Evaluating Tourist Destinations & Trends: A Virgin Holidays Analysis

This report provides an analysis of tourist destinations, with a focus on the United Kingdom and India, for Virgin Holidays. It examines visitor statistics, revenue generation, and future trends in the tourism sector. The report also delves into the cultural, physical, and social characteristics of tourist destinations, comparing leading destinations like the UK with emerging ones like India. Furthermore, it discusses issues affecting the popularity of tourist destinations and explores the potential for responsible tourism to enhance host communities. The analysis includes data on visitor numbers, spending, and the impact of cultural and leisure experiences on tourism. Desklib offers a variety of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their academic pursuits.

VIRGIN HOLIDAYS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..............................................................................................................................................4
LO1...................................................................................................................................................4
1.1 THE MAIN VISITORS DESTINATION AND GENERATORS IN TERMS OF TOURIST NUMBER
AND REVENUE OBTAINED............................................................................................................4
1.2 STATISTICS TO DETERMINE TOURISM DESTINATION TRENDS AND PREDICT FUTURE
TRENDS........................................................................................................................................7
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................10
LO2.................................................................................................................................................10
2.1 CULTURAL, PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL FEATURES OF TOURIST DESTINATION.........................10
2.2 COMPARISON OF BETWEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF EMERGENT AND LEADING VISITOR
DESTINATIONS...........................................................................................................................13
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................15
LO3.................................................................................................................................................15
3.1, 3.2 PRESENTATION............................................................................................................15
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................32
LO4.................................................................................................................................................32
4.1 ISSUES THAT AFFECT THE POPULARITY OF TOURIST DESTINATIONS..................................32
4.2 THE POTENTIAL FOR RESPONSIBLE TOURISM TO ENHANCE THE HOST COMMUNITY AT
WORLDWIDE TOURIST DESTINATIONS......................................................................................34
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................36
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................37
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INTRODUCTION
This assignment is based on the various tourist destinations that support the economy of its
nations. Tourism not only helps to generate more revenue for any country but also helps to
increase the job opportunities for the local community and help them to generate more source
of capital. Also, government plays an important role in protecting and promoting these tourist
destinations at international level. This assignment will help to analyze the several factors that
are associated with travel and tourism. For any country, domestic tourism is advantageous as it
helps in generating more capital for the country that helps in more development of that nation.
This report will help to understand about the countries like France, Europe, UK etc. that are
declared as developed countries along with leading visitor’s destination while countries like
India, Thailand etc. are said to be developing countries as these countries are still struggling
with its resources and develop their country as developed tourist destination. This report
explains the factors that are present and influences in both the manner to this tourist
destination. Also, here discussion is done of the several tourist attractions that become a
reason to appeal the tourist by its features and attract them to that destination. Along with the
development of tourist destination is based on the capital obtained and the total tourist visited
that destination.
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TASK 1
LO1
1.1 THE MAIN VISITORS DESTINATION AND GENERATORS IN TERMS OF
TOURIST NUMBER AND REVENUE OBTAINED
There are several tourist destinations in the United Kingdom and in all the parts of the world
that are the reason to gain the attention of visitors no matter what age group, gender they
belong to. It has been analyzed by the recent survey investigation by the UNWTO the reason
behind the visitors to travel to the UK is for major three purpose leisure tourist, business tourist
and tourist who visit to meet there friends and relatives (Paoli, et al. 2017). The strategy team
of the Virgin Holidays along with its product analyst member wants to evaluate and understand
about the extent of worldwide visitor’s destination including the tourism in the United Kingdom
so that it could be easy for them to understand about the factors that are linked to travel and
tourism. It is a deemed fact that any country generates its major part of revenue by the number
of tourists visiting that destination. This clearly indicates that the capital that is obtained is
directly proportional to the number of visitors visiting every year. Also, apart from the United
Kingdom, there are several nations where every year the visitors visit so feel and acknowledge
the beauty of those destinations that are present in different parts of the globe.
