summer days etc. Firm arranges trips for a long journey such as one year etc. at
national as well as international destinations. Long haul is helped to attract some consumers also by
which profitability is affected in a positive manner.
Sometimes management fails to identify cause and effect of their acts due to lack of experience and
training. To efficiently respond to the change, Thompson needs to consider four most important points.
At initials, point management needs to learn from its past mistakes which would not be repeated in
future again. Then they have to think of individuals who have a significant effect on the success of
business. Technology is very much important in a context of success in any sector. It plays a vital role in
the development of travel and tourism sector. The last point is related to the knowledge of individuals.
Today education becomes very important in every field or area. Therefore, from above discussion, it is
clear that to make any changes in any company above points need to be considered.

3.2
To the appropriate findings, SWOT analysis is to be done by this tourism organisation. To meet the
changing pattern and trends of today's generation, it is very important to analyse it (Peters and Higgins-
Desbiolles, 2012). SWOT analysis consists of strength, weakness, opportunities and threats. This is
explained in the following:
Strength: Thompson is one of the best tourism company. The first strong point of this is that it is
the oldest travel organisation in the UK. It also deals in various sectors like the hotel, travel, agencies,
airline services, etc. According to the needs of customers, it facilitated various holiday packages with
effective offers. This enterprise also includes skilled personnel with the help of those customers'
satisfactions level increases. It also reduces labour costs. This firm needs to develop its strongest part
more strong to attract customers.
Weaknesses: One of the main drawbacks of this firm is that it provides services at high rates. As it has
the strongest part that it provides several types of facilities to its customers but at higher prices.
Another is that it leads to continuing growth of the completion which in turn facilitated limited market
share (Sharpley and Stone, 2010). To overcome from this, it needs to make a proper plan and facilitate it
services at low price. Then only its weaknesses will become its strength.
Opportunities: Opportunity may be created foe this sector with the help of reducing tax charges. By this
visitors need not to pay more money in the form of various taxes. The major opportunities for
Thompson company are to provide online booking for combined tour packages. The demand of this
agency is growing worldwide. It should adopt such strategy which helps in optimum utilisation of all
resources available with it like proper usage of man and materials.
Threats: It is such an element of any business which could cause trouble. Other than the tourism
attractions and lack of security is treated as a major threat to this company. The uncertainty of economy
of this place also includes all this information. Lower profitability is another threat which occurs due to
the above weaknesses.
3.3
To justifying strategies of Thompson Tourism Company, PEST analysis required to be made. PEST stands
for Political, economical, social and technological which includes macro environmental aspect related to
strategies. These are explained as under:
Political factor: This type of factor occurs due to the various government issues like tax policies,
trade restrictions, environment law, tariffs, employment law, etc. These factors have a great impact on
travel and tourism sector (Wachowiak, 2016.). It affects working of Thompson airlines also due to the
frequent changes in taxes and duties along with visa policies of a tourist destination.
Economical factors: These include different economic rates like interest, exchange and inflation rates
which affect economic growth of the country. Here, this factor affects activities of all tourism
companies. These assist in distributing wealth within the society. The tourism sector is affected by
several economic crises. Saint Petersburg is considered one of the expensive places for tourism that is a
negative point for any tourism destination.
Social factors: This airline company is also affected by various social issues like age distribution, safety
issues of customers and their importance, the rate of population, cultural aspects, etc. These are
dependable for a demand of the products and other operational activities. It includes some points which

