Strategic Tourism Planning: A Case Study of London

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Strategic Planning for Tourism and Leisure
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................4
Part 2..............................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
Reference List................................................................................................................................21
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Introduction
Tour and travel industry has now become a major part in the field of academic, industry,
government and public affairs. Tourism is highly significant not only because of the size,
numbers of travelling and the number of people involved or the amount revenue contributing on
economy but also its huge impact on the individual’s life and place of living. A concrete
planning is necessary to guarantee any destination to be competitive and highly sustainable.
In this assignment, the benefits of making strategic plans for tourism, evaluation and detailed
discussion on economic planning approach adopted for development of tourism with example
has been illustrated. In addition, assessment of reusing historic building and how it has
contributed on the development of strategic tourism has been discussed in detail. The discussion
has been focused on a historic building of London and how it is used in tour and tourism for
leisure and also the benefits on the local society. This assignment will finally help to express its
rationale in terms of visitors planning. Moreover, use and evaluation of standard methods in
tourism industry has been discussed. Finally, an insight can be gained on the application of
different principles of marketing and a range of perspectives to formulate a specific strategy.
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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.
Tourism is an important source of economic augmentation that actually helps the society but
tourism may equally contribute to a detrimental effect on our mother earth and environment. It
supports the manufacture of goods as well as services. Farmers can be benefited the most from
such activities. Tourism is also regarded as a fragmented product which affects both the
consumers of private and public (Luitel, 2016). There is report on 1.1 billion travelers that
travelled internationally. The rate has increased by 4.4% in international tourism and there is an
increase in the number of tourists forecasted by The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
that certainly lead to an annual growth of 3.8 % for the time frame 2010-2020 (www2.unwto.org.
2019).
Planning is a central part of developing and managing a successful tourism. Tourism planning
was considered as a simplistic process which is focused on uplift mass tourism in the past.
Simplistic tourism began and bloom in 1960 since it gained significant importance as a growing
industry. There have been different studies on planning tourism that helped to formulate
approaches and techniques (Stewart et al., 2016).
Specifically, strategic planning is the heart of tourism to bring a planned change in the economy.
However, if there is any lack of coordination and nooks inside the fragmented tour and tourism
industry it may lead to problems in the destination planners including the managers. A country
should have an experience and knowledge about the place where a tourism section should be
built in future as well as the path that should be followed.
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Strategy is a way of achieving a direction that provides an organisation with scope to change the
environment be means of estimating resources to fulfil expectations of the stakeholders. There
are three general principles of planning tourism such as, anticipation, regulation and monitoring
(Fisher et al., 2017).
The strategic planning in tourism is beneficial in the following ways:
 Strategic planning helps in growing proactive organizations
 Setting up a sense of specific direction
 Increases efficiency to operate
 Increasing market share as well as profitability
 Assuring a durable business
In the country United Kingdom (UK), tourism industry was introduced with the implementation
of the Tourism Act along with National Tourism Organization in the year 1969 (Sharpley and
Harrison, 2017). Nowadays, the plans and policies made for tourism is connected to partnership
with multiple agencies. The partners can take decisions in favor of the organization. Borders of
the country are regarded as an important spot for tourism and making strategic planning. There
are two laws that are implemented for the borders areas, such as, hard laws and soft laws. The
hard laws are usually found in the treaties but soft laws are less binding compared to hard laws.
In case of tourism the hard laws should be strictly implied and soft laws should be adhered too.
The social factors affecting tourisms are demographic areas, tendency of urbanizations, etc. The
cultural factors are also associated with the change in the global culture. The economic factor on
tour and tourism are connected to the national economy since the income, exchange rates, etc.
may affect it. In addition to this, there are physical and technical factors that are associated with
tourism in the environmental and technological point of view. International factors are involved
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on strategic planning of tourism related to visa. The administrative factors depend on the public
and society. Lastly, political and legal factors involve changing vital laws and regulations on
tourism (Romão et al., 2018).
