Report on Travel and Tourism Entrepreneurship and Business Plan

This report delves into the multifaceted world of travel and tourism entrepreneurship, examining the core skills necessary for success, including risk-taking, creativity, and self-reliance. It provides a self-appraisal of entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses, incorporating a SWOT analysis and strategies for improvement. The report further analyzes the development of entrepreneurial ventures, using Cheapflights as a case study, evaluating the factors contributing to its success. It covers the entrepreneurial process, from idea generation to growth. Finally, the report develops a business start-up plan for a niche market segment in the travel and tourism sector, including the identification of funding sources and justification of the product or service concept.

Travel and Tourism Entrepreneur
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur to start a business of travel and tourism ...........3
1.2 Self-appraisal that identifies strengths and weaknesses as well as strategies for developed
benchmarked to successful entrepreneur.........................................................................................4
TASK 2 ................................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Analysis of development of an entrepreneurial enterprise.........................................................5
2.2 Evaluation of factors which lead Cheapflights to get success...................................................6
TASK 3 ................................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Identification and evaluation of sources of funds for travel and tourism business....................8
3.2 Development of specific service or product concept and justification of its potential success.8
3.3 Business start-up plan................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
In the present scenario, entrepreneur is an essential engine of world economy. In simple
words, a person who starts his own business is called to be entrepreneur. Such types of people are
risk takers and they challenge themselves as well as work in the way they want. Travel and tourism
sector is the most popular area which attracts the people to start their own venture and promote
tourism of their nation or town (Chambers, 2009). The following research is based on the
entrepreneur of travel and tourism sector where various aspects regarding entrepreneur in travel and
tourism industry will be studied. The objectives that will be covered during this study are skills and
characteristics of travel and tourism entrepreneur, development of ventures in travel and tourism
sector and formulation of business start-up plan for niche market segment in the context of travel
and tourism (Hollick and Braun, 2005).
TASK 1
1.1 Skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur to start a business of travel and tourism
Entrepreneur is like a gambler game and in this game, the chances of winning have increased
if the person has the right skills in his hand. Entrepreneurs are not born with the skills but polishing
some needed proficiencies can help him to become a better entrepreneur (Ateljevic and Page, 2009).
In context of start up of a new business in travel and tourism sector, essential skills for the
entrepreneur are as follows:
Risk taking: It is an important attribute of entrepreneur to start a business in travel and
tourism industry. Starting of new venture in this area is risky and the wrong choice may increase the
chances of negative results. But, it is not possible to avoid the risks and their impacts on business.
Therefore, it is important for the entrepreneur to adopt or develop risk taking skills before beginning
the new venture in travel and tourism industry (Grimsley, 2015).
Creativity: Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs are two entrepreneurs who have brought
innovative products for the customers and the market with their creativity. It is a sign of good
entrepreneur because he is able to bring new services or products for the community. In context of
starting new business in travel and tourism, creativity is an essential skill. By bringing the radically
improvement in existing tourism services in a dramatic way, it gives a good start to the new
business (Grimsley, 2015).
Focus: Before starting new endeavour in travel and tourism sector, the aim and vision of
entrepreneur should be clear. This helps in taking the next step which brings him closer to the goal.
This skill is a key part of entrepreneur because there are many distracting forces which divert him
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from the aim (Aileron, 2013).
Self-reflection: Self- reflection on the past activities and plans assist entrepreneur to develop
new ideas and plans for future to run the business in an effective manner. In context of starting new
capital in travel and tourism sector, the capitalist should give the time to analyse the past work and
then, to take the decisions according to the outcomes (Aileron, 2013).
Self-reliance: Entrepreneur should be self-reliance which means he should not depend on
others for any kind of help. During starting new business in travel and tourism, capitalist should
collect the needful resources by reducing the dependability on other external sources (Aileron,
2013).
