Critical Analysis of Melbourne as a Tourist Destination

This essay critically analyzes Melbourne as a tourist destination, examining its tourism industry, transportation and accommodation development, crisis and risk management, and the influence of social media on the visitor experience.

MANAGEMENT

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Melbourne tourist industry....................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
This essay brings out a critical analyse and examine the nominated destination for the tourism
industry named Melbourne. Melbourne is a coastal capital of the Australian state of Victoria.
Melbourne is surrounded by world-class dining, art galleries, packed sports, and home-grown
fashion. Undoubtedly, Melbourne is known to be most lively place such as the hidden
laneways, rooftops, and dine at the culinary hotspots (Currie, G. 2016). As far as reaching is
concerned, it is easy to reach Melbourne with domestic and international flights that arrives
directly to the Melbourne Airport from the different hubs. The place is famous for its port,
which deals in cargo vessels for transportation. The discussion carries contemporary tourism,
transportation problems, and several accommodation issues faced by the tourism industry of
Melbourne (Currie, G. 2016). This report will identify several reasons, which affects the
tourism industry due to some threats. An Internal threat refers to the lack of basic amenities,
unsafe environment, burglary, or mistreatment of guest in the hospitality sectors (Lee and
Chang, 2008). External threat cannot be controlled, as these are certain environmental risks
pertaining to natural disasters. Finally, the discussion deals with the marketing strategies that
will help the destination place to rethink of social media as majority of tourist are millennial.
Tourism industry plays an significant role in accelerating the pace of economic growth of the
destination as more footfall of people or millennial will lead to development in
accommodation, and maintenance of natural flora and fauna. This is a way that a place can
achieve competitive advantage (Cai and Wang, 2010).
Tourist market potential
For the tourist, it is important to analyse before planning there for a holiday such as deciding
when to visit, and what will be the weather at the place. Moreover, it is important to have an
overview of transportation system of the destination. Melbourne is both cosmopolitan as well

as dynamic as this place is the proud of Australia’s cultural and sporting capital (Currie, G.
2016).
The market segmentation for the visitors can be divided in different ways such as their area of
interest, their purpose, and the demographics. In order to attract the different segments, New
South Wales of Australia produces profiles for different segments. While looking at the
extensive research for the travel behaviour of certain Victorians regional tourists and their
relationship with the Melbourne as tourism destination, the place has designed marketing
program to target a specific market (Tang and Jang, 2009). This has inspired the regional
Victorians to create Melbourne as ongoing destination. Moreover, the program was
developed with a vision to prosper the travelling system. In order to promote this tourist
place, Melbourne maintains Now Magazine, which helps in enrooting and giving them with,
numerous reasons to visit the city. Currently, it is seen that the target market for Melbourne
are regional Victorians. Here are some of the fast facts regarding the Melbourne tourism such
as the Now magazine has the readership of only 85 percent of women in which 76 percent of
them are aged between 35 to 64 (Ttf.org, 2016). Now, in order the pace up the tourist market,
Melbourne has to target other audience in the new emerging tourist market so that it can
generate maximum revenue (Thomas, Shaw and Page, 2011). The target audience should not
be limited to Victoria regionals but should extended to young generation and millennial of
whole world. This will lead to the development of various contributions such as development
in accommodation facilities as millennial prefer touring and wandering at different place in
search of peace as they are so exhausted during to their professional lives (Schuckert, Liu and
Law, 2015). Development of all these direct and tourism contribution will lead to
improvement of GDP, increase in personal disposable income of natives, and rise in
employment. Moreover, Melbourne can also educational trips due to largely spread port that
is famous for its cargo transportation that will help the students to know more about the port