In April, 2013, the Britain tourism proposed a strategy for media, sports and culture. This
enables international tourism to provide maximum economic benefits. The aim of the strategy
was to attract at least 40 million guests and visitors per year, in an expenditure of £31.5 billion
by 2020 (Gratton and Ramchandani, 2017). The key drivers of future success of tourism in
Britain are:
 Strategy built on Britain’s image
 To increase the distribution of tours through arranging travel trades
 Broad offering of the products and making easy visiting Britain by speeding up visa
process
 Increasing the aviation capacity to advertise and promote several new air routes
specifically through emerging markets
Britain got benefited from this is the strategy by tied up with the tour and travel industry,
government sectors and other agencies aimed for a long term goal. By making partnership with
private sectors for example, marketing and advertising of seasonal and regional spread with the
help of important European partners: P&O, easyJet, Expedia and contract with the airports (Visit
Wales, Bristol Airport, and Newcastle Airport). Similarly, partnership with C-Trip, China that
has 60% market shares was used to promote travel to UK. Also, partnership was done with
Manchester regional gateway for supporting new Virgin Atlantic routes starting from San
Francisco and Boston. A strategic partnership with six The Destination Management Companies
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in UK such as E-Voyage, Angela Shanley, JAC, Abbey Tours, Hotels & More, and AC Tours
were made for supporting the projects of Discover England Fund. In recent years eco-tourism
has become very popular and attractive for the international tourists. With eco-tourism new
destinations are discovered that were unreachable previously. These trends include traveling to
close to nature for example oceans, hills and mountains, tropical rainforests, deserts etc. There
are four ecotourism agencies like the Wales Tourism Board, VisitScotland, National Ireland
Tourist Board and English Tourism Council. It is highly promoted in UK in Eco-guide, 2010.
However, there are a lot of problems that ecotourism operators are facing at present since there
are less untouched natural areas left in UK (French, 2017).
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.
There has been a tremendous evolution in the tourism sector due to a shift in social, political,
environmental, and technical disciplines. The trend in the tourism industry has been to utilize
flexible, systematic, comprehensive, and flexible planning approaches. These approaches are
adopted to sustain tourism for the sake of social, political, cultural, and economic development.
Thus, these approaches might not be implemented and transferable to the developing countries
without specific adaptations.
Spatial planning is considered as a tool which organizes tourism activities to facilitate smooth
integration of the tour sector with other sectors or with local areas. The United Nations stated
that tourism planning can work at different levels (individual location, destination, are within a
country, country itself or a number of countries) (Papadopoulos, 2016). Spatial planning has two
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aspects, destination and individual site. This planning helps to made spatial decisions from the
regional planning in a top-down mode. The physical/spatial planning approach was coined by
Getz in 1987. The main objective of the approach was to highlight its negative impacts on
tourism with respect to the host community. This approach is a dominant planning system
applicable in many places. According to Royal Town Planning Institute’s New Vision for
Planning (Alden, 2016), ‘spatial planning requires critical thinking about space and place. In
order to ensure desirable outcomes objectives related to spatial planning in England are to be
understood. This approach is mainly focused on preserving the nature its resources which will
help to generate new industries as well as in the management of the cause that has impact on
environment (Saner and Filadoro, 2019).
Spatial planning has several objectives as follows:
 To provide a clear picture of future places based on the available evidence, local features,
and community based artefacts.
 To translate the perception into a list of policies, programmes, and land distribution along
with public resources to transform them.
 Building a framework to get investments from the local and private companies for
improving social, environmental and economical aspects.
 Cooperate and provide public sector elements of the vision to other agencies.
The spatial planning of tour has been well adopted by UK, for example the London plan. The
primary legal objective for planning in London lies with the Mayor as well as the boroughs. It
was published in 2004 and amended twice. Since then the Mayor sets the strategies for planning
London’s growth and development solely based on evidence and analyses.
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An example could be ‘A New Plan for London’ where the Mayor’s London Plan had been
proposed and published in 2009. These proposals for London’s spatial strategy include,
1. Recognising specific opportunities and the challenging situations faced by outer London.
2. To provide a continuous support for the recreation of the West-End as the primary retail
and tour destination in UK.
