Author: Andre Coleman

1.0 Introduction:1.1Background/ Preamble:

In today’s world the top three most important industries are telecom, tourism and IT. According to some estimates tourism shares 11% of the total world’s employment and around 100 million were employed in tourism industry during 2008.

Tourism sectors around the world have shown phenomenal growth. Over the last quarter of a century it has grown by 500%. Many economically weak countries are generating their largest share of GDP from the tourism sector.

Thailand’s tourist industry started to grow when Thailand launched “Visit Thailand Year” in 1987. This growth remained constant despite the Gulf war in 1991. This growth period is called as the Golden Decade of Thai Tourism. Economic growth of Thailand also proved to be very helpful for the growth of the tourism sector over the years. According to an official research the tourists coming to Thailand had reached an astonishing 42.5 million.

The focus on Thailand’s government was not the only reason for its growth of the sector; there were other factors which helped the growth. These factors include the prevailing peace after the Cold War, the overall expansion of the countries in the pacific regions, the focus on tourism in the countries around Thailand, the growth and feasibility of the trade between countries, the innovations in the airline sector, the innovations in telecom industry which increased the feasibility of communication and others.

The fact that all these factors were very helpful for the growth of Thailand’s tourism industry was that it was the first country to recognize the advantages of the tourism and set out to implement its tourism campaigns. Thailand also had location advantages as a tourist country as the tourist coming to Thailand also had the option to go either to China or India which are also one of the leading tourist countries.

Following the growth of tourism in Thailand was the growth on middle income class. The later growth stimulated the desire of Thais to travel abroad too. The growth in local tourists has over all declined the net income from the tourism sector of Thailand.

Currently tourism sector of Thailand has a 6.5 percent share in the GDP. Although the tourism industry of Thailand is very flourishing, but it still lags behind other sectors, such as manufacturing and services. Tourists coming to Thailand spend 16 billion dollar each year and spend 9 days in Thailand on average.

Foreign visitors are not the only tourists Thailand depends on. The local residents of Thailand are also a major part of the tourists. Although the amount spent by these tourists is far less than the foreign tourists.

In 2008 more than half of the international tourists were from East Asia, Malaysia and Japan. Malaysian visitors have a majority in the overall number of foreign investors to the country. European countries give close to 25% of the total number of visitors. Around 700,000 Australians visited Thailand in 2008; the number is huge when compared to the total residents in Australia.

1.2 Trends from 2007 to 2011

The number of tourists in the 1stQtr and 2ndQtr of 2009 was around 3.6m and 2.9m respectively. The numbers of tourists were lower than the 1stQtrs of 07 and 08. In the 3rdQtr/09 the no. of visitors is similar to that of both 07 and 08. In the 1stQtr/09 there was the highest number of visitors than the previous two years. The no. of visitors was highest during the 1stQtr/10.

Due to the political instability from April to May 10, the number of visitors was low.

The number of visitors was lower by about 1 to 2 million during year 09 and year 10. Still the number of arrivals in year 10 was record breaking. This shows that visitors forget the instabilities in only around 2 to 3 months.

2.0 Literature review

Countries around the world are facing several problems with the tourism industry. Looking at the current trends there are a number of factors affecting tourism industries. Some of these factors are economic factors, technological factors, political factors, demographic factors and cultural factors.

2.1 Economic factors:

Economic factors of both the host and the visitor’s country impacts a country’s tourism industry. The overall buying power of the visitors acts as a very important determinant for the tourist industry. In some countries the cost the vacations is very high. This discourages visitors from going to the specific country. On the other hand some countries offer cheap vacation packages allowing more visitors to come to their country.

Over all global prosperity also plays a very important role. If the over all economical condition of countries is good this means in most cases that the purchasing power is higher in those countries. When the standards of living are better and the purchasing power is better people can afford more luxuries. Tourism is also considered as a luxury and the overall numbers of tourists from the specific countries grow. Thailand is one of the favorite places for tourists as it provides every thing that tourists want. Low cost and high quality services, beautiful beaches and natural environment.

This also backfires for the host country at many places. Due to higher economic growth in the host country, the residents of the country also will to go abroad for vacations. This causes outflow of money from the economy known as “leakage”. The overall outflow is then balanced by the inflow of currency from other countries. The net income from the tourism industry of the host country is lowered over all due to the local population going abroad for vacations.

Inflation is also a very important determinant when it comes to tourism sector. If the inflation rate is higher in the host country compared to the visitor’s country, the overall spending by the visitors is low in the economy as the price of products and services is higher in the host country. On the other hand if the inflation is lower in the host country compared to the visitor’s country, visitors tend to spend more in the host country.

