TUI Tourism Operations Analysis

This report analyzes TUI's tourism operations through the lens of Lerper's five-element tourism model. It examines the human element (tourists, TGR, TDR), geographic element (transit routes), industrial element (industry components like hotels, airlines, and travel agencies), and TUI's integration strategies (vertical and horizontal). The report highlights TUI's scale, with 30 million tourists, operations across 180 regions, collaborations with 5 airlines, 14 cruise liners, 350 hotels, and 1600 travel agencies. It emphasizes TUI's use of vertical integration, owning its chain of travel agencies, airlines (TUI Fly), and hotels, showcasing its strategic approach to the travel and tourism industry. The analysis is supported by references to relevant literature, including Weaver (2012) and TUI's press releases.

As per Lerper’s tourism model, there are basic five elements of the tourism operations of a
company.
HUMAN ELEMENT Tourists
The individual that consumes the product that tourism organisations offer in the market
Purpose of travelling: leisure, business, family, medical or academic
TUI possesses 30 million such tourists that have at least once consumed its services
(TUITravel Media Centre – Thomson, 2017)
Traveller generating region (TGR)
The place where generally tour begins and ends
Tourist destination region (TDR)
Place where tourists visit during the tours
TUI currently avails its customers, opportunity to visit around 180 regions across the globe
GEOGRAPHIC
ELEMENT
Transit Route
This is the route where the travel takes place
TUI uses multiple routes and travel measures such as cruise, air carrier, and motor vehicles for this purpose
INDUSTRIAL
ELEMENT
Industry
Components that generate and avail the services
Incorporates common interest organisations such as Hotels, restaurants, airlines and other
transportations, local travel agencies, organisers of recreational activities such as clubs,
special events, attractions (Weaver, 2012)
TUI currently works in collaboration with 5 airline operations that avail 150 aircraft and
14 cruise liners for transportation
It also works with around 350 hotels and 1600 travel agencies across the world
INTEGRATION WITHIN THE TRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY
While the small-scale tourism operators within the UK tourism sector undertake horizontal integration, large corporate
entities such as TUI utilises the vertical integration (TUITravel Media Centre – Thomson, 2017). It helps the company to
link the services and its different agencies at different layers of the operational chain. TUI utilises different integration
strategies for its operation as per the needs, for instance, it utilises forward vertical integration in case of travel agency as
it owns its chain of travel agency while it utilises backwards vertical integration for stay and transport services. The
organisation avails airline services via TUI Fly and for the stay, it provides 350 TUI hotels.
REFERENCE LIST
Weaver, D.B., (2012). Organic, incremental and induced paths to sustainable mass tourism convergence. Tourism Management, 33(5), pp.1030-
1037
TUITravel Media Centre - Thomson. (2017). Thomson and First Choice predict travel trends for 2016 - TUITravel Media Centre - Thomson .
Available at: http://press.thomson.co.uk/thomson-and-first-choice-predict-travel-trends-for-2016/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2017]