business for example- how goods are loaded and unloaded, basic documentation needs, and it
can focus on educating the process of international trading (Mariani, Buhalis, Longhi and
Vitouladiti, 2014). Moreover, the explosion of social media has changed the perception of
how marketers interact with the audience. Along with it, one another biggest change can be in
regards to today`s travellers, sharing the pictures on social media has become integral part of
guest experiences (Ttf.org, 2016).
Transport development
While considering the importance of transportation system in the contemporary world for the
tourist industry, it is seen that Melbourne suffers from severe transportation issues (Heo,
2016). Tourism affects all areas of natural environment especially for ecologically sensitive
areas such as desert oases, reefs, tropical habitats, and small islands as these areas have more
potential so the degree of impact as per the number of tourists (Aldebert, Dang and Longhi,
2011). Transportation helps the tourists for various destinations and also links the place to the
business places. On the other hand, Melbourne is extremely rich in its culture and natural
places but on the other hand, it has to focus on building high-speed rail links from Brisbane to
the Melbourne through Sydney and Canberra (Yoo, Lee and Bai, 2011). The place has to
focus on improving the transportation system in terms of rail links from Melbourne to
Victoria Alps. According to researches undertaken, the transportation system of has failed in
key areas such as the public transport system is not able to provide substantial services which
covers most of the city. Its transportation service system does not turn up fast due to lack of
on-road priority. Most importantly, bus routes run indirectly, confusing routes and slow
which means it takes too much time on to go from A to B (Ruhanen, Mclennan and Moyle,
2013). It has become crucial to re-organise the bus network so that it can follow direct roads
and are easy to understand. Some of the viable frequency upgrades can ensure that buses can
operate faster. Service such as feeder will be able to provide certain services that will fill the

gap between main road routes (Millar, Mao and Moreo, 2010). More problems associated
with the Melbourne needs mass transit extensions as growing place means high capacity
services. Certain examples of potential light rail as it can according to the capacity and
standards of Europe such as Clyde, Rowville, Doncaster, and Baxter to cater the cross-
semiurban travel and extending it to public transport (Mair and Whitford, 2013).
Accommodation development
It has been noticed that there is a need to invest in the tourism to reach a boom in Australia.
Few of the main reason of drowning is due to some underlying problems such as shortage of
qualified and trained people to serve the growing number of tourist and lack of infrastructure
has failed to cope up with the demand. The place faces shortage of hotel accommodation in
Melbourne especially four star and five star. In the whole country, the overall hotel
occupancy rate of the Australia is nearly 65 percent but the occupancy rate of luxury hotels
remain in key cities is almost 90 percent, which means accommodation facility is not equally
distributed (Pizam and Shani, 2009). This indicates that during the peak periods it becomes
very difficult to find and book a five star hotel in major CBD. Secondly, as per the cruise line
international association, the cruise market of Australia has increased for more than six folds.
Moreover, this rapid growth has created shortage of port facilities and Melbourne is mainly
famous for its port. Currently, in order to improve the accommodation and transportation
system of Melbourne, major ports are successfully managed due to the growth of domestic
and international passengers. The development of high-speed rail will reduce the pressure
from the airports (Bizirgianni and Dionysopoulou, 2013).
Crisis and risk management
There are certain factors that causes crisis in the tourism industry such as economic, socio-
cultural, technological, commercial, and politics and other more factors are internal crisis in
determining the consequences and classifying it as either major or minor crisis. This

determination will help to cope up with the minor crisis because the manager can manage
internal crisis. Physical discomfort and emotional stress creates crisis. Apart from this,
hygiene factors plays an important role in absorbing the tourist because it is always difficult
to adjust new place so if the hospitality industry serves the tourist well with quality food and
drinks then crisis will be reduced (Kusluvan, Kusluvan, Ilhan and Buyruk, 2010). The
industry is lagging behind due to health-related crisis and these shortcomings has become
popular in hospitality crisis. However, managing the health related issues has become critical
and it needs proactive efforts in planning and responding (Destination Melbourne, 2019).
Effective crisis responses can prevent the company`s reputational assets and reduce its
negative consequences. Other internal threat for tourists, which are needed to be eliminated
and reduced by applying the prevention methods such as safety standards for unwanted
visitors, burglary, evacuation plan. Other prevention method includes fire extinguishers,
sprinkler installations, and smoke detectors. As Melbourne has big port based on cargo
vessels and the port explodes gas emissions while starting and operating the ships from which
the health of tourist is suffered (Destination Melbourne, 2019). The place urgently needs to
treat its pollution through smoke detectors. Tourism can be fastest growing industries but at
the same time, it is highly prone to disaster risks. External crisis includes disasters such as
tsunami, floods, earthquakes, and storms that devastate the places. Moreover, climate changes
has increased the frequency of severe weather that affect the destination and transportation to
a great extent. Manager can undertake some measures such as before constructing the hotel,
he should consult to technical and construction experts in order to determine which place
would be feasible that are nearer to the destination places and safe and secure. Therefore, the
manager should be skilled enough to have a sense of enough understanding. Melbourne has
dispatched the experience to its central government to look for a support regarding tourist
related business and its associations (Destination Melbourne, 2019).

