Tourism Operations Management

TOUR OPERATION
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Analysing the effects of current and recent trends and developments of tour operator’s
industry........................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Assessing the time-scales involved in developing this holiday.............................................5
2.2 Evaluating the suitability of different methods of contracting for different components of
the Holiday...................................................................................................................................7
2.3 Calculating the selling price of a holiday from given information below.............................8
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Evaluating the planning decisions taken for the design of the brochure...............................9
3.2 Assessing the suitability of alternatives to a traditional printed brochure...........................11
3.3 Evaluating the suitability of different methods of distribution used to sell a holiday.........11
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................12
4.1 Evaluate the strategic decisions made by different types of tour operator..........................12
4.2 Comparing the tactical decisions that could be taken by a selected tour operator in different
situations....................................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................15
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Index of Tables
Table 1: Selling price of tour...........................................................................................................9
Table 2: Calculation of selling price for Chinese students for 5 days...........................................10
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INTRODUCTION
Tour operation industry is an important constituent of travel and tourism sector. For
offering various services as a completed package to the customers, tour operator plays a
significant role (Bernick and Boo, 2013). To provide tour and travel services and to increase the
growth of company, business of tour operation is engaged and linked with other businesses. To
create a package holiday, a tour operator combines several tours and travel components such as
transportation, accommodation and other facilitates. Tour operator advertises and produces
brochures with a motive to promote their products, holidays and itineraries in UK or outside the
country. Tour operation management is controlled and maintained by the tour operator. With the
help of this, it offers a wide range of services to the customers. Apart from that, they also play a
vital role in promoting a destination. Present report is based on Thomson Holiday, a UK based
travel operator and subsidiary of TUI group. The headquarters of Thomson UK are in Luton,
England (Thomson holiday. About us, 2016). Purpose of the report is to understand tour
operators industry, stages involved in creating holidays, brochures and methods of distribution
used to sell holidays, strategic and tactical decision making. To achieve the purpose, report
explains the tour operator agency within travel and tourism sector. Furthermore, different stages
involved in creating holidays are explained in this report.
TASK 1
1.1 Analysing the effects of current and recent trends and developments of tour operator’s
industry
For developed countries, tourism industry has become one of the economic drivers.
Standard growth rate of tourism sector is quite better as compared to growth rate in other sectors.
Different trends and developments have occurred in tour industry that is driving change in the
whole sector (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2012). Some recent and current trends that affect the tour
operational company are as follows: E- commerce- Adoption of e-commerce results in all things are going to be online
Hence, this is the revolutionary change in all business markets. This is because; people
choose cheaper and low cost products and services through internet. In recent scenario,
most of the customers book their ticket online (Page, 2011). This makes them easier and
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