Tour Operations Management: Analyzing Trends and Developments

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of tour operations management within the travel and tourism sector, focusing on various types of tour operators and current industry trends. It examines the stages involved in developing holiday packages, the effects of different trends on the industry, and the strategic and tactical decision-making processes employed by tour operators. Different methods of contracting for holiday components are explored, and the report evaluates various strategies for effective decision-making to overcome management-related issues. The report also includes a case study of Trailfinders Ltd., illustrating how they adapt to market trends and develop tour packages, and concludes with a calculation of the selling price for a tour package from London to Belgium for a group of students.

TOUR OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION
Tour and travel industry causes increases number of tour operators within the country. This
assignment is about tour operations management with respect to travel and tourism sector
with various types of operators and current trends in tour operations industry. This report
shows the stages of developing holidays and effects of various trends. It also described the
issues related to management and analyses the strategic and tactical decision making aspects in
tour operations with different methods of contracting for different components of the holidays
and tour operators. Lastly, this report helps in evaluating various strategies for effective
decision making to overcome the issues related to management.

L01
The tour operator industry facing various challenges in today’s dynamic world. A leaflet has
been developed by the product development team of Trailfinders Ltd. for measuring the
appropriate changes of the recent trends. There are several factors which are being developed
for analyzing the effect of current and recent trends for the developments of the tour operators
industry.
1.1 ANALYZE THE EFFECTS OF CURRENT AND RECENT TRENDS AND
DEVELOPMENTS ON THE TOUR OPERATORS INDUSTRY
The tour operator is developed at the wide range of tourism sector and it needs to develop the several
methods for enhancing the growth in the business operations of tourism. The tour operator industry is
facing several issues related to recent time changes which affect the industry. The tourism sector is the
major factor for developing the economic growth of the country (Robinson, et al. 2016). According to EU
Package Travel Directive, the attractive tour packages for the customers is developed only because of
tour operators. There are some tour operators who contribute towards dealing with current trends such
as specialist tour operator who offer services to those who has interest in specific geographical area,
outbound tour operators who provide multinational tourism as they take residents of their country and
sell the tour packages for another country, domestic tour operators who offered destination trips within
the boundaries of the country, direct sell tour operators who sell their attractive packages of variety of
destinations through travel agent without paying commission to them, and the incoming tour operators
who provide local services to tourist at negotiable rates.
Figure 1: Tour Operator Industry
[Source: Breton, 2018]

Along with this, there are several trends and development that consist of the tour operator industry.
The famous tour operators of UK are Cox & Kings, Trailfinders, Thomas Cook, TUI group etc. They
provided the best various tour product and services to their customers. Trailfinders is the travel
company of UK with 29 different travel centres for 48 years in North & South America, Zealand, Australia
and Asia (Lozano, et al. 2016). It is the first travel operator which is licensed with IATA and ATOL by
Aviation Authority. The tour packages are designed in such a manner that it attracts the current trend
and choice of customers. The tour operators enhance their strategies for obtaining profitability in
business and influence the performance with globalization in the economy.
The tour operator analyzes the trend and changes in the current market in the area of holiday sites,
product range, expansion of cruise tourism, transport, and mass tourism etc. The mass tourism helps in
attracting a huge number of visitors to Trailfinders. The holiday's sites are helpful in attracting more
tourists towards the packages. The cruise market trend is increasing with providing lots of facilities and
comfort to tourist. There is certain responsive tourism which is followed by satisfying a large number of
visitors and maximizing profit in the tourism industry (Mariani, et al. 2014).
Trailfinders tourism industry also includes association of several bodies in it known as
Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO), The Travel Association (ABTA), the UK Civil
Association Authority (CAA), Federation of Tour Operator (FTO), and UK inbound. These bodies
are helpful in managing the tour operations in the country with the objective of fulfilling all the
requirements of customers. Thus the recent and current trends of tour operators play a major
role in the growth of the tourism sector (Buhalis and Amaranggana, 2015).

L02
INTRODUCTION
To excel in the tourism industry, the role of holiday packages plays a very important role. This
report helps in understanding the concept of various stages while developing the holidays in
tour packages and also determining the selling price of tour packages. This assignment is
discussed the tour packages from London to Belgium for the adult students with luxury
coaches.
BODY
2.1 STAGES AND TIMESCALES INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING HOLIDAYS
There are several stages which are helpful for the development of holidays in the packages. The
appropriate time scale is also needed to develop for handling the stages ineffective way and
further develop the packages as per the requirement of the customers. These stages for
developing the holidays are as follows:
Market research:
The market research is helpful in identifying the changing trend in term of social, economic,
political and cultural factors that affect the travel to Paris during the month of August in 2019.
The evaluation from London to the UK is conducted which could be helpful for students, the
identification of the area must be considered are the safety of tourism, accommodations,
foods, sites, transport etc. are observed for assessing the changes and trends of the market
(Lumsdon, 2016).
Negotiation:
There are several service providers who are connected with tour operators located at Brussels
and Brugge and help them in making arrangements for their customers. The appropriate
arrangements are mentioned which are agreed by both the parties and maintain the pricing for
the holiday package.

