Tour Operations Management: Roles, Functions, and Package Holiday Creation

Tour Operations
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Different roles addition to functions of tour operators range......................................................3
Explanation of scale as well as structure of tour operating industry...........................................6
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................7
Outlining various stages as well as components for creating package holiday...........................7
Define and forecast changes in consumer demand by using sources of research.......................9
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................11
Review the content of range of packages tour programmes which serve similar product market
....................................................................................................................................................11
Comparing and contrasting a range of package tour programmes which serve a similar product
market........................................................................................................................................12
Evaluation of range of package tour programmes which are serving similar product market. .13
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................14
Explanation with examples of strategic and tactical decision making in tour operations.........14
Assessment of external factors which affects adversely strategic and tactical decision and
recommend response..................................................................................................................15
Critical evaluation of strategic and tactical decisions ...............................................................16
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Tour operation management is defined as imperative task wherein entities prepares
holiday packages along with elaborated information in context to tour. In other words, tour
operation management can be mentioned as effectual process wherein tourism companies plan
standard quality travelling packages and manage them properly. The main work of business
concerns in this task is to attract tourists across nation together with increasing sales turnover of
operators of tour (Allahyari, Salari and Vigo, 2015). Tour and travel sector offers various
facilities to customers in order to make the trip memorable addition to comfortable. For
understanding tour operations management. TUI Company is chosen which performs activities in
Travel and Tourism industry. Its head offices were established at Luton, England and serves the
wide area of United Kingdom. The products offered by selected business concern are package
holidays, hotels and resorts, Charter as well as Scheduled passenger airline along with cruise
lines.
The present assessment includes information about roles, functions, types, scale and
structure of tour operating sector. It also includes different stages so to develop package holiday.
Further, it assess various tour programme range for meeting needs of targetted market. At last, it
examines various strategic along with tactical decisions that are framed by tour operators.
TASK 1
Different roles addition to functions of tour operators range.
Definition of tour operating business
Tour operating business can be mentioned as the organisation that purchases individual
travel essentials, separately from suppliers so to combine them in particular trip package that is
offered with price tag to targetted customer either directly or with the help of middlemen. This
type of business is owned by a person in which they transports paying holidaymaker on
organised itineraries together with makes arrangement for potential customers related to
accommodation, conveyance along with excursions. TUI Company is also a tour operating
business that works for organising addition to preparing variety of holiday tours (Evans,
Stonehouse and Campbell, 2012).
Tour operators performs wide types of business activities. One of business activity is to
devise, set up and promote options for holidays and travel so to execute proper arrangements.

Moreover, they also performs consultation services wherein they provide advices and solution to
customers in terms of where to go, best means to reach any destination and many more. For
instance, TUI Company, being a tour operator, it performs business activities related to drawing
travelling itineraries, provides advises for distinct travel destinations, makes arrangements for
conveyance, tours along with accommodation, contacts airlines, ground transport entities and
hotels, uses computer database in order to research information for fares of hotel accommodation
and ratings, performs general administration tasks, plans and promotes travelling packages, deals
with payments and evaluates customer's holidays so to issue suitable feedback forms.
Types of tour operators:
Tour operators are the travel agents which have specialisation in package holidays. These
operators combines tour as well as travelling components on order to frame a holiday package.
Moreover, they advertise together with produces brochures for promoting the set products,
itineraries as well as holidays (DiPietro, Cao and Partlow, 2013). These are generally responsible
to put essentials of tour ingredients, promoting them, making reservations together with properly
handling actual operations. Following are some tour operator types:
Mass market operators: These are the tour operators which organises tours for mass
population at a time. They requires understanding of entire tourism sector very well and have
knowledge for most affordable routes addition to transportation modes. For example, TUI
company is well popular as mass market tour operator because of selling holidays which request
to mass population of holiday makers.
Independent operators: The tour operator which organises things for themselves despite
of using any travelling institution or company. In other words, independent tour operators are
said to the single agency which are specialises in arranging hotels, flights and many more.
Domestic operators: The tour operator that manages travelling operations with nations
boundary are domestic tour operators. They assist in promotions for beauty, diversity as well as
culture of nation against population of country along with frames tour packages as per customers
interest, preference and choice (Bazargan, 2016).
Incoming operators: Incoming tour operators are described to the travelling
organisations that offers local services to travellers in location, including car rental, sightseeing
and many more. These operators also provides services for exhibitions addition to conferences to
travellers.