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FIGURE 1: UNTWO TOURISM TOWARDS 2030
{SOURCE: http://mrsatopic.com/2014/10/ebola-lands-in-dallas-texas-welcome-to-our-global-
village/}
The evaluation that is made by the Virgin Holidays tour operators it could be concluded that the
United Kingdom is the country where there is the maximum number of tourist visiting every
year whereas Germany is the nation with a maximum generation of visitors. There are many
places in the UK which people like to travel to and understand about those destinations and
culture such as Cotswold, Stirling Castle, Victorian and Albert Museum, Black pool etc. except
for the United Kingdom the other frequently visited tourist destinations are: Franc, Spain, US,
Chain, Paris, Italy, India, Thailand etc. (Highlights, 2015). A chart is presented below that
explains the difference in the number of visitors visiting variable countries and the total capital
generated by the country from the travel and tourism industry:
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NATION TOTAL
VISITORS
VISITED IN
2015 (IN
MILLIONS)
TOTAL VISITORS
VISITED IN 2016
(IN MILLIONS)
AN
APPROXIMATE
SPENDING (IN
BILLION)
DIFFERENCE IN
BOTH THE YEARS
(IN %)
SPAIN 68.5 75.6 60.3 7.1
The UNITED
KINGDOM
34.4 35.8 39.6 -1.4
INDIA 14.6 13.3 22.4 9.7
CHINA 56.9 59.3 44.4 5.3
GERMANY 35.0 35.6 37.4 1.7
{Source:http://people.unica.it/carlamassidda/files/2017/06/UNWTO_TourismHighlights_20
17.pdf}
The above chart displays the observation made by the tour operator Virgin Holidays in the
difference in the entrance of visitors in the years 2015 and 2016 in the following countries. This
chart also displays the income obtained by the travel and tourism sector in variant countries.
There is an increment in the finical status of the country by the availability of the heritage and
cultural sites in the variable areas of the country. Such aspects not only help the country but
also support tour operators like Virgin Holidays to plan about some packages and discount
offers to please the visitors towards choosing their company.
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1.2 STATISTICS TO DETERMINE TOURISM DESTINATION TRENDS AND
PREDICT FUTURE TRENDS
It is noted in the last few years the Tourism in the United Kingdom is increasing in a tremendous
amount with a constant proportion. There is nothing wrong to say that there are many
attraction g features in the UK that drives the attention of the visitors to the UK as a tourist
destination. The factors that attract the attention of the people are its night activities, party
life, cultural sites, customs, events, concerts, Heritage, cathedrals, old and architectural
buildings etc. (Mariani, et al. 2014). Above all the discussed key elements the major factor that
catches the attention of the millions of visitors is the cultural activities of United Kingdom. The
main reasons for the leisure tourism in the United Kingdom are as follows:
 Chain of fast food restaurants
 Library
 Theaters
 Historic Monuments
 Fun Events
 Campaign or mount climbing
 Sports programs
 Short holidays for change
 Nightclubbing and parting in disco, pubs
 Theme park
 Art gallery, museums
 Cathedrals
So the current trend has suggested the cultural and leisure experience within in the UK is the
main elements which gain the maximum tourist in these countries. It was estimated that on an
average of 40-50% of the tourist that visited for leisure to London visited mostly its cultural
sites those are historic buildings, monuments, art galleries, museums, churches, heritage and
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cultural mansion, castle etc. It is also noted that the people belonging to age group in between
30-40 years are the one who constantly at times found visiting UK the being fascinated by its
cultural and heritage destinations.