Leaning: It is the sign of successful entrepreneurs because they always learn new things
without pretending that they know everything. Travel and tourism market constantly change and to
become a leader of this market, the entrepreneur should get updated with the new changes in
customer preferences, related technology and industry trends (Aileron, 2013).
1.2 Self-appraisal that identifies strengths and weaknesses as well as strategies for developed
benchmarked to successful entrepreneur
Entrepreneurial skills and traits audit:
Skills which I consider to be important for my
present work
Rating (Strong/Weak/Somewhere in
between)
Good communication skills Strong
Motivation skills Strong
Self-realization Strong
Problem solving Weak
Focus Strong
Self-reflection Somewhere in between
Learning Weak
Risk taking Weak
Creativity Strong
Punctuality Weak
Traits which I consider to be important for my
present work
Rating (Strong/Weak/Somewhere in
between)
Determination towards work Strong
Passionate about work Strong
Adaptable Weak
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Money management Somewhere in between
Business networking Weak
Ability to promote sales Strong
Tenacity Somewhere in between
Self-belief Weak
Locus of control Weak
Trustworthy Weak
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis has been conducted for analysing the strengths and weaknesses in the light of
opportunities and threats. In the context of starting of new business in travel and tourism sector, it is
necessary for the entrepreneur to know own strengths and weaknesses with the help of skills audit
(Evans, Stonehouse and Campbell, 2012). The strengths and weaknesses are as follows:
Strengths Weakness
Good communication skills Problem solving
Motivation skills Learning
Self-realization Punctuality
Focus Adaptable
Creativity Self-belief
Determination towards work Risk taking
Passionate about work Locus of control
Tenacity Trustworthy
Strategies for converting weakness into strengths
From the above analysis, for starting a new business in travel and tourism industry, being an
entrepreneur, I have some strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, to become a successful
entrepreneur, it is needed to develop some strategies to convert my weaknesses into strengths. These
tactics may be developed as a benchmarking for the other entrepreneur of travel and tourism sector.
Recognizing and accepting weakness: If entrepreneur is not able to accept weaknesses then
it will be harmful for him in the near future. The best way for transforming weaknesses into
strengths is to recognize them and accept it for bringing improvements (Zetlin, 2015).
Getting guidance to trustworthy person: By taking the advice and guidance from close
friends, family or trustworthy person to improve the lacking skills, weaknesses can be converted
into strengths (Zetlin, 2015).
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Self-assessment: By conducting the self-assessment process within a set time frame, the
entrepreneur can easily analyse own lacking areas or skills and can adopt different ways to bring the
improvement (Nagy, 2015).
TASK 2
2.1 Analysis of development of an entrepreneurial enterprise
In UK, Cheapflights which is an online travel price comparison website belongs to a
family of travel website which is not only selling the flights of different airlines but also publishing
the information of various airlines. The entrepreneur of Cheapflights is John Hatt who found and
established this firm in 1996. In the recent years, company has combined its international operations
and presently operating in ten nations with eight websites (Cardy, Duncan, Lobel and Ruthven,
2012).
Business development strategy of Cheapflights
For providing growth to the business, Cheapflights has introduced Pay per Click online
advertisement remuneration model (Cardy, Duncan, Lobel and Ruthven, 2011). This was the first
company of travel and tourism sector which brought innovation related to price comparison
website. The major benefit of this model is for those organizations which are providing airlines and
other travel services to the customers. By seeing high completion in the travel industry and through
operating business via online, it helps Cheapflights to provide the growth without any kind of
external funding. All the financial resources of given venture has been managed through profit. The
major companies which are using the services of Cheapflights are British Airways, Travelocity,
Expedia, Flight Centre and Orbitz (Cardy, Duncan, Lobel and Ruthven, 2011). By going through
company’s website, customers can easily access the information about the schedule of different
airlines by comparison.