Cost analysis:
The overall expenses which are incurred while assessing the development of holidays in tour
packages are recorded under the cost analysis. The cost is utilized while offering the high-
quality services to customers, these services are travel fare, accommodation charges, food and
transport expenses etc. The tour operator can acquire the cost or market-based strategies
pricing for planning the holidays in tour packages (Shaw, et al. 2016).
Scheduling:
It involves the planning of the procedure while developing the strategies for developing the
holidays in tour packages. It is significant in accomplishing the appropriate goals for a particular
period of time. The planning of holiday package is prepared for 42 students with the tour of 5
nights.
Supervises for management:
The important aspect of implementing the plan is a staff of the industry who delivers the quality
services to their customers. The recruitment of the candidate is conducted on the basis of their
skills in the required area like customer needs, sites, resources etc. The tourism company needs
to have skilled staff for performing the plan more appropriately.
Analyses and Evaluation:
Lastly company needs to evaluate their developing plan so that the improvement area could
identify easily and corrective measures can take place. The feedbacks are also taken from the
students for analyzing the effectiveness of the services of the company. Further, it is estimated
that the knowledge of the market is also helpful in analyzing the needs and demands of the
customers and it is evaluated that the Gantt chart of 6 months is also helpful in providing a
timescale to the company (Cerutti, et al. 2016).
TIME SCALE I MONTH II MONTH III MONTH IV MONTH V MONTH VI MONTH
Market
Research

Negotiation
Cost Analysis
Scheduling
Supervises
for
managemen
t
Analyses and
Evaluation

2.2 SUITABILITY OF DIFFERENT METHODS OF CONTRACTING FOR
DIFFERENT COMPONENTS OF THE HOLIDAY AND DIFFERENT TYPE OF
TOUR OPERATOR
In the contact process, there are two parties involved in an agreement. This agreement consists
offering the legal services to customers through the tour operating industry. The different
contracts are utilised for different facilities. The facility like accommodation, amenities,
privilege is offered under contracts which are helpful for the tourist in enabling the tour. The
tour operator industry consists of different type of contracts as:
 Ad Hoc Contract- According to this contract the services as holiday packages are offered
by the company is priced on an hourly or daily basis and the resources are being
managed effectively. Trailfinders can utilise this with managing the financial and offer
the category to tourists according to their budget.
 Sales Contract- This contract is helpful in obtaining the profit as it offered the packages
at an expensive rate from the original rates. They offer the various facilities to
customers according to their needs.
 Fixed Contract- The contract offered the services for the fixed time to the customers for
increasing the productivity of the industry. The services can be booked for the tourists
as it offers cost effectiveness to the tourists and the total cost is evaluated at the
beginning of the packages.
The most suitable contract is selected by the tour operator for developing the tour packages
(Law, et al. 2015). They determine the type of contract according to needs of the customers
and the tourists can assist them in choosing the appropriate contract. The various type of
tour operators are as follows:
 Inbound Tour Operator- They provide services to their customers from their arrival
to departure so they can connect directly to the customers.
 Domestic Tour Operator- This kind of tour operators have packages at the domestic
level and offer the packages to customers for a host country.

 Outbound Tour Operators- These operators travel from host country to
international destination and arrange the documents, sightseeing places for their
tourists (Medlik, 2016).
 Ground operators- These operators offer services as transportation,
accommodations, booking etc. they work as a reception operator.

2.3 CALCULATE THE SELLING PRICE OF A HOLIDAY
A tour package is planned by Trailfinders from London, the United Kingdom to Brussels and
Brugge, Belgium for 42 students and the tour is of five nights. The charge of the single day for
two is 96 euros which included breakfast as well. The rate is estimated by Grand Cassel Bergh
with the cost of luxury coach of euro 11,200 which include taxes, fuel, and additional expenses
(Wu, et al. 2015). For this tour 945 euro is charged for local guide and overall 33% markup is
also put by Trailfinders. The tour package prices are as follows:
Various Service Calculation Price
Price of Breakfast including
Rooms
42*92*5 € 19,320.00
Total price € 19,320.00
1 euro= 0.88 pound
Price in pounds 19,320.00*0.88 £ 17001.06
Price of guide £ 1020.00
Price of transport £ 7,350.00
The tour package will sustain a total cost of £25,371.06
The markup of 25% on a package is £6,342
The total price of holiday package is £31,713.06
Therefore, the price of tour package for one student is 31,713.06/42= £755.07
Conclusion- From the above report, it has been observed that there are certain steps involved
in the planning of holidays in developing the plan and several methods are available for
managing different components by different tour operators. The selling price is also calculated
in the above report.