FIGURE 2: KEY FEATURES OF PEOPLE VISITING LONDON
{Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/691938/event-tourism-spending-distribution-
by-visitor-type-london-uk/}
In the past few years, there is seen a drastic variation in the travel and tourism sector aligning
with the changing trends. So by the data collected by the Virgin Holidays; strategy team the
tourism sector is the one that contributes the most to the nation in order to improve the
country. In order to understand the trends in future in the tourism sector, it is necessary to
evaluate the tourist attraction of the UK. The future trend is expected in the tourism industry
to reduce the number of unemployed people in the country. The rising trends in tourism that is
the main reason of people travelling to the United Kingdom are noted to them because of the
medical tourism which is around 150000 visitors in the year 2016 and is expected to grow up to
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8% in the upcoming five years (de la Hoz-Correa, et al. 2018). The reason for London to grow as
medical tourism is its extra good facilities to the patients and the use of the advanced
technologies to cure the patients that result in 80% of its visitors satisfied by the medical
approach. The other two rising future trends that are observed are dark tourism where visitors
want to experience the places where some incident has taken place that took the lives of many
and the next is responsive tourism where visitors sitting in a ship or crew will experience all the
tourist destination of that pace without even visiting that place. So it is noted that tourism
business is growing frequently and the creativity in the services with enhancement in the
facilities given by the tour operators like Virgin “Holidays must be praised by the tourists all
around the globe (Edgell Sr, 2016).
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TASK 2
LO2
2.1 CULTURAL, PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL FEATURES OF TOURIST DESTINATION
The tourism sector consists of many types of tourism such as cultural tourism that mainly
focuses on the cultural aspects of the tourist destination. The main reason for the visitors
getting attracted towards the tourist destination of UK is the cultural background of its tourist
destination. The cultural tourism is the reason that gains the attention of billion of tourist and
so to make the appeal to the tourist the strategic team along with its product analyst of Virgin
Holidays needs to analyze about the social, physical and cultural characteristics of the leading
and the emergent tourist nations. And to make the comparison the country as leading tourist
destination which is taken into consideration is the UK and the developing nation taken in India:
The major element of the tourist destination with regards to the UK is given below:
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
The people in the UK are separated on the basis of their class or must say the living style. This
segmentation is done on the grounds of the individual’s educational qualification, money or
monetary status, job profile etc. (Aitchison, et al 2014). Not only the citizens of London but also
the topmost authorities are separated on the grounds of above-mentioned factors. So the
strategic team of Virgin holidays also divides the consumers of London on these grounds and
makes the tactics to gain more customers.
CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
The cultural aspects of any visitors destination are of the major value as it consists factors like
the language, tradition, music, art, dance, customs, beliefs of that place and people. The major
population of the London is Christian. The main factors of such people consist of activities such
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as dance, spoken language, festivals, foods, poetic literature etc. the culture of London is the
assortment of fun-loving atmosphere along with it the love for science and technology. For
example, the museums of London like British Museum, science museum, a museum of London
organizes several events, workshops for the visitors using the technological methods that gain
mostly the people who are in love with science and technology.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The most common practice of the visitors in the UK is walking; the visitors enjoy the sites in
London by walking to places such as lakes, mountains, rivers, hills etc. There are many beaches
in the UK that are most loved by a tourist who comes to spend some leisure time in London.
The physical attraction of UK includes Jurassic Coast that is one of the biggest heritage sites,
Peak district national park, New Forest Park etc. (Bærenholdt, et al. 2017)
The major element of the tourist destination with regards to India is given below:
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS
India is the country that is most known for its diversified nature as it has people who have
different beliefs, culture, customs and people of all the tradition resides here which impacts on
the socio-culture nature and living standards of the people. So the tour operators like Virgin
Holidays focuses mainly on planning packages that offer more experience of the tradition and
cultural site to the international visitors.
CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS
India is a country where people of many caste and culture lives and so the cultural features of
this country cannot be specified and with this great power of divergence yet a lot of unity in the
nation India is trying hard to be leading visitors destination (Benur and Bramwell, 2015 ). The
visitors visited here will learn and experience a lot about the culture of not a specified region
but of the diverse regions.
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