Social media influence
While thinking of targeting the young generation, it is crucial to understand the importance of
advertising the place through social media. Demographics and the social media go hand in
hand, as social media is the key to reach millennial and type of post and picture shared. While
evaluating the promotional activities of Melbourne, it is seen that the place uses less social
media. The global traveller have conducted a survey based on 2457 adults from Australia,
Hong kong, china, Malaysia, Singapore, and UK who once have visited Australia or planning
to visit were evaluated on the basis of what cultural values and preferences in Melbourne
(Ttf.org, 2016). It is seen that city`s ten most popular, creative and cultural attraction on
TripAdvisor and it is listed at the top for its cultural preferences and creative experience of
infrastructure that have been built recently. The social media “buzz” measures Facebook
likes, instagram stalks, twitter followers and also the hash tagged on Facebook and instagram.
The importance of channel have increase as it can associate with maximum visitation.
However, according to research reports, it is evaluated that by 2030, millennial will share
maximum share of tourism market as this group will have greater disposable income. Most
importantly, most cities and attractions will be leveraging the new technology to approach
consumers and can make the offer more attractive. Most creative attractions and destinations
needs strong online base that have transformed the travel reaches for instance- it is one of the
most profound effect on tourism industry. When booking for a trip, nearly 90 percent of
millennial plan to the travel activities on the basis of content page by peers online. The
industry is influenced from certain factors such as enhanced customer services as vast
presence of brands is there due to presence of social media.
Visitor experience development
The two major influencing factors of potential experience of this industry of Melbourne can
be-

Melbourne`s landscape and its flora and fauna are the vital component of Australia.
Moreover, “buzz” who measures the frequency of visiting the site, Facebook page and the
instagram page and it forms the marketing strategies according to millennial as there is a need
to work on social media promotions. The other frequent viewing and visiting the place results
in improvement in the hospitality sector. Moreover, according to global survey, it is seen that
cultural preferences in Melbourne is attracting other countries (Harrison, 2019).
Conclusion
From the above analysis and evaluation, it can be seen that Travel and tourism is one of the
fastest growing industries but at the same time, the sector is quite exposed to diverse disaster
risks. Each year, any part of the world suffers from tornado, tsunami, tropical storms, and
floods shattering tourist destinations. Although, the place performs considerably well in
offering quality but is not expressive much on social media. Melbourne is very much exposed
to pollution due to operation of big ships on ports, which hampers the marine life, and further
it does not have enough food for the tourists. The place has to consider the several potential
hazards and risks that could bully your destination, such as natural hazards, technological
factors, biological factors, and civil/political hazards. Poor quality food can create health-
related problems among the tourists. This disruption will lead to disruption in business
operations, spoiled reputation, revenue margin, and decrease in capital investment in the
tourist industry. Young generation will aid to develop the technology, transportation,
luxurious staying places, and will improve the entertainment industry. In addition to this, an
induced contribution way of spending of employees and professionals rely more on food and
beverages, clothing, natural food habitats, enjoying the recreational areas, cool clothing
according to the climate. Managing the crisis ongoing will lead to integration and
implantation of several comprehensive determination that organisations put in order to firstly
understand and prevent the crisis, and to effectively manage those actions and finally taking

into consideration every step of their development and training activities, and also the interest
of their stakeholders. Tourism is positioned in hazard prone areas at huge risk after
considering the harsher demonstrations of nature's diverse characteristics. Earlier stages of
the Tourism 2030 project, the industry endorsed the aim of driving economic pace when
retaining a close strategic link between the qualities of the visitor experience. As a transport
operator, it is important to create a platform that can provide the visitor with an experience
that takes the visitor on a journey to or from the destination.

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