Outbound operators: These trip operators are specialised for creating and promoting
multi national holiday trips. They offers tourism packages to people or group of people of their
own country and another nation for particular decided time frame. Moreover, they also arranges
documents the purpose of travelling such as visas, conveyance to starting location, local
sightseeing and many more.
Functional roles of tour operators:
There are various roles and functions which tour operation business performs. In context
to TUI Company, following are its main function and roles:
Functional roles of tour operator: Tour operators are basically popular as service
providers to travellers in terms of visiting, staying as well as exploring the city or nation.
Different functions in relevance to TUI company are underneath:
 Product development: One of important function of tour operator is to develop the
product in accordance to traveller needs and choices. The entire production department of
TUI company sits and ensures that they have accurate marketing mix of destinations,
concepts along with hotels for matching customer demand. They tour operating company
analyses customers choices and develops suitable product for travelling aspect.
 Marketing and sales: Tour operators also have role of marketing and selling tourist
products. In relevance with TUI Company, it makes huge tour packages within distinct
market including national and international so that sales volumes at hight level are
achieved. In marketing of tourist products, key roles are played by tourist operators.
 Advising customers: Tour operators plays function of advising customers about
available packages as per the budget. For example, TUI Company provides advises about
various destinations of travelling that suits the interest of customers (De Sausmarez,
2013).
 Travel information: Tour operators also execute function for delivering necessary travel
information to wide travellers. In relevance with TUI UK, the tour operator execute
function for providing up to date, timely as well as accurate information related to
destinations, accommodations, immigration, travelling modes and rules that permit
travelling for specific location or area.
 Operations support: Tour operators also supports other operational areas such as
planning accommodation, controlling hospitality services and many more. Tour operator,

such as TUI Company plays key role of supporting operations so that maximum
hospitality products and services are provided to customers that satisfies their choices
together with interests.
Explanation of scale as well as structure of tour operating industry
Position of tour operators in distribution chain
Tour departing industry is wide industry that includes huge types of tour operators.
Within UK, the estimated worth of Tour Operator industry is approximately £14.9bn because of
existence of various top trip operators (Tour Operating Industry, 2020). The distribution chain
explains the involvement of agents or operators within the travelling industry are linked with
each other. At present, the top positioned tour operators in the chain of distributing tourism
services and products are TUI Company, Jet2 along with Thomas Cook. Along with this, various
other tour operators that are also positioned on high ranks in the industry are British Airways
Holidays, Kuoni and Explore (Evans, Stonehouse and Campbell, 2012).
Profiles of key tour operators:
Key tour operators in tourism industry of UK are TUI Company and . Their profiles
which differentiate them from other tour operators are as discussed below:
TUI Company: It is one of top positioned tour operator whose origins lie within
industrial as well as transportation entity Preussag AG, that was originally set up as mining
company in Germany. From September 2007, the ownership of 55% TUI Company was within
new entity, TUI Travel Plc. Considering its market segment, the company divides entire market
as per behavioural and demographic aspects which are segmented as per attitude towards brand,
usage rate and many more. The company follows structure of tourism development in which the
entity provides updated information to customers in context to all related things in the tourism
industry so that they can enhance their proportion of tourists. Tourism Information Board is the
main authority that operates the structure for tourism industry. In terms of the scale, the
company have approx 70000 employees who are liable to serve more than 100 nations through
its products and services. It is analysed that it offers 27 million comprehensive services to its
customers from single source that differentiate the tour operator from others.
Jet2: The another top poisoned tour operator if Jet2 when is highly competitive entity of
TUI Group. It is evaluated that the tour operator has its origin from Dart Group which is an
aviation service addition to distribution group. The tour operator initiated its activities in 1983