The business development strategy of Cheapfligths is providing additional services to
the services users where they can make the comparison on the basis of several parameters such as
costs, facilities, transportation, connectivity etc. (Cardy, Duncan, Lobel and Ruthven, 2011). After
purchasing Momondo after successfully establishing the business in UK market, Cheapflights has
developed a strategy to move into non English speaking nations such as South Africa, Australia etc.
Besides this, for non English speaking countries, company has launched country specific websites
to gain the attention of customers. This helps the firm to get success in travel and tourism sector
which has completely changed the meaning of business. In the present time, more than 100 million
visitors visit website of Cheapflight. It provides benefits to the clients of company in terms of
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increased sales of flight services and achievement of the targets (Cardy, Duncan, Lobel and
Ruthven, 2011).
2.2 Evaluation of factors which lead Cheapflights to get success
There are many ways to implement the efforts of planning, organizing, launching and building
a new venture. But for a unique and new business, an appropriate implementation framework is
required. Entrepreneurial process is the best way to establish the new capitalist for an entrepreneur.
The steps of this process highlight major factors which define each and every development stage of
new business. In context of Cheapflights, the entrepreneur has adopted entrepreneurial process
which has five stages. The description of every step is as follows (Entrepreneurial process - a
framework, 2015).
Idea generation: The foundation of every venture starts with the generation of idea. This idea
has developed from the present issue so that it can be resolved. In case of Cheapflights, the problem
that has been identified in the market is that people want low cost flight services with the best
facilities. Therefore, by seeing this situation, owner of the firm has got one idea to develop an
online website where the service users easily get the prices of different airline services and compare
them on different parameters (Entrepreneurial process - a framework, 2015).
Opportunity evaluation: This step is a question for all entrepreneurs who want to start their
own business. It was important for Cheapflights to evaluate the opportunity of investment to start an
online travel website. In this regard, it was essential for the firm to assess the present opportunity
because owner and other stakeholders were investing their capital into a new venture with the
purpose of good return or getting some additional benefits (Entrepreneurial process - a framework,
2015).
Planning: It is a key step of entrepreneurial process where the entrepreneur develops a plan
to implement the idea into a right direction. Planning is just a draft work of idea and it becomes
more complex with the time when business actually takes a shape. In case of Cheapflights, John
Hatt has remembered two things during planning phase, that is, strategy and operating plan. The
elements that were considered in the strategy section are target customers, business model,
uniqueness of company as compared to its competitors and key objectives behind starting the
following business. On the other hand, the things which were including in the operating plan section
were company’s timeline, staffing plan, budgeting as well as financial plan and planning process
(Entrepreneurial process - a framework, 2015).
Enterprise formation: Once the opportunity and planning stages completed, the next step is
formulation of enterprise. Under this stage, owner of Cheapflights has chosen the right form of
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corporate entity and formulate the venture by considering all legal formalities. This is the phase
where entrepreneur, John Hatt has launched his company with the help of online medium.
Growth: After launching of company, the entrepreneur starts working in the direction with
developing products and services for the target market. The purpose behind creating the
commodities is generating revenue and moving towards sustainability. Entrepreneur of Cheapflights
has executed his plan into reality where owner has given more time to formulate the plans for the
growth of business (Entrepreneurial process - a framework, 2015).
Evaluation of success of Cheapflights
From the review and study of past records of Cheapflights firm, it has found that many airlines
and other tour operators connected with the organization. They are using the advertisement services
of following enterprise and it assists the clients to increase their sales volume as well as the market
share. Besides this, the customers are also taking advantages in terms of getting good flight services
at low costs. From the website of Cheapflights, service users can easily compare the services and
prices of different airlines and other tour operators. Because of all these operations, company is
generating enough profit which reduces the need of external funds to run the business.
