Operations Management Report: Go Tours Travel's Supply Chain

This report examines the operations management and supply chain strategies employed by Go Tours Travel, an international travel agency based in Queensland, Australia. The report begins with an introduction to the tourism industry, highlighting its evolution and the increasing competition. It then provides an overview of Go Tours Travel, detailing its services, membership affiliations, and its focus on creating customized travel packages. The core of the report analyzes the company's supply chain management, illustrating the flow of information and services from suppliers (e.g., airlines, hotels) to the end customers (travelers). It highlights the role of Helloworld and Travelife in managing the supply chain, ensuring sustainability, and improving service quality. The report also includes a visual representation of the supply chain and discusses how Go Tours Travel leverages its website and online portal. Finally, it links the company's practices to existing literature on supply chain management, emphasizing the importance of quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. The report concludes by summarizing Go Tours Travel's success in enhancing its operations through effective supply chain management, emphasizing the importance of coordinating local partners, sourcing local products, and protecting clients, staff, suppliers, and the environment.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Operations Management
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Table of contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
About the organization....................................................................................................................2
Supply chain management at Go Tours Travel...............................................................................4
Linkage of literature and supply chain management.......................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The rapid changes in the technologies and the information systems have resulted in the
evolution and modernization of the tourism industry. In the past few years, the tourism industry
all over the world has changed and become more modern with better infrastructure and facilities.
Tourism itself has been a major contributor in the economy of several countries including
Australia. Australia is rich in biodiversity and is blessed with natural beauty. A few major
tourism destinations and Australia comprises of the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Nowadays, the tourism sector faces strong competition from the tourism companies all over the
world (Mahadevan, 2014). This has forced tourism companies to come up with innovative
strategies to gain competitive advantage over the rivals. The rise in the popularity of Internet has
given rise to different types of tourism such as e- tourism etc (Amelung & Nicholls, 2014). The
online forms of tourism have attracted the travelers and tourists from all over the world. Thus,
online tourism has transformed the traditional forms of tourism and has increased the
competitiveness and efficiency of the tourism business. The advancement in technology has
helped the tourism industry to improve its supply chain management. The major goal of supply
chain management is to establish a link between the company’s value chain so that the customers
can be provided with the best quality services and enriched experiences. Supply chain
management involves the integration of the several business processes that begin from the
suppliers and end at the customers (Ruhanen, Whitford & McLennan, 2015). This particular
report analysis the supply chain management utilized by Go Tours Travel Australia.
About the organization
Go Tours Travel is an international travel agency that is located on Queensland Gold
Coast. The company is a family on company that has obtained an authentic license to conduct

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travel and tourism operations. The company arrangers several winter and summer Sports and
arrangers traveling for tourists from all over the globe ("About", 2017). The company arranges
for international as well as domestic travel all over the world and specializes particularly in
making arrangements for surf camps and live aboard boats in various locations such as Maldives,
Fiji, Solomon, Indonesia and Tonga. The company comprises of experienced consultants and
managers along with several independent consultants. The company responds to the the enquiries
of the customers instantly through emails. Go Tours Travel specializes in creating the best travel
packages for its customers. The company is a member of Australian Federation of Travel Agents
(AFTA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA). The company comprises of well
trained travel specialists and consultants, who are capable of designing the best suitable travel
packages for its customers so that the customers can save the time and money in arranging their
holiday or business tours. The company has excellent knowledge of airlines and the booking
systems along with the rules and regulations involved ("About", 2017).
Go Tours Travel has an extensive knowledge of numerous destinations all over the world.
The company serves as a one stop solution for all the travel enquiries and requirements. The
company gives advice to the customers on the ways they can manage their travelling expenses so
that they can satisfy their travel requirements in a more efficient manner. Go Tours Travel
provides quality services and products in accordance with the the budget and the travel
requirements of the customers ("About", 2017). The company also provides emergency
assistance to its customers in the time of need. Go Tours Travel always keeps itself updated with
the latest offers and deals available in the travel destinations. The company is involved in
continuous research process in order to obtain more details regarding the travel destinations all
over the world so that it can establish its connections with the suppliers in those places. Go Tours

