Tour Operations Management: Holiday Package Development Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of tour operations management, covering recent developments and trends in the tourism industry. It assesses the different stages and timescales involved in holiday package development, evaluating the suitability of contracting various components and calculating selling prices, using a Bhutan tour package as an example. The report also evaluates planning decisions in brochure design, assesses alternatives to traditional brochures, and examines different distribution methods. Furthermore, it compares strategic and tactical decisions made by tour operators in various situations, offering a detailed overview of the complexities and dynamics of the tour operations business environment.

TOUR OPERATIONS
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................2
TASK 1........................................................................................................................................3
1.1-RECENT AND CURRENT DEVELOPMENT AND TRENDS..................................................3
TASK 2........................................................................................................................................1
2.1- ASSESSMENT OF THE DIFFERENT STAGES AND THE TIMESCALES IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOLIDAYS........................................................................................1
2.2- EVALUATING THE SUITABILITY OF CONTRACTING THE DIFFERENT COMPONENTS OF
THE HOLIDAY PACKAGE AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF TOUR OPERATORS.............................5
2.3- CALCULATION OF THE HOLIDAY PACKAGE SELLING PRICE...........................................7
TASK 3........................................................................................................................................8
3.1- PLANNING DECISIONS EVALUATION THAT is TAKEN BY THE TOUR OPERATORS IN
DESIGNING A SELECTED BROCHURE.....................................................................................8
3.2- ASSESSMENT OF THE ALTERNATIVES OF A TRADITIONAL BROCHURE USED BY THE
DIFFERENT TOUR OPERATORS............................................................................................12
3.3- DIFFERENT METHODS OF DISTRIBUTION USED FOR THE SELLING OF THE HOLIDAY
PACKAGE BY THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TOUR OPERATORS..............................................13
TASK 4........................................................................................................................................1
4.1- STRATEGIC DECISIONS MADE BY THE TOUR OPERATORS............................................1
4.2- TACTICAL DECISIONS COMPARISON BY THE SELECTED TOUR OPERATORS IN
DIFFERENT SITUATIONS.........................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
One of the complex and a dynamic business environment is the tour operations. There are
different travel and the tourism component industries that the tourism companies work
with and comply with the laws and regulations to deal with the various external challenges
and the influences in the tourism industry. The companies that purchase the different items
and products and make up an inclusive holiday package in bulk by combining the different
products and finally sell them to the customers is referred as the tour operators.
The trends in the tourism industry are continuously changing and various developments are
have taken place. It is essential that during the development of the holiday package of a
tourist destination various stages and timescales must be involved which are assessed in this
report. A holiday package has been developed in this report with the budget for the tour.
Effective planning and tactics are required before the designing of a selected brochure of an
organization which are evaluated and along with it the suitability for the alternatives of the
traditional brochure are assessed. Lastly, the various tactical decisions that can be taken by
the tour operators are compared.

TASK 1
1.1-RECENT AND CURRENT DEVELOPMENT AND TRENDS
The companies that offer a wide variety of
services to the tourists like the
transportation, food, accommodation etc.
are referred to the tour operators. The
supply chain of the tour operators is very
strong as it includes the suppliers, travel
agents and the consumers (Benur and
Bramwell, 2015. There are various roles of
the tour operators like the purchase of
the holiday components in bulk, branding
them into a single entity and offering
them to the public.
With the changing tourism processes in
the industry, there are four types of tour
operators like the inbound, outbound,
domestic and the specialist tour operators
that offer their services to the tourists
(Antonescu and Stock, 2014). Outbound
tour operators provide their services to
another country by sending the travellers
in that country. Inbound tour operators
fulfil the needs of the visitors of the
overseas in the UK. The tour operators
that provide the holiday packages to the
local residents of UK are domestic tour
operators and the tour operators that
carry the small number of tourists with a
lesser price of services are the specialist
tour operators (Lim, et al. 2017).
Figure 1: Tourists Operators Types
With the latest changing trends in
tourism, the face of the tourists is also
changing like the number of individual
travellers, independent travellers,
minority groups and the mature travellers
have been increased in the UK (Mowforth
and Munt, 2015). Some of the
advancements made in the tourism
industry are depicted below-
DYNAMIC PACKAGING
The travellers are now making use of the
internet and themselves research about
the holiday trips and the packages and
book their own travel arrangements like
INBOUND
TOUR
OPERATORS
OUTBOUND
TOUR
OPERATORS
DOMESTIC
TOUR
OPERATORS
GROUND
TOUR
OPERATORS