TASK 3
3.1 Identification and evaluation of sources of funds for travel and tourism business
To start a new venture in travel and tourism sector, an appropriate amount of fund or working
capital is needed. Source from where the money has to be gained to start the venture is a big
question for the entrepreneur. Fund can be considered as the biggest obstacle for start-up of business
(Attard, 2013). As per the given case study, there are various reliable and trustworthy sources to get
fund for starting the new venture in travel and tourism sector. The names and explanation of sources
of capital are as follows:
Own money: It is the most common and popular source of capital where the entrepreneur has
invested his own cash either by savings of money or selling of assets. For the proposed business,
need on the part of entrepreneur is to use money for initial investment and other business operations
(Ward, 2015).
Family and friends: In the context of starting a new business in travel and tourism sector, the
entrepreneur can borrow some funds from family and friends. It is the most reliable source of
funding of venture capital. By identifying the potential people in family and friends, the business
person can contact them for the investment (Attard, 2013).
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Bank Loan: By taking start up business loan from bank, the entrepreneur easily get the
required initial amount of fund. In the present time, banks are supporting those people who start
their venture on small level because the chances of success of such type of businesses have
increased (Attard, 2013).
Participate in government sponsor program: There are several types of funding programs
running by UK government for the entrepreneur for young entrepreneurs. In the context of start-up
new venture in travel and tourism sector, the entrepreneurs can attend various government programs
and apply for start up loans to launch business (Ward, 2015).
3.2 Development of specific service or product concept and justification of its potential success
As per the given case study of start-up of new venture in travel and tourism sector, it is
important to develop some products and services for the customers. From the market research and
analysis, it has found that travellers are getting attracted towards spending their time near natural
and adventurous places (PsyLab Innovation and Concept Research, 2015). Therefore, a Jungle
Safari service has to be developed. For the development of following service concept, some steps
should be followed which are as follows:
Identification of needs and trends: It is a first step towards development service where
entrepreneur has analysed the needs of customers and tourism market trends. This helps in
determining the undiscovered and uncovering trends and reasons of change in the behaviour of
services users.
Idea generation and screening: After identification of needs and desires as well as market
trends, the next step for entrepreneur is the generation of idea. Here, he has developed the best
possible solutions which would meet the requirement of users. In idea screening step, the
entrepreneur has analysed the feasibility of idea with respect to the market trends (PsyLab
Innovation and Concept Research, 2015).
Idea optimization: When promising idea has been screened then the need is to optimize it on
the basis of customer feedback or evaluation process. These include qualitative and quantitative
surveys. The reviews of service users help the entrepreneur to take the decision towards further
development in services.
Marketing of develop service: By using an effective method of marketing, the business
person can market the new Jungle Safari service within target markets (PsyLab Innovation and
Concept Research, 2015).
Justification of Jungle Safari service success:
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From the market analysis and studies of tourism market trends, it has found that people are
getting attracted towards those places which give them good experience of adventure. Therefore, to
start a business in travel and tourism sector, entrepreneur should provide the following services in
different areas of the world (Lordkipanidze, Brezet and Backman, 2005).
3.3 Business start-up plan
The following business start-up plan has been prepared for opening a new venture for niche
travel and tourism business. The elements which will be included in business plan are as follows:
Niche travel and tourism business concept: The meaning of niche travel and tourism
business refers to the way in which a particular tourism service is able to meet the needs and
expectations of services users. Locations with specific niche services help in establishing a good
position of new venture in travel and tourism market (Mamaghani, 2009).
Product/service characteristics: The offering service of new start up business in tourism
sector is Jungle Safari. The characteristic of following service is providing greater experience to the
visitors about various forests across the world (Elodie, Dimanche and Mounet, 2010).
Market potential and business analysis: By study of market trends and business analysis, it
has found that there are many people who love adventure in their life. Such type of groups likes to
explore various places and this trend helps the new venture to provide good experience to the
travellers (Spenceley, 2012).
Operational plan: Operational plan is a plan which is prepared by the organization that
clearly defines the steps to achieve the objectives of business. For proposed business, entrepreneur
has to develop an operation plan. This planning includes various steps such as hiring the right
people, developing business goals and matrix, preparing Key Performance Indicators for the
assessment and taking reviews of implementation of plan (Lordkipanidze, Brezet and Backman,
2005).
