Strategic Planning for Tourism and Leisure: A Case Study of London

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Strategic Planning for Tourism and Leisure
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Part 2................................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
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Introduction
Travel and tourism industry is a booming industry. It is expected that these industries will
flourish in coming years. Since the demands, supply and marketing plans have been integrated
and upcoming challenges in the modern tour industries, well strategic plans will be required to
function and withstand in the world market scenario. In this assignment, discussions will be done
about the benefits in creating strategic plans in tourism and how London is getting benefits in
tourism. The economic spatial or physical approaches in developing tourism industries and its
implementation will be elaborated. In the final part, it will highlight how reusing the historic
buildings have contributed in the development of strategic tourism plans especially in London
tourism. The example of reusing the historic buildings in London tourism will be focused along
with its benefits and impact on society and economy.
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Part 1
A. Examine the benefits of producing tourism strategic plans and give an example of a
destination that has benefited from it.
Planning is integral to the success of a tour and travel industry in managing and development of
the organization (Godfrey and Clarke, 2000). Thus, has been used widely with different
principles in development of tourism. Researcher Moutinho has given an idea about strategic
planning in tourism should be following the sceptical analysis (Moutinho et al., 2011). The
acronym stands for Social-Cultural-Economic-Physical-Technical-International-Communication
& infrastructure-Administrative & institutional-Legal & political factors. Social factors include
urbanization, geographic changes, etc. The cultural factors are emerging global cultures, social
perspectives etc. The economic factors include income and generating revenue at national and
regional level. The physical & technical factors are connected to the ecology and advancing
technologies. The international factors are related to visa and passport, international laws for
tourists etc. The administrative & institutional factors are applied on tourism are related to law
firms, tourism section, consumer groups, etc. Finally, the legal & political factors on planning
tourism are related in modifying important laws and regulations and power of government on
tourism. Europe is a country that has been benefitted extremely from the travel and tourism
industries especially the central Europe. The future of the market is depending on making proper
plans and strategies related to tourism (Dredge and Jenkins, 2007).
There are three general principles for tourism planning such as, anticipation, regulation, and
lastly monitoring (Awedyk and Niezgoda, 2018). Anticipation is involved in generating
projections regarding the future shape of the tourism based on the data (primary and
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secondary). On the other hand, regulation, maintains the rules and policies of the tourist and tour
organizations. Lastly, monitoring is associated to the analysis of the data collected for checking
the performance of the tour industry. A strategic planning will lead to the future success of the
local and regional places that may bring economic prosperity at large. Tourism has an enormous
effect on people’s lives and the places they live in. Good policies and strategic planning are
needed to ensure sustainability and competition, which will provide maximum profit
(Broadhurst, 2001). Therefore, the travel and tourism organizations should introduce improved
plans to enhance people welfare, leisure and happiness. A comprehensive study is required in
identifying the possible ways in designing the tourism plans. The strategic plans based on spatial
or physical scale might be of national, local, regional or island features. The tourism itself has
made possible in fulfilling the strategic plans. The complexity of the tour and tourism sector is
identified by means of strategic plans too.
The objectives and goals should be set up for accomplishing the strategies. The strategic
planning in the industry of tourism has several benefits. The strategic planning helps in setting up
a direction in which tourism should operate. It helps in the development of different proactive
organizations as well. The strategies help to accelerate the efficiency of operation of the tour
industry. The plans also seem to elevate the market shares and gaining revenue. The strategic
planning also ensures the durability of the tourism business. With the implementation of the
strategic planning London has been benefitted (Couch, 2017). London had been selected as one
of the greatest destinations in the world. The visitors, travellers, residents, workers, students, etc.
have voted for London as best tour and travel destination. London’s high level of living,
dynamic status, and energy has made it stand as a global city. The diversity and availability of its
heritage have strengthen London, a as a leading destination for the travellers. Approximately, 26
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million people visit London per year. In recent times, it has faced severe recession and tough
economic downfall. At that time, the management took an Economic Recovery Action plan that
helped them to recover the lost resources and rebuild its existence.
The tourism organization has helped officially by giving extra funds and delivered several
campaigns to promote and attract Visit London tourism plan (Horner and Swarbrooke, 2016).
These approaches have provided benefits and help to continue its growth. Another strategic plan,
promote London Council has helped in promoting Olympic London 2012 and Paralympics
Games. The objective of this plan was to attract worldwide audience during the games and
providing opportunities to the showing off the London city to the travellers from all around the
world. They created a new market in the games sections. Therefore, this action plan of tourism
has played a unique and important role in inspiring its city and its heritage.