Thailand is facing a high inflation rate because of increase in the prices of crude oil but the problem is global. But due to difference in exchange rates inflation does not have a major impact on the tourist industry. For example, the appreciation of the euro against the US dollar has increased the number of EU tourists in Thailand. Along with this the purchasing power of Americans in Thailand has been stable, despite the depreciation of the dollar. In order to maintain the price competitiveness of exports the bank of Thailand has not allowed the Baht to appreciate against the dollar. The baht is under upward pressure, and it has an adverse affect on Thailand’s tourist industry. Thailand’s low price level has made it a most reasonable tourist place.

2.2 Technological factors

In the current era aviation technology has seen a lot of advancements. Now days the major cause of inflation in many countries is the increase in fuel prices, but it also greatly hampers the tourism sector. As the increase in the fuel prices also increase the airline ticket prices. Therefore aircraft building companies are bringing a lot of innovation to the air craft designs. Due to this reason the over all air fare is greatly reduced. Countries now pay attention to keep the best and most technologically advanced planes at their main airports so that more visitors can come in.

Infrastructure is very important factor for tourists on vacations. Tourism is considered as luxury act and tourists from across the world want the best or atleast sufficient infrastructure in the country they are about to visit. Example, Dubai is considered a famous tourist location only because it has better infrastructure than many other countries in its region. Tourists when think of Dubai, they know that it will be a place where they will have all the facilities that they might require; this is a global mind set for most of the tourists. Countries therefore must spend heavily on their infrastructure for the growth in the tourism sector.

Now days the use of IT has been a focus of most of the countries. People around the world are now more used to of IT than any other mode of communication. Even visitors now days search online for holiday packages. Countries must make sure that ample information is available relating to their country and tourist spots which people around the world can see and be motivated to visit their country.

2.3 Political factors

Visitors avoid areas of political unrest mainly when they visit other countries for vacations. This is mostly because of the mindset that people want to “enjoy” and “relax” during the vacations. An extreme example can of Egypt currently. Due to the protests for the change of president and protests in previous months the overall tourist industry of Egypt has recently collapsed.

In order to achieve a liberal democracy, Thailand’s economy is facing a fluctuating and worsening political condition. However as tourists are mostly not interested in any country’s political condition then the political instability would not affect the tourism industry. Instable security conditions can be a major problem for the tourism industry. However research shows that if there is any instability in some parts of the country and the political turmoil is happening in a local area then it would not have a major impact on the tourist industry. Such as worsening of political condition in the southern province of Thailand does not have a declining impact on the tourist industry. However if the political instability increases and reaches other parts of the country it will boost tourists insecurity and fear. It will build a negative perception in the minds of tourists about that place. Also it might have a negative impact on tourist’s plans for example, if the crisis in Thailand increases and reaches other parts of the country than it might have a n adverse affect on the tourist industry _ bomb blasts in Bangkok has led to a negative affect on the development of the tourist Industry. Individual and situational characteristics have affected tourists a lot because of the availability on information. It should be considered when taking in the account the security of tourist destinations, that the political instability is exaggerated by the news reporting. Several incidents in Thailand such as terrorists strike are given greater importance by the media than major road accidents. Road accidents in Thailand create a major security risk than a political unrest- and tourists are out most of their time and face many traffic jams every day. How ever Thailand is fairly a safe place than several other countries.

Except for political instability, terrorism also has an indirect relation with the amount of tourists visiting a country. Terrorists also try to target the most important sites of a country to spread their terror. Most of these sites are the same sites to which tourists around the world come to visit. An example can be the pyramids of Geza which can we seen as an ideal spot for terrorists to attack.

Thea Sinclair and Adam Blake of WTO said “The contribution of tourism and travel to both industrialized and developing countries is now so great that any downturns in the level of activity are a cause for concern. The repercussions extend beyond activities directly associated with tourism, notably airlines, hotels and catering, to sectors that supply intermediate or final goods that are purchased by firms and employees in the industry, so that all sectors of the economy are affected to a greater or lesser effect.” In the above quotation they are clearly pointing out the adverse impact of terrorist activities on tourism industry and how this adverse impact amplifies over time.

Examples can be of cases from target killing of tourists in Egypt, bombing in Nairobi, hijacking of planes for the 9/11 attack etc. These activities not only collapse the tourist industry of the specific countries, but it also impacts the overall global growth of tourism. As mentioned above 9/11 had one of the most harmful impacts on “global” tourism industry. The overall impact of the 9/11 attacks cannot be measured but according to an estimate but it lowered world tourism by 10%. To regain the confidence most of the countries are using several encouragement tools such as lowering their air fares.