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Travel has its own global distribution booking system through which it gains instant access to the
price and availability of hotels, cruises, airlines and car hire. The company also offers local
support to its customers and enables the customers to reach them in case of any trouble ("About",
2017).
Supply chain management at Go Tours Travel
Go Tours Travel focuses upon its supply chain management as it considers it to be an
essential part of its business process. The supply chain management structure of Go Tours Travel
is given below:
Figure 1: Supply chain in Go Tours Travel
(Source: Sigala, 2014)

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The clients of Go Tours Travel are the vacationers or travelers and the tour operators.
They are present toward the finish of the supply chain network. The retailers involve the travel
operators and the travel organizations or agencies. The accomplices in the supply network are the
inns connected up with the association, the airlines, the voyage ships and so forth. The providers
of the supply network are the immediate suppliers of the products and services, which
incorporate transport administrations, food services, lodging facilities, recreational facilities and
so forth to the clients. Through the variety of administrations and with solid coordinated effort
with the providers, the organization means to enhance its operations (Sigala, 2014).
The working theory of the supply chain management at Go Tours Travel is to coordinate
the nearby business accomplices, buy neighborhood products wherever conceivable and
safeguard the clients, the staff, the providers and the earth through the accepted procedures of
operation. The association consequently makes several efforts to work in a joint effort with tour
administrators, travel specialists, and lodging providers to guarantee that the supply chain
management is protected and the end clients get the best tourism encounters (Mangan &
Lalwani, 2016).
Go Tours Travel is a member of Helloworld, which the the leading travel distribution
organization in Australia. Helloworld Travel Limited comprises of air ticket consolidation, retail
travel businesses, destination management services (inbound), wholesale, corporate and online
operations. The company is also a member of Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA).
AFTA was founded in the year 1957 for establishing a proper code of ethics for the travel agents
and agencies. AFTA promotes travel and establishes strong working relationships between the
travel agents and the tourists (Pagell & Shevchenko, 2014). In an attempt to become a
sustainable business, Go Tours Travel has obtained the benefits of Travelife. Travelife

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sustainability system has been a complete solution for the tourism businesses that aim at
becoming sustainable.
Travelife Sustainability framework now gives a steady data innovation framework, which
goes about as a structure for dealing with every one of the exercises of the supply chain over
every one of the sections of the organization. Travelife is an online application, which permits
the tourism industries to screen their supply network activities, self-survey their business
exhibitions over all the zones and evaluate the natural and social effects the business causes.
Through this, the company can evaluate their execution level by means of the review, deal with
their supply chain activities, screen every one of the exercises guarantee that the client shall get
superior administrations (Xu & Gursoy, 2015).
There are different sorts of administrations provided by the association like lodging
servicers, tour and travel packages, tour guidance, voyage administration, and so on. Each of
these administrations intends to draw in clients and to give the best sort of administrations and
encounters to the clients (Ahi & Searcy, 2013). The Go Tours Travel makes utilization of
Travelife to evaluate its present condition of craftsmanship identified with any of the
administrations, through its review reports the organization gets data on the downsides where
there is a requirement for enhancements in the administrations, it can screen the performance of
the providers and subsequently settle on remedial choice on time.
Along these lines, Travelife gives the association the fundamental data which guarantees
the correct working of the supply chain activities over every one of the sections of the
organization’s activities. For example, the voyage or cruise administration action of the
association investigates the administrations of journey- based visits for the clients. The providers

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Suppliers for
food/ lodging/
Voyage/partners
Cruise Concept Stores
End Customer
are checked and overseen by the Travelife framework. The Travelife framework gives normal
reviews with respect to wellbeing and security issues, the foundation and the execution of the
provider for the journey administration (Wang et al., 2015). From the provider, the data streams
to the Cruise concept stores. These stores have practical experience in journey items, and
subsequently voyage visits, occasion visits, arrive based occasion visits and so on. The Cruise
Concept stores are handled by well- trained representatives who have legitimate understanding
and data on voyage items, and other tour and travel related items. In this way from the provider,
the data is identified with each travel and so on is given to these Cruise Concept Stores, which
are deemed to be retailers. These retailer stores are assembled with the end goal that they mirror
the enterprise and security in order to pull in the clients for tourism (Piboonrungroj & Disney,
2015). These Cruise Concept Stores mirror the organization's sense of duty regarding the
abnormal state of custom-made administrations it can offer to the voyage and tourism clients.
The trained operators at these stores give the administrations to the clients who at that point
enlist for some traveler pack. The Cruise administration production network is given underneath:
Figure 2: Cruise management supply chain at Go Tours Travel
(Source: Author’s work)