Thereafter, the London Tourism Action Plan 2009-13 appears (Maxim, 2016). Since London was
recognized as a leading city and its rapid advancement in, becoming a global destination it will
generate lifetime memorable experiences to the travellers and visitors. The strategic plans under
this scheme are based on transforming London to a global city, providing experiences of best
qualities, sustainable city, maintaining professionalism, working in collaboration with the
industries and partnership. The action plan meant to make successful in 2012 London Olympic
Games and Paralympics Games. Secondly, the focus will be on supplying the essential tourism
materials to achieve success in the games and post-games events (Ealing.gov.uk, 2019).
Thirdly, the plan for 2009-13 was proposed to enable profitable tourism legacy. Thus, the
tourism action plans help in recognizing the possible risks and remedies by which the economy
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can be increased. By implementing the London Action Plans, London has attracted
approximately 15 million visitors worldwide. The tourism has helped to create 253,000 jobs.
This has resulted in visitor’s expenditure of approximately £22 billion in London city. London is
an important city of the UK and it contributed at large extent in the country’s economy. About
75% of visitors come in UK though the London gateway and 45% of them stay in London to
visit overseas. From the games plans London tourism has been benefitted by attracting visitors
those are athletes, sponsors, media, trainers, audience associated with the games and additional
tourists generated from inspired games (Ealing.gov.uk, 2019).
B. Evaluate at least one planning approach (i.e, Economic, Spatial/Physical, Collaborative,
Community based Approach, Co-operative approach etc.) for tourism development and
illustrate your evaluation with an example of where this planning approach has been
implemented. Discuss the pros and cons of this approach.
The tour operation industry has been evolved as a new shift that has influenced on the
environment, society, politics, and technological perspectives (Brotchie et al., 2017). The
planning approaches implicated on the tourism industry have been progressed as comprehensive,
systematic, and flexible manner. The planning approaches are executed to obtain a sustainable
tourism. The effect can be observed in terms of economic, cultural, social, and political
advancements. The planning approaches are specifically region bound and therefore cannot be
utilized to another regions. Planning theories are crucial to obtain benefits from the tourism
sectors. The approaches in planning are consist of several stages varying from national to
international levels. There are many approaches available such as Community based,
Collaborative, Economic, Spatial or Physical, and Co-operative approach. The community-based
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approach in tourism is where the local people including poor, rural and economically backward
classes make requests to tourists for visiting their local communities.
They have provision for overnight accommodation. In this case, community is focused more for
the development process. The collaborative approach has been implemented to extend the
territories and industries. On the other hand, cooperative approach and regional wealth are well
co-related where many cooperatives are involved such as government agencies, administrative
bodies, public and private sectors. Economic approach is rather focus on generating profits and is
based on foreign exchange, supply, demand, employment, expenditure and other economic
factors. The spatial or physical planning approach is a vital theme for planning with an aim on
the physical changes and planning in different sections of the tourism industry. It is very
important because the spatial planning has led to elevate sustainability.
Evaluation of spatial/physical approach:
The physical or spatial planning approach of tourism utilizes the land use. This gives the
ecological base for the development linked to spatial patterns (Coccossis and Mexa, 2017). Lack
in capacity would result in negative impact on the physical environment of tourism. The main
objectives of this planning approach are to recognize risks and hazards, landscape, capacity,
resource, allocation, and development of the management process. However, the main motive of
this approach is to maintain and control the land use, physical structure for attracting tourists,
carrying capacities, etc. for creating tourism. The appropriate spatial planning would help to
reduce capacities beyond the environment as well as social tolerance limit of the destinations.
This will help to reduce the negative projections on the environment too. A well-designed
destination, layout and infrastructure would also convince the visitors to visit the destinations.
By using this spatial strategies, protection of nature and environment would be done for
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sustained tourism. However, it has few drawbacks including controlled capacities and number of
building and structures would result in less profit due to high demand of tourist to build new
structures across the world. This approach also exhibited less emphasis on the cultural and social
factors of the destinations.
The role of spatial/physical planning approach in developing sustainable tourism in Europe
The primary gain in implementing the spatial/physical planning in tourism would be to achieve
economic and environmental sustainability. It has a vital role in improving the quality of lives
too. Every country has their own planning systems; however, spatial planning is categorized into
regional planning, urban planning and national-translational planning. Additionally, urban
designing and architectural designing to construct building, complex, etc. are falling under the
spatial planning. The decisions are granted by the government agencies in a top down approach
mode. In some cases, the regional and national bodies also take part in making policies. The
urban planning as well designing are involved in assessing space and land use for the
development of tourism. Industrialization, economical and modernization has contributed in
expanding the European cities (Schmal, 2018). Large immigration loads from all over the world
has also turned the rural parts into urban areas and cities.
