Family Resorts in Whitsunday: An Analysis of the Tourism Market

This report analyzes the family resort segment within the hospitality sector in Whitsunday and the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland. It discusses the importance of family resort services to the local community, highlighting their contribution to employment and the regional economy. The report identifies external factors impacting the family resort segment, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal aspects. It emphasizes the crucial role of technology in attracting global visitors and promoting tourism services. The study concludes that hospitality organizations should enhance service features and collaborate with international travel agencies for sustainable growth, particularly in light of increasing demand and evolving tourist preferences, further supported by Queensland's tourism initiatives. Desklib offers this and similar solved assignments to aid students in their studies.

Running head: HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MARKET
Hospitality and Tourism market
Name of the Student
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Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Chosen segment –Family Resort from hospitality sector..........................................................2
Importance of Family Resort services to the local community..................................................2
External factors impacting family resort segment.....................................................................4
Discussing the factors influencing the success of business.......................................................5
Business is reacting to the stated factors and meeting the needs of changing landscape
through innovation and adaptation.............................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
This article is about the Family Resort segment provided by hospitality organization
in Whitsunday and Great Barrier Reef. Whitsunday is situated at the core of Great Barrier
Reef on the Queensland coast. It has been identified that the vast section of Whitsunday
islands are uninhabited national park island; however, these four islands offer a great variety
of resort accommodation. On the other side, Great Barrier Reef is blessed with stunning
beauty of world’s biggest coral reef which contains a vast marine life containing over 3000
individual reef system. Family Resort has become a significant business segment in these
two islands due to the growing demand of hospitality services caused by increasing tourists’
visits to the island.
Chosen segment –Family Resort from hospitality sector
It is certain that hospitality sector in Whitsunday provides a wide range of services but
Family Resort in the recent times creates an enormous impact on the sector due to
outstanding natural island views and demands of consumers about experiencing the island
life. However, Dredge and Jamal (2013) mentioned that natural beauty of Whitsunday island
is damaged by the destruction caused by Cyclone Debbie. In addition to this, visitors in
Whitsunday lack interest in see diving, fishing and other recreational activities as different
accident and injuries such as shark attack in Whitsunday leaves visitors with critical injuries.
For example, According to ABC News (2018) mentioned that 46 year old woman was
swimming from a charter yacht in Cid Harbour at Whitsunday and she was bitted on upper
right leg by a giant shark. Thus, to avoid such injuries, hospitality organizations should
implement major necessary safety measures. Organizations with their state government of
Queensland comply with the initiatives of applying the sanctioned five point plan to ensure

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safety at the island. Mahadevan (2014) also mentioned that Great Barrier Reef has been
affected by category-four storm.
Importance of Family Resort services to the local community
Family Resort services at Whitsunday have created an enormous impact because
several small size agencies are offering kid club services, skipper club and fishing service to
the visited consumers at the resorts. To provide and maintain these services, agencies
including the hotel organizations are hiring people, who have living reef and wildlife
experience from the local communities in Whitsunday. This is certainly contributing to the
employment of the region. In addition, the estimated Gross Regional Product (GRP) for the
year 2016 was near $3.6 billion.

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Figure 1: Gross Regional Product, Whitsunday
(Source: Coghlan 2013)
In addition to this, the jobs in Whitsunday is observed to be stronger in the period 2013 to
2016 as Prideaux, Carmody and Pabel (2017) provided the data set that resident worker
growth in Whitsunday has increased by 5.6%. Furthermore, the major consumers in
Whitsunday regions are the visitors from southern, interstate and eastern seaboard markets,
particularly Melbourne, Sydney as well as NZ markets. The major consumer types are family
members with kids, newly wed couples and retired corporate employees.
External factors impacting family resort segment
Political factor: Existing state government of Queensland is keen to sanction the
development plan for resorts in Whitsunday along with the focus of developing dive tourism
base near the resorts (Coghlan 2013).
Economic Factor: Due to the growth and establishment of Family resort in
Whitsunday, Queensland economy has persistently performed at great level reporting 13.6%
to the Gross Regional product (Konovalov, Murphy and Moscardo 2013).
Social Factor: Resort areas in Whitsunday surrounded the crowds of different
cultural background and it is particularly noted that concentration of overseas visitors is
greater than the domestic visitors in the regions (Esparon et al. 2015). Due to visits of
foreigners in the region, island culture is being globally promoted.
Technological factor: The state government of Queensland has paid a significant
attention to technological innovation. Consequently, family resort service agencies find the
opportunity to promote their tourism services globally through social media channels
(Hughes, Day and Brodie 2015).

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Environmental Factor: Undoubtedly, Whitsunday family resorts have abundance of
natural resources; however, natural calamity such as cycle Debbie has caused several
damages to island areas and created risks for the visitors.
Legal: Due to the emergence of family resort segment in hospitality sector, the state
government of Queensland has reformed and imposed taxation policies on international
tourism brands (Prideaux, Carmody and Pabel 2017).
Discussing the factors influencing the success of business
Among the above stated factors, it is worth mentioning that technological factor is the
most crucial one because through digital platform, Family Resort service providers are able to
attract the global visitors (Coghlan 2013). The marketers find it easy to promote their services
to a wide platforms. The global promotion through social media is a significant breakthrough
of their ongoing tourism development.
Business is reacting to the stated factors and meeting the needs of changing
landscape through innovation and adaptation
Family Resort business in Whitsunday seek to develop the resort services adding
more innovative and entertaining elements. This is because tourists from overseas are visiting
the regions; thus, marketers are trying to offer more attractive services such as diving, fishing
and pool party near the island and many more. This is fully supported by State’s tourism
sector.

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Conclusion
In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that as there is an increasing demand of Family
Resort services in Whitsunday, hospitality organizations should promote and include more
service features for the sustainability, by tying up with international travel agencies. This
would help to attract more visitors to the regions and business as whole will experience a
sustainable growth.

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References
Coghlan, A., 2013. 10 Last chance tourism on the Great Barrier Reef. Last chance tourism:
Adapting tourism opportunities in a changing world, p.133.
Dredge, D. and Jamal, T., 2013. Mobilities on the Gold Coast, Australia: Implications for
destination governance and sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 21(4),
pp.557-579.
ABC News. (2018). 'She was bleeding out': Whitsundays shark attack victim lucky to be
alive. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/tasmanian-tourist-
critical-after-shark-attack-whitsundays-qld/10283232 [Accessed 7 Dec. 2018].
Esparon, M., Stoeckl, N., Farr, M. and Larson, S., 2015. The significance of environmental
values for destination competitiveness and sustainable tourism strategy making: insights from
Australia's Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(5),
pp.706-725.
Hughes, T.P., Day, J.C. and Brodie, J., 2015. Securing the future of the Great Barrier
Reef. Nature Climate Change, 5(6), p.508.
Konovalov, E., Murphy, L. and Moscardo, G., 2013. Measuring tourism: developing a
regional level framework for assessing tourism impacts.
Mahadevan, R., 2014. Understanding senior self-drive tourism in Australia using a
contingency behavior model. Journal of Travel Research, 53(2), pp.252-259.
Prideaux, B., Carmody, J. and Pabel, A., 2017. Impacts of the 2016 and 2017 mass coral
bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef tourism industry and tourism-dependent coastal
communities of Queensland. Report to the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre Limited.

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