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Go Tours Travel additionally has its own website portal that contains the necessary
information such as tour packages, trip advisors, booking system, customized planning guide,
contact number and e-mail, online payment facility and many more features. The website of the
company acts as a complete integrated platform that helps the customers in seeking services
easily.
Linkage of literature and supply chain management
From the current literature, it is clear that the principle target of the supply chain
management is to enhance the quality, the proficiency and the benefit of the association by
connecting the value chain of the association. As per Neuhofer, Buhalis & Ladkin (2014), when
an association effectively gets engaged with the activities of supply chain management at both
the provider’s end and at the client’s end, the overall performance of the organization improve
and the effectiveness of the operation increments. Similarly according to Neuhofer, Buhalis &
Ladkin (2013), keeping up a superior nature of products and administrations are the principle
elements of achievement for the business association and this is the thing that client anticipates
that the business will do. As indicated by Gretzel et al (2015), a powerful supply chain
management procedure and practices helps in the synchronization of the errands related with the
supply network. When the data framework is utilized to deal with the supply network then it
empowers legitimate data stream, permits ongoing checking of the exercises, takes into
consideration quick answers to the questions of the client and instant decision making. This
improves the nature of the administrations at each undertaking of the inventory network and
accordingly the general productivity of the supply network upgrades. Due to such upgrade in the
nature of the supply chain, the end clients i.e. the clients get superior nature of items and
administrations. This leads to more noteworthy consumer loyalty.

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Conclusion
Go Tours Travel has been able to enhance its operations by efficiently utilizing its supply
chain management. The company has been successful in establishing connections between the
value chain, which has helped the company in improving the service quality, efficiency and
profitability of the organization. The working theory of the supply chain management at Go
Tours Travel is to coordinate the nearby business accomplices, buy neighborhood products
wherever conceivable and safeguard the clients, the staff, the providers and the earth through the
accepted procedures of operation. The Go Tours Travel makes utilization of Travelife to evaluate
its present condition of craftsmanship identified with any of the administrations, through its
review reports the organization gets data on the downsides where there is a requirement for
enhancements in the administrations, it can screen the performance of the providers and
subsequently settle on remedial choice on time.

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References
About. (2017). Go Tours Travel. Retrieved 24 August 2017, from
http://www.gotours.com.au/about/
Ahi, P., & Searcy, C. (2013). A comparative literature analysis of definitions for green and
sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 52, 329-341.
Amelung, B., & Nicholls, S. (2014). Implications of climate change for tourism in
Australia. Tourism Management, 41, 228-244.
Gretzel, U., Sigala, M., Xiang, Z., & Koo, C. (2015). Smart tourism: foundations and
developments. Electronic Markets, 25(3), 179-188.
Mahadevan, R. (2014). Understanding senior self-drive tourism in Australia using a contingency
behavior model. Journal of Travel Research, 53(2), 252-259.
Mangan, J., & Lalwani, C. (2016). Global logistics and supply chain management. John Wiley
& Sons.
Neuhofer, B., Buhalis, D., & Ladkin, A. (2013). Experiences, co-creation and technology: A
conceptual approach to enhance tourism experiences. CAUTHE 2013: Tourism and
Global Change: On the Edge of Something Big, 562.
Neuhofer, B., Buhalis, D., & Ladkin, A. (2014). A typology of technology‐enhanced tourism
experiences. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(4), 340-350.

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Pagell, M., & Shevchenko, A. (2014). Why research in sustainable supply chain management
should have no future. Journal of supply chain management, 50(1), 44-55.
Piboonrungroj, P., & Disney, S. M. (2015). Supply chain collaboration in tourism: a transaction
cost economics analysis. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 4(3), 25-
31.
Ruhanen, L., Whitford, M., & McLennan, C. L. (2015). Indigenous tourism in Australia: Time
for a reality check. Tourism Management, 48, 73-83.
Sigala, M. (2014). Customer involvement in sustainable supply chain management: A research
framework and implications in tourism. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 55(1), 76-88.
Wang, Y., Wallace, S. W., Shen, B., & Choi, T. M. (2015). Service supply chain management: A
review of operational models. European Journal of Operational Research, 247(3), 685-
698.
Xu, X., & Gursoy, D. (2015). Influence of sustainable hospitality supply chain management on
customers’ attitudes and behaviors. International journal of hospitality management, 49,
105-116.