These loads had changed the infrastructure for large tourists to visit the country and experience
the best. For instance, metro rails ways and underground railways were introduced so that a large
number of people can easily roam and travel. The increasing flows of tourists have contributed to
alter various small cities. Building large and tall complexes, hotels, shopping malls from small
terminals; new airports on land strips, biotech and industrial parks and many more. Mega resorts
are in new fashion, which can be found in Costa del Sol, Spain. The capital cities, London have
shown development in terms of business linked travel.
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There are historical cities such as, Durham, Bath, Oxford, Salisbury, Chester, Stratford-upon-
Avon, Cambridge, Greenwich, Canterbury, Lancaster, Lincoln, Carlisle, York etc. These
historical cities act as magnets to attract the tourists from the entire world. Therefore, these
places are serving as the factors to mobilising to urban cities. Today the European cities having
historical importance have attracted many tourists towards Paris, Palaces of World Fairs, Eiffel
tower, boulevards, etc. The palaces, museums, institution, churches including Ringstrasse are the
main attractions in Vienna. According to UNESCO ‘The Castles and Town Walls of King
Edward in Gwynedd’ has been recognized as a World Heritage Site. Another example would be
the most historically important town Warwick.
In order to make a sustainable city London has implemented the spatial/physical planning
approach with some objectives such as:
 Addressing and managing the architectural gap to maintain the tax burden.
 Managing and improving wastewater, water, and storm water treatment and services
 Managing and upgrading transportation system, heritage bridges, railways, parking lots, etc.
 Increasing efforts in the recovery of resources and waste management
 Innovative fund appraisal to improve climate change
In the preservation of beautiful places and spaces, London spatial planning has contributed to:
 Invested in public and private spaces to occur gathering events in congested neighbourhoods:
can be achieved by London’s Downtown Plan, Civic Spaces Program, The London Plan (city
design)
 Supporting the public arts and maintenance of those arts: can be achieved by public art
strategy, The London Plan (culturally rich and diverse city and City Design)
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 Creating and designing attractive urban city: can be achieved by Urban Design Program, The
London Plan (City Design)
 Investing on facilities such as recreation, parks, ecological garden, amusement parks, science
city, etc.: can be achieved by The London Plan (Parks & Recreation), and Parks and
Recreation Strategic Master Plan
 Investing in transforming the riverfront of London to make it attractive and beautiful: can be
achieved by implementing Thames Valley Corridor Plan.
Pros and cons of spatial planning approach:
Europe especially London, is restricted with some legal limits and therefore is facing challenges.
The spatial planning approach along with other approaches should be combined and
implemented accordingly. There are also some crises. For example, visiting The London Eye
takes longer queues, administrative problems like online-booked tickets do not arrive in time
even the cost is high as £90 per four people only. The impatient tourists pushing in situations are
worst. However, spatial planning is necessary for the British Planning System.
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Part 2
A. Assess how the reuse of historic buildings contributes to strategic tourism development.
Give one example of a historic building in London that is used for tourism, leisure, and
events functions and how it benefits its local area socially and economically.
London is recognized as the leading global city for tourism and its popularity as a tourist
destination is constantly evolving. Moreover, the tourism industry of London contributes to the
economic success of the city (Carlisle et al., 2016). The city devises strategic plans for the
development of tourism. The mayor plans range of statutory and non-statutory body for
strategies within the policy framework within the set action plan (Tribe, 2016). One of the major
concerns is the historic buildings. The government and tourism planners can use the historical
architecture to attract both inbound tourists and the local people. Historic buildings holds great
significance, as it depicts the cultural heritage of the nation.
It is responsibility of the government as well as public and private enterprises to promote the
historical building’s usage. London is filled with different historical architecture. The historic
environment is quite precious but of fragile heredity. Since year 1991, the historical heritages are
under the threat of redundancy, dilapidation, and neglect. According to the English heritage,
approximately 1000 buildings were identified to be under the risk. Therefore, the English
Heritage is utilising the resources to adapt these historical buildings by using it for different
purposes to make it sustainable. Since then many historical buildings in London were renovated
and turned into different business hubs. The buildings are recreational places, home for popular
hotels, restaurants, and cafes, museums, and theatres or event clubs. However, some buildings
are still utilised by the royal family of United Kingdom.
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