Business plan
Executive summary
New World Tourism is an travel and tourism organization which has focused on providing
the great adventure experience to the travellers in the different areas of world. It will be an upscale
adventure specialized with the combination of under the water, ground and in the air related
services. Based on the different services, New World Tourism will follow a differentiation strategy
that will provide unique selection to the customers of the company. The key success factors of the
organization will be repeat business, excellent locations for enjoying the adventures and unique
accommodation facilities. Along with this , firm will have a comprehensive marketing, promotion
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and advertising campaign which will assist in maximize word of mouth marketing as well as
adopting digital techniques.
Business overview
New World Tourism has planned to offer it services at some high prices as compare to the
competitors. The reason behind slightly high prices is the company has provided the goods travel
and tourism services to the travellers. The services includes in the package of travelling are
accommodation and food facility, transport, health and safety facilities etc.
The business objectives of New World Tourism are as follows.
 Cash flow self sufficiency by the end of the first year.
 To get the return on investment within the upcoming 3 years.
 Repay debt from original financing by the end of the 3rd year.
Markets and Competition
Target markets
For New World Tourism, it will be important to select potential travellers whom the
following business wishes to sell the services. In this context, the targeting strategy will include
segmentation of the market and then select the segments which will be appropriate for the business.
The segment for New World Tourism organization will travellers across the world. In addition to
this, the target market will be youth who will be belong to the 18th to 30th age group. These will be
the customers who are loving adventures and always try to get excellent experience by visiting and
exploring the new places of adventure.
Competition
In the travel and tourism market, the competition level has increased day by day. For New
World Tourism, there will be many competitors already present in the marketplace which will
affect the business negatively. The rivals of the organization will be across the world because firm
will provide the services at the international level.
Sales and marketing
Product positioning
It is a part of the marketing planning where the different ways have used by the
organizations to communicate the attributes of the products and services in front of the target
customers. New World Tourism will use product positioning concept with the purpose of increase
the travelling percentage in the adventure areas. The objectives will be to create a distinctive image
in the travellers mind about the services of New World Tourism. The positioning for the intangible
product will be based on marketing, psychological, objectives and subjective. By following this
process, New World Tourism will able to create the good positioning in the customers mind. The
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approach will be used by the organization for positioning is use of the application because the
destination will be positioned on the basis of the reason of visiting.
Marketing
The approach will be preferred by New World Tourism will on the basis of 4 P's of
marketing. In the product, the services of the firm will be good in experience, providing the value of
money, effective customer services etc. The places select for the sells of the services by New World
Tourism is online where the travellers will buy the travelling packages directly from the company
website with the use of internet. The pricing policy will be adopted by New World Tourism is
payment from the credit cards via online transaction. The advertisement method preferred by New
World Tourism for promotion of the new services will be use of digital media, direct marketing and
mouth publicity.
Sales
The sales of the services will be conduct on the behalf of using internet because it is best
way to save the time of customers and make the work more easier.
Management
Key personnel
The key personnel will be the managers and other higher authority of New World Tourism.
These persons will be manage entire organization such as allocation of roles and responsibilities,
arrangement of different resources, hiring the new employees etc.
Advisors and support services
At the time of opening the new venture, New World Tourism will required advisors and
some support services. These will help in determine the percentage of success of new business in
niche travel and tourism market. The advisors of the company will be market research analyst, legal
advisors etc. All these will be provide the complete guidance to New World Tourism regarding the
different kinds of information such as customer perception, market trends, forecast the demand and
sales etc.
Operations
Premises and equipment
For New World Tourism, the business of the company will completely online so it will
require the small building which consist 4 to 5 rooms. The equipments will required for performing
the various business operation will office furniture, Personal Computers, mobile phones, fax
machines, printer, copier, fast and reliable internet access etc. Along with this, the various types of
software will required like Adobe Reader, Word processing system, Excel, Quicken etc.
Employees
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