3. Formulating a new London standard to available wheelchairs that can be accessed in
hotel rooms
4. To improve the master plan of Olympic Legacy
5. To set policies to restrict in the accommodation of further crowding in Heathrow and
also to explore the alternative ways to promote South East
The Mayor is also responsible for creating principles equal for all people. The motto also
includes reduction of health inequality, promoting health of residents of London. It also monitors
on the climatic changes and the consequences of change in climates. By implementing this
strategy sustainable development can be achieved in the UK. It promotes and encourages the use
of Thames River especially for transportation of goods, cargo, freight, and consignment.
According to the Crime and Disorder Act, 1998, the GLA also can take measures to prevent any
crime. The Mayor can also utilise different European Union legislation and European Spatial
development policies in order to implement new London plan.
There has been a sharp rise in the growing population in London. It is likely to increase
Londoners manifold by 2020s compared to any time in London’s history. Therefore there should
be a planning, monitoring and managing approach to accommodate London’s growth. There is a
diverse population in London such as, Black, Asian, other minor ethnic group and these groups
will grow quickly due to natural growth and overseas migration. Since, the influx of the tourists
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has increased enormously AirBnB has thrown a great impact on spatial planning approach in city
centres of historic importance in London. There is now more household’s growth in London with
the growing population (Sallis et al., 2016).
The strategy also can promote the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the surrounding attractors, and
the local venues, as international travel destinations for tour and tourism, sport, and recreation.
The tourist flows due to the attractions of four such world heritage sites in London such as
Tower of London; Site containing the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, and St
Margaret's Church; Kew Gardens; the settlement in Greenwich which is of historic importance.
Other places include Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, the London Eye, The
Shard, St Paul's Cathedral, and Trafalgar Square.
According to BBC News (2016), the top ten visitor’s attractions in the United Kingdom were all
from London, some of them are The British Museum, The Natural History Museum, ,
The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Tower of London, The Science Museum, The National
Portrait Gallery, The National Gallery etc.
Pros and cons of spatial planning approach:
London is facing real challenges due to presence of administrative boundaries. The neighbouring
authorities should be included by making extension in appropriate partnership agreements so that
the problems arising to affect the entire development should be addressed. In conclusion, spatial
planning strategies if abolished will create a vacuum in the heart of British planning system.
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Part 2
A. Assess how the reuse of historic buildings contributes to strategic tourism development
A historic site within a location can be identified as an official architecture within the place that
holds a certain amount of cultural and historical value to the locality and residents of the country.
In these locations, the local, political, military or social history is preserved through appropriate
planning of tourism and leisure activities. In order to prevent the loss of these historic locations
across the country, authorities devise ways that would allow the preservation of these areas
through planning and regulation of tourist activities at these locations. This is done by protecting
the site by legal measures and by giving the site an official national historic recognition. Reuse
of these historic buildings as a cultural centre provides the authorities to preserve the local
culture and heritage of the locality through the site and improves the physical condition of the
building (Wells et al., 2016). Preventing vandalism of historic sites enriches the diversity of the
local and national culture and serves as an effective tourist site.
The strategic planning of incorporating historic sites as tourist attractions provides the tourism
department and industry of a region with an added advantage. Architecture, culture, history and
cuisine are some sustainable aspects of tourism development of a region. In order to develop the
sustainability of tourism for a region, authorities prefer using historic sites that showcase the
cultural heritage and history of a region as an appropriate tourist attraction for the guests. It
improves the local cultural diversity as it enhances the guest community to understand the host
culture and respect the host community efficiently (Mısırlısoy and Günçe, 2016). Historic
buildings provide the local population with an improved scope of educational and economic
development. Reusing historic places as tourist locations ensure engagement of the local
community that leads to sustainable rural and urban growth. It promotes the repopulation of
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inner-city areas as it increases trading opportunities for the local and regional community. The
culture of a region is improved through the diversity that trade and tourist activities bring in the
area.
Figure 1: Sustainable heritage resource planning
(Source: Peng and Tzeng, 2017)
Historic buildings are renovated and restructured keeping the essence of originality intact; this
enhances the authority’s aim of refurbishing the historic building without diminishing the culture
and heritage of the building. By implementing historic buildings as a tourist attraction for a
location it improves the regeneration of the city’s cultural development and the local heritage is
preserved. The commercial and enterprise development activities of a region are increased
through the development of historic buildings as it enhances the development of small
businesses, creative industries and the knowledge economy of the country. Strategic tourism
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