2.4 Demographic Factors

Demographics of countries also impact the tourism industry. Living patterns and population affects both the demand of tourists and the supply of labour in the tourist industry. Example the overall percentage of tourists from Australia is higher though their population is lower than many other countries.

2.5 Cultural factors

It cannot be ignored that culture is one of the strongest factors affecting the tourist numbers. It can be crucial point when it comes to competitiveness between the countries. Tourism nowdays basically stems out of cultural attractions. And this is this bond of culture and tourism that makes a destination more attractive than other to either go as a tourist, employee, investor or emigrant.

3 Objectives of the study

The main purpose of this study is:

To find out what are the current social problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
To find out what are the current economical problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
To find out what are the current infrastructure problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
To find out how tourism industry of Thailand is suffering due to the current political situation of the country.
To find out what are the current demographical problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
To find out what are the current technological problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
To find out what are the current demographical problems Thailand is facing regarding its tourism industry.
3.1 Limitations:

In order to conduct this study few limitations will be faced as well, such as:

Geographical research limitations are our first constraint.
The target audience is large in number and it will be very difficult to interact with every tourist of Thailand.
We will not be able to cover all the minor problems related to the sector.
Some of the official analysis by the Thai govt may be restricted to us.
Time is also a big issue which will make our research limited.
3.2 Scope:

In this study we will be focusing on the current economical condition of Thailand. We will relate different economical variables with the tourist sector. These variables can range from inflation to exchange rates. By looking at the previous trends of growth we will try to analyse the future growth of the Thailand’s tourism sector. Through online or paper questionnaires we will try to find out what problems are tourists in Thailand facing.

3.3 Assumptions:

The assumptions we will take in this study are:

The sample size of our research shows the majority of the tourists coming to Thailand
The situation of Thailand remains stable during our research.
Data gathered from TDRI is accurate.

4.0 Research Methodology:

4.1 Research Design:

In order to understand the problems affecting the tourism industry we will first measure the effect of each of the variables on the over all tourism industry of Thailand. In exploring these variables several different studies will be taken under as secondary data to build the foundation. Apart from this, several tourists’ perception surveys will be conducted to develop a deeper understanding.

In order to insure that all the variables are covered we will attach specific weight ages to the variables and the results will be both qualitative and quantitative in nature.

4.2 Procedure:

– Problem Statement

– Study of Thailand’s economy:

Basic understanding of the different sectors,

Problems Thailand is facing as a country,

– Understanding of the Thailand’s tourism industry – foreign perspective:

Introduction of the sector,

Growth of the sector,

Comparison the to the other country’s tourism industries,

Past trends of the sector,

-In-depth research on forces which previously moved the market globally and in relation to Thai tourism:

Economic forces,

Political forces,

Demographic forces,

Technological forces,

– Primary research:

Questionnaire – In-depth Questionnaire,

Hypothetical offers,

In-depth Analysis,

– Conclusion:

Problems and challenges faced by Thailand’s tourism industry,

Recommendations for the Thai government as a whole,

4.3 Sample:

The sample size will be consisting of 100 tourists both local and international.

Interviews will be taken from famous economic analysts’ for in-depth research.

4.4 Measurement/ Instrument Selection:

– Data Collection: Data will be collected through both secondary and primary sources.

Primary data will be collected after complete analysis of available secondary data.

– Method of Data Collection:

Interviews: interviews will be taken from both the tourists and economic analysts. Data gathered from the tourists will be used to form a perception chart of Thailand as a whole and the information gathered from the experts will just be used to see if the research is going on the right track and nothing is being missed out.

Structured questionnaire: For the collection of primary data, in depth structured questionnaires will be developed.

4.5 Variables:

The variables will be incorporated at the later stages, as the research will proceed.

4.6 Hypotheses:

Hypothesis will be incorporated at later stages.

4.7 Software employed:

We will use Spreadsheet and SPSS software in during our study.

Pulau Pinang or Penang is one of the unique and attractive places in Malaysia with its many cultures which make Penang one of tourist’s favorite places and tourists attractions. Basically, Penang is famous for their food, religions, cultures and tourism site. According to the UNESCO Worlds Heritage Site of Georgetown says that there are many religions, cultures and foods in Penang, therefore they can blend it well together to make Penang one of the well known states in Malaysia [1].

There is press statement by YB Danny Law Heng Kiang the Penang State Exco for Tourism Development and Culture said that Penang is ranked in the third place under Kuala Lumpur, and Genting Highland (Pahang) for their tourism destination in Malaysia [1]. At first, Malacca is on top of Penang as tourism destination because they receive approximately 8.9 million tourist arrival in the year 2009. Unfortunately, that statement by Datuk Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen may be a mistake because as we can see from the table 2, Penang has more tourists’ arrival compare to Malacca [1].

According Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, Penang is an island with an area of 108 sq mi/280 sq km and it is known as one of the busiest ports in the past and it is located in the straits of Malacca, on the North-West Coast of Malaysia. Penang is very famous for their beautiful beaches and islands, foods, cultural, religions and many more [2].

During 16th century, Portuguese merchants Penang was travel from Goa (India) to Far East search for spices, fresh water so they stopped in Penang. In 1786, Penang was very popular among the pirates because they steal ships that cross along Straits of Malacca. At one point, Penang became popular in 18th century and at the same time, Captain Francis Light enter to Penang and start to have good relationship with the locals and also the Sultan of Kedah in 1771. Unfortunately, at that moment itself Sultan of Kedah handed Penang to Captain Francis Light in order to get protection against the threats of Burmese and Siamese. After that, they called Penang as “Prince of Wales Island” and after the settlement; Sultan Abdullah found out that he is being cheated by the British by not willing to offer protection thus he gathered his army to retake Penang. Lastly, after extensive years of struggling between the locals and the British, Malaysia achieves independence in 31st August 1957 and Penang is one of the 13 states. Penang now is known as Pulau Pinang [3].

What is the Culture in Penang?

The cultures in Penang are very unique and most of the tourists interested to know more about Penang’s culture. In 2008, the population is Penang approximately 2 million on the island and 1 million is in Seberai Prai which consists of 42% Chinese, 41% Malay, 10% for Indian and also 5% for the Peranakan or Baba Nyonya. Baba Nyonya’s culture in Penang is different from Malacca. Baba Nyonya’s in Malacca can speak fluent Malay whereby in Penang, the Baba Nyonya’s speaks mixture of Hokkien, Malay and English and most of the Baba Nyonya’s in Penang still practice their Chinese religion and ancestral worshipping [4].

Basically, language that being spoken in Penang is Malay language whereby English and the Chinese (Hokkien) also being spoken widely in Penang. And lastly the Tamil language is being spoken by the tamils among their community. Next is the religion in Penang which most of the people believes such as Buddhist, Islam, Hindu, Christian, and many more. Basically, Buddhism is one of the main religions in Penang whereby Islam still the official religion of the state. As you can see that Penang’s culture is a mixture of Malay, Chinese Indian and it is very interesting for tourist’s attractions [4].

Furthermore, Penang is famous for their food and this is one of the Penang’s cultures. The food in Penang can easily get almost everywhere and anytime in Penang. According the time magazine in 2004, Penang has been the best street food in Asia. Penang is the only place to find such a wonderful, tasty and nice food and also it is so cheap compared to Kuala Lumpur and sometimes people called Penang is the food heaven to eat. The food in Penang is an assortment of Chinese, Nyonya, Malay, India, Thai cuisine. There in Penang also famous for the hawkers’ food which they sell and served by the road side [4].

Besides that, one of the reason why Penang famous is because they have various of events and festivals that they celebrates such as Penang International Dragon Boat Festival, Chin-gay, Pesta Pulau Pinang, Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Thaipusam, Chinese New Year, Hungry Ghost Festival and many more. These festivals would attract many tourists from all over the world to come and experience throughout the festivals. Moreover, it would be nice if tourists from Malaysia or outside Malaysia to give support and celebrates together in these interesting events. The international dragon boat festival usually held around June and July during the school holidays. Chingay is one of the famous cultural events in penang because it is being celebrated because of the birthday of Kuan Yin or the Goodness of Mercy. Normally, this event is being celebrated every year and attracts tourists as far from United States, Japan, South Africa and also Netherlands. Chingay festival is a parade which teams of people will show their skills at balancing 40 foot bamboo flagpoles on their body such as heads, shoulder, hands, and knees. And lastly, Pesta Pulau Pinang is one of the cultural events that being celebrated by all races in Penang. Pesta Pulau Pinang is a carnival that being celebrated in December and it always be lively, happening and colorful carnival every year. There would have a lots of activity includes open air concerts, variety shows, food bazaars, fun fairs, pet shows, exhibitions, games and many more [5].

What is an event?

Basically events is about to have a particular function or to inform our guest that when some exciting things is going to happen and going to celebrate. For example, book launches weddings, concerts, carnivals and many more. It is more like a preparations for that particular functions to make it runs smoothly and beautifully. It starts from the PA systems, music, VIP rooms, foods, red carpet, guests and many more [6].

