TOUR OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

TOUR OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................ 4
1.1 INFLUENCE OF CURRENT AND RECENT TRENDS ON TOUR OPERATOR INDUSTRY...............4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................ 7
2.1 ASSESSING STAGES AND TIMESCALE IN DEVELOPMENT OF HOLIDAY.....................................7
2.2 DIFFERENT METHODS OF CONTRACTING AND ITS SUITABILITY AND EVALUATION FOR
DIFFERENT TOUR OPERATOR AND HOLIDAY COMPONENTS.........................................................9
2.3 CALCULATION OF SELLING PRICE OF HOLIDAY FOR GIVEN DATA..........................................11
TASK 3.......................................................................................................................................... 12
3.1 EVALUATION OF DECISION FOR PLANNING FOR A BROCHURE..........................................12
3.2 ASSESSMENT OF SUITABILITY TO REPLACEMENTS OF A TRADITIONAL BROCHURE AND
RECOMMENDATION OF MOST SUITABLE FOR THE LUXURY HOLIDAYS...................................14
3.3 EVALUATION OF SUITABILITY OF VARIOUS METHODS TO PROMOTE HOLIDAYS AND
RECOMMEND APPROPRIATE ONE FOR LUXURY HOLIDAYS.....................................................15
TASK 4.......................................................................................................................................... 17
4.1 EVALUATION OF STRATEGIC DECISION TAKEN BY DIFFERENT TYPES OF TOUR OPERATOR
................................................................................................................................................. 17
4.2 COMPARISON OF TACTICAL DECISIONS TAKEN BY SELECTED TOUR OPERATOR IN VARIOUS
SITUATIONS.............................................................................................................................. 18
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 19
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................20

INTRODUCTION
Tour Operator management refers to managing several holiday packages which are being
prepared by organizations for its staff members. A tour operator package refers to a holiday
package in which all the detailed information about the package is mentioned such as
destination, mode of transportation, holiday description, organizers, security arrangements etc.
Tour Operations management is very important for the travel and tourism industry because it
seeks out new opportunities for destinations along with satisfying the ever-changing needs of
travellers. In this particular assignment, a leaflet is prepared by the tour operator company
named ‘Trailfinders' which is one of the largest travel companies in the UK. The assignment will
cover a detailed study of its operations in the tourism industry and the existing trends in the
tour operations management. In the later sections of this assignment, various steps involved in
the creation of holiday packages by the tour operator companies is briefed. In the next
segment, the analysis is done for the assessment of various stages and methods for contracting
the tour components with respect to the development of holidays. In Continuation, various
aspects of working in the marketing team of the tourism industry and planning decisions for
selecting a particular brochure for an alternate traditional brochure for different types of tour
operators are also explained. In the later sections, various suitable methods of distribution of a
holiday for different tour operators are examined along with an evaluation of decisions made
by various tour operators.

TASK 1
1.1 INFLUENCE OF CURRENT AND RECENT TRENDS ON TOUR OPERATOR
INDUSTRY
LEAFLET
INTRODUCTION TO TOUR OPERATOR
COMPANY – TRAILFINDERS
A tour operator company helps to facilitate
different types of travellers from around
the globe. Tours operator companies play a
vital role in providing holiday packages both
at domestic level and international level.
Trailfinders is a tour operator company in
the UK and provides holiday packages for
various countries like Australia, New
Zealand, African Countries etc. This
company provides a lot of services to its
customers like Clinic Services, Travel
Essentials, Passport Services, Visa Services
and much more. Some additional holiday
packages that trail finders provide is
accommodation, sightseeing and food
services (Moutinho, et al., 2013).
RECENT TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS
In the present market scenario tour
operator companies like trail finders
provide a lot of services like online booking
facility of holiday packages, Latest offers
such as red-hot offers, beach holiday offers,
flight offers, family holiday offers and much
more. Some additional offers also include
independent travellers and senior citizens.
EFFECT OF RECENT TRENDS
These trending trends and developments in
the tour operator companies attract more
and more tourist from all corners of the
world. People also get attracted on social
media platforms like Facebook when tour
operator companies like trail finders
advertise their latest offers for several
destinations. Social media is a becoming a
bigger platform for tour operating
companies to market and advertise their
holiday packages and by doing so it attracts
one-fourth population of the entire world.
By providing offers on airline travels the

connectivity of people in reaching these
holidays destinations is increasing now a
day’s which also increases the businesses of
the tour operating companies.
NICHE TOURISM
Figure1:NicheTourism
Source:[http://www.travelbizmonitor.c
om/Features/incredible-india-going-
niche-8721]
Niche tourism refers to a type of tourism
intended for a separate audience that
means audiences that are interested in a
particular type of tourism such as cultural
tourism, medical tourism, rural tourism etc.
Niche tourism is also broadly classified into
various segments such as Photographic
tourism, adventure tourism, wildlife
tourism etc. Tour operator companies like
trail finders target these special tourists and
provide many offers to facilitate them
(Marson, 2011).
USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
FOR TRAILFINDERS
In the present market scenario, it becomes
essentially important for tour operator
companies to utilize the right distribution
technology for accessing the large customer
base and make their products readily
available for them by use of technology
(Masron, et al., 2016). This way technology
will help a tour operator to increase its
distribution both offline and online. Some
technological developments include online
booking system which provides various
facilities such as reservation, currency and
language services, real-time bookings,
online payment options and much more.
Another aspect includes the use of channel
manager as implemented by Trailfinders, in
which the channel manager is a system
which allows the tour and activity operators
to manage all channels of distribution. For
example, the tour operator of Trailfinders
Company works with the online travel
agents (OTA), hotel concierges, global
distribution systems, local visitor centres in
order to sell its products and services. Some
important tour operator software’s like
revenue management also help in
customization and personalization of

products which can easily manage multiple travel services offered by tour operating
companies (Grainger,2016).