affect basic and higher education of people, consumers buying patterns, brand image of a company, its
marketing and advertising, etc.
Technological factors: These factors affect the quality, costs, innovations of goods and services within
the organisation. There is a great impact of this on various activities of a company. Today every single
person wants to work with new and latest technology (Smith, Messenger and Soderland, 2010). If a
company does not adopt the new one and continue working with old one, then this may affect its
production and profits as well. To create attraction among the customers, it is necessary to replace old
techniques of working by new and latest one.
Therefore, PEST analysis is very necessary for this airlines company to know various external affecting
its operational activities. It also helps in achieving desired goals and objectives of a company.
Thompson Group's managers formulate a number of strategies and decisions so that goods and
services can be delivered as per the consumer specifications so as to drive success. Some of the business
strategies that proven highly successful for the Thomson are discussed here as under:
Enter into the cruise market: As discussed earlier, nowadays, the demand for cruises by
travellers is growing rapidly. To meet out customer demand, initially, Thompson entered into cruise
market in 1973, but with the heavy cost of fuel, cruise operations have been discontinued. After that,
again it started cruise operationsunder the Sun Cruise Brand so as to offer excellent ships services to the
consumers. Currently, Thompson holds around 1% of the overall world’s cruise industry.
Diversifications: Thompson provides the wide range of services to the tourists so as to meet
their expectations. It also follows diversified business practices by expanding their operations across
different parts of the world to grab larger market share and sustain its operations for a longer duration.
Moreover, a wide range of travelling products and services helps business to reap the advantages from
core competitiveness. Apart from this, nowadays, Thompson also introduced tailor made holidays in
their operations that provide flexibility to the consumers to make buying decisions as per their
budgetary specifications. For instance, with the help of this arrangement, users became able to skips any
destination and visits at the remaining places of the planned tour packages helps to generate the high
level of consumer satisfaction.
TASK 4
4.1
Thompson Group is a British travel company that deals in tourism and hospitality industry. From the
various above factors, it has a great impact on its functioning. It is one of the most preferred tourism
company by various customers. As it provides all facilities to its customers like hotel, restaurants,
accommodation and other services related to travelling. This PLC is running its business successfully with

the help of various strong points like having the good brand image, facilitating the better quality of
customer services, offering different offers, best holiday packages, tourist information centre and many
more services than any other tourism company (Spenceley, 2012). This plays an important role in the
growth of the economy. The factors which help in the growth of this company are economical,
organisational, strategic, technological, infrastructural, social, etc.
Thompson PLC has adopted strong marketing strategies in development and growth of the company. It
facilitated various training programs for development of its workforce. If the employees it this
corporation becomes trained than they facilitated good and better quality of services to their customers.
At the time of recruiting new employees, management should select such individuals who are
specialised in that particular area of work. Persons with this quality may offer more services and will
able to contribute to the growth of a company. This firm served some services and destinations to its
customers. It provides both domestic as well as international holiday packages to individuals.
Today this sector is known as an emerging sector. This assists travel and tourism companies to
offer more employment facilities to unemployed personnel (Sharpley and Telfer, 2014). Due to the
increasing number of companies in the form of hotels, restaurants, airlines, etc., they required more
human resources to handle it, and this will facilitate more employment to individuals. In recent time, it
has a global economic change in employment and holiday trends of people. Today most of the persons
preferred to go on shorter holidays instead of longer one due to lack of time. Latest technology also
helped such persons in a plan such vacations. With this people may plan and organise their holiday with
use of their mobile phones and laptops with an internet connection.
4.2
At present needs of human beings changes day by day and according to it travelling company also
required making changes in its services. Thompson Group is one of the most successful hospitality
industry compare to others (Desbordes and Richelieu, 2012). This corporation facilitates various places
like clean beaches, coastal areas, places with natural beauties, adventurous places, etc. The external
atmosphere of this organisation is changing all the time. Few changes can be accepted and remarkable
by the company. Today, it becomes a trend for a business to face continuous challenges of responding
and managing to change. If a company or enterprise want to stick in a market than it is very necessary
for that business to adopt changes and make strategies to fulfil them.
The business world id highly competitive and therefore Thompson plc need to make proper strategies
to accept and respond to any change in the market. A climate change is a major change at the global
level so, everyone should try to become eco-friendly with travel and tourism industry. While taking
about various consequences of business due to change may have risk related to sales, production and
profits of the firm. Change has both positive as well as negative impact of functioning of an organization.
So while applying any changes in activities or operations of an enterprise, it needs to first make
appropriate planning and then apply it (Cohen, 2011). An effective change may raise the customers to
the company and on the other hand it may lose them.
CONCLUSION
This study concludes that travel and tourism industry become an important contributor to a growth of
the economy. It includes various factors like political, economical, social and technological which helps
in development and growth of Thomas Cook company. The SWOT analysis and market research helped
in understanding the growth and development of this company under tourism sector. It also defines the
importance of various tourism at Saint Petersburg such as; eco, food, sports, inbound, outbound

tourism, etc. It explained about the requirement of various changes in this sector and which should be
adopted by Thomas Cook Group Plc.

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