the travel, accommodation etc. A high
flexibility is offered to the people to
purchase their holiday packages directly
from travel agencies and in less price
(Sharpley and Telfer, 2015).
Figure 2: Dynamic Packaging
[Source:
http://univisit.com/Software/Dynamic-
Packaging.aspx]
ICT TREND IN TOURISM
There are various developments that have
taken place in the Information
Communication Technology like the
increases wireless networks, internet and
cell phones that have reduced the gaps
between the travellers and the tour
operators and they can now easily
communicate with each other (Giaoutzi,
2017). The search cost of the buyers and
their access to the markets have been
reduced. With the help of the internet,
the information about the new product
offering by tour operators can be
gathered.
WORLD WIDE WEB
The increased usage of internet has
improved the collaboration level between
the different travel agencies and the
service providers (Chon, 2015). This has
reduced the need for the pre-
arrangements made with the suppliers
and customized services and activities are
done with the help of the internet.
DESTINATION MARKETING
Now instead of the tourism marketing, the
trend of the destination marketing has
been evolved in the industry in which the
different tourist destinations, its features
and importance are being promoted to
appeal to the tourists (Manohar, 2016).
Figure 3: Destination Marketing
[Source:https://www.prnewswire.com/
news-releases/new-research-reveals-
how-destination-marketing-is-an-
unexpected-catalyst-for-employment-
economic-development-and-quality-of-
life-282130111.html]

INDEPENDENT TRAVELLERS
The tourists according to the recent
trends in the industry likes to travel
independently and gather and avails the
various services of the holiday packages
through the online sources. The need for
the tour operators by the independent
travellers is very less and they would like
to do everything on their own during the
trip (Ghosh and Siddique, 2017). The
independent travellers make use of the
internet-based travel wholesalers like the
Booking.com and Expedia to avail the
various services of tourism.
Figure 4: Independent Travellers
[Source:https://www.littlehotelier.com/
r/distribution/booking-sites/hotel-
target-international-chinese-travellers/]
MOBILE APPLICATIONS
The mobile applications of the tour
operators are in current trend in the
market and the mobile booking system
are used by the tourists to book the
holiday packages online which had made
their decision making easy (Antonescu
and Stock, 2014). The new technologies
like Android applications had made the
tourism services easy for the people.
ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS
The mode of the payments in the booking
of the tourism packages have been
changed before the people use to avail
the tourism services by directly going to
the tour operators but now the trend is of
digital payments (Manohar, 2016). The
payments are now done online with the
help of the advanced payment methods
like internet banking.
PRO-POOR TOURISM
This kind of tourism is used to provide net
benefits to the poor and it is utilized as a
strategic tool to alleviate the poverty
among the marginalised communities
(Ilavarasan, 2017).
NICHE TOURISM
The particular interests of the tourists are
now being fulfilled by the tourist in the
form of the niche tourism that includes
providing services in the agro-tourism,
dark tourism, eco-tourism, green tourism,
medical and sports tourism (Gössling and

Lane, 2015).The interests of the people of
the UK is more towards the niche tourism.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS
There are various technological
advancements that have taken place in
the tourism industry like – the increased
knowledge-based web pages, Online
World of Mouth, online travel guides,
information portals, Google Street View
etc. that are currently trending in the tour
operators sector (Leung, 2017).
Figure 5: Technological Changes
[Source:http://www.techbreath.net/4-
thrilling-upcoming-technological-
advancements-wait/]

TASK 2
There are various stages involved while devolving a holiday package within a given timescale
that has been explained in this report with the help of Gantt chart. Different methods of
contracting are there for the different components of the holidays and different tour
operators which are being evaluated. A holiday package and its selling price for the tour of
Bhutan has been prepared for a group of about 30 people by the Titan Travels famous tour
operators of UK.
2.1- ASSESSMENT OF THE DIFFERENT STAGES AND THE TIMESCALES IN
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOLIDAYS
As the planning of holidays is a difficult process so it comprises of the different stages and
there are various arrangements that the tour operators have to make regarding the holidays
and secure their contracts with the suppliers (Antonescu and Stock, 2014). The development
of the holiday package needs to be completed at least 18 months before the actual
commencements of the tour. In this case study, the different planning stages of the Titan
Travels are depicted as below-
MARKET RESEARCH- There are different kinds of research that needs to be done while
planning the tour of the Bhutan which includes the economic research- current stability,
exchange rates of the country, demand research- checking the volume of the business of
the planned products and the competitor products, consumer study- including the
demographic markets interests and the activities of Bhutan, research of the competitors
prices and segmentation along with the research of the products and sales research
(Lamsfus, et al. 2015).
PLANNING AND SCHEDULING- After the market research, the decision about finalizing the
destination of the tour is taken. There are other factors also involved in the planning like-
best time of travel, standard accommodation, estimated passengers on the trip, attractions,

amenities and accessibility planning etc. along with the planning to meet customers’ special
needs (Beedie, 2017).
CONTRACTING- In the contracting the tour operators the Titan Travels need to book the
services 12 months in advance of the holiday season. It is essential that the Titan Travels
must estimate in advance the capacity of the tourist in advance to make contracts with the
airlines and the hotels. There are two types of contracts namely the ad-hoc and the fixed
contracts in which the accommodation is booked in advance and when they are actually
required and involve no risks (Lumsdon, 2016).
COSTING OF THE HOLIDAY- The final costing of the holiday package must be planned in
advance including the travel of the charter flights, room's allocation, food etc. An estimated
budget should be made in such a way that sufficient amount of profit must be attained after
taking out the money that will be spent on the tour of Bhutan (Semley, et al. 2016).
FINANCIAL EVALUATION AND PRICING- The cost of the holiday package on which it is going
to be sold to the tourists must be finally done after the complete financial evaluation. In this
stage the exchange rates, future selling price and finalizing the price takes place (Sharpley
and Telfer, 2015).
ADVERTISING- Once the holiday package has been prepared the most important stage is to
advertise the holiday package to the different tourist especially by analysing the interests of
the customers who are interested to visit from the UK to Bhutan. The advertising can be
done from various sources like the email, brochures, social media, newspapers etc. to
attract the tourists (Chon, 2015).
OPERATIONS AND EXECUTION- Once all the above stages of creating the holiday package
are done then it is essential to carry out effective operations for the execution of the actual
holiday trip that is done by the Titan Travels. There are some policies and procedures that
are formed and implemented throughout the beginning to the end of the tout.

POST TOUR MANAGEMENT- In this stage several report preparation and evaluation takes
place and it has been analysed that the tour planner has attained their goals up to
satisfaction level or not (Beedie, 2017).

GANTT CHART
A timescale has been prepared to analyse the different stages of the holiday package
creation and shown with the help of the Gantt chart for about 18 months.
TASKS MO
NT
H 1-
2
MO
NT
H 3-
4
MO
NT
H 4-
5
MO
NT
H 6-
7
MO
NT
H 8-
9
MO
NT
H
10-
11
MO
NT
H
12-
13
MO
NT
H
14-
15
MO
NT
H
16-
17
MO
NT
H
18
RESEAR
CH OF
THE
MARKE
T
SCHED
ULING
AND
PLANNI
NG
CONTR
ACTING
HOLIDA
Y
COSTIN
G
FINANC
IAL
EVALU
ATION
AND
PRICIN
G
ADVER
TISING
OPERA
TIONS
AND
EXECUT
ION

POST
TOUR
MANAG
EMENT
Figure 6: Gantt chart
2.2- EVALUATING THE SUITABILITY OF CONTRACTING THE DIFFERENT
COMPONENTS OF THE HOLIDAY PACKAGE AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF TOUR
OPERATORS
There are various suitability for contracting the different components of holidays that take
place in the tour operators industry which is depicted below-
ADHOC CONTRACTS- The contracts made between the tour operators to avail the various
services like the flights and the beds when required are the fixed contracts which are made
by the Titan Travels (Semley, et al. 2016). There is a less risk involved in such contracts but
the administration is costly.
FIXED CONTRACTS- The different services like the beds, seats and the rooms are booked I
advance in the fixed contacts and they are more advantageous to the supplier's as even if
the accommodation will not be sold still they will get paid. There is less flexibility in such
contracts.
TRANSPORTATION- Titan Travels need to allocate the seats on the flights in advance so that
the tourist does not face any kind of inconvenience during the time of their journeys to
Bhutan and customer remains satisfied (Duke, et al. 2015).
HOTELS AND ACCOMMODATION- Extra beds should be booked by the Titan Travels in
contracts and the prices must be varied from low to high according to the different
customers. These extra beds will help the tourist to sell their remaining beds at affordable
rates and better profits (Pencarelli and Dini, 2016).