Cultural events that being celebrated by in Penang

Penang is famous for their cultures, ethnicities, foods and festivals. Penang’s has so many events and festivals that being celebrated throughout the year. Hence, the entire tourist from every parts of the world celebrates together with colorful happenings events in Penang. There are few festivals that being celebrated by all races in Penang such As Chinese New Year, International Dragon Boat Festival, Penang Beach Carnival, Penang Cultural Festival, Malaysia Festival and Pesta Pulau Festivals. The purpose all these festivals are held because is to gather everyone and celebrates the harmonious and unique multi culture in Penang. Many activities are held on the festival’s example fashion parades, inter-hotel competition, performance, sell handicrafts, and many more [7].

1.2 The Problem Statement

The purpose of me choosing this topic is because as we can see Penang is developing to one of the leading tourism states. Cultural and events tourism is a product which is difficult to be tested first before use, so by having the cultural events in Penang can also gives Penang recognition as a world heritage site and will be portraying the cultural diversity of Penang. On top of that, by having cultural events and festivals in Penang can analyze the number of tourists inbounds to Penang. Besides that, tourists can come over and try to experience and spread the news to everyone out there about the cultural events that being celebrated by all races in Penang. There are few popular cultural events that being celebrated such as Thaipusam, Chap Goh Meh, St. Anne’s festival, hungry ghost festival and many more. Basically, Penang is famous for their cultural diversity where they preserve their own traditions and performing arts. On top of that, Penang has own tradition of street culture, celebrations, festivals, and ethnic groups and it will be the most unforgettable moments for the tourists who come and experience the festivals. Lastly, the “Visit Calendar 2010” has their plans to make Penang as the active tourism sector.

Research Objectives/ Aims

The objective of this proposal is:

To analyze the number of tourists inbounds to Penang during the cultural events celebration.
To unite all people together to celebrate cultural events in Penang to support the slogan “Satu Malaysia”.
To investigate the number of tourists that visit Penang according their nationalities.
To determine the most favorable cultural events to the least popular and why?
To study the revenue or loses generated by tourists as to the cost incurred by the state government to these events.

By accumulating these results, we can determine whether to sustain, preserve or to promote cultural events or festivals for the coming years.

Research Questions

What are the number of tourists inbound to Penang in the 2009?
Should Ministry of Tourism Malaysia encourage more cultural events celebrations in order to give Penang recognition as a world heritage site?
Should we preserve, promote and sustain our cultural events in Penang in order to pull more tourists from all over the world?
What the pull factors are for tourists to visits Penang every year?
Hypothesis Statement

Hypothesis statement for this topic would be that Penang’s culture has a unique attribute that brings people together by having cultural events and festivals throughout the year. To boast those cultural events and festivals requires financial capital, intellectual capital, cultural capital and also social capital to run the events [8]. The existence of cultural events makes people understand other people’s culture better so that they can understand one and another as well as supporting our Malaysia’s motto which is “Satu Malaysia”. According to Datuk Lim Guan Eng, the Chief Minister of Penang says that they have to give 100% commitment to protect, preserve, sustain and promote the cultural events in Penang so that it can bring the people together and unite the culture and celebrate it collectively. These would reflect the multiracial people and well preserve culture and heritage which is being listed in UNESCO World Cultural and Heritage Site lately [9].

In the past 6 years, there were twelve countries affected by Tsunami disaster on 26th September 2004 and one of the countries is Malaysia. There were two states in Malaysia was affected by Tsunami which is Penang and Kedah. Both these areas lost everything during the tsunami disasters. At that time, most of the people or tourists are in fear for travelling to other countries. Most of the fisherman’s village in Kedah is destroyed by the tsunami. On top of that, Penang’s tourism slightly decline due to this unwanted disaster. The Government, Corporate, NGO’s, and also individuals contribute millions of dollars to help the victim’s accommodation, medical and many more [9]. Furthermore, there was a change in politics, economy and society due to the tsunami disaster. Penang’s economy slightly decline because lacking of tourists from outside and inside the country. Tourists afraid to come and visits Penang thus not much activity or celebrations can we held during that particular period of timer [9].

As we know that the mass media plays important roles in promoting any advertisement doesn’t matter in the website or in the daily newspaper. By promoting and advertise something in the website or newspaper, radio, television and so forth may increase the number of tourists who come to Penang. This is one of the strategies to pull tourists to come to Penang after the Tsunami’s tragedy. There are some advertisements that may push tourists out of their state or country to come to Penang by having Cheap Air Flight to Penang inclusive Hotel Rooms. For example, in figure 1.0 and figure 1.1 show that Air Asia offer or promotes cheap flight tickets inclusive a room for the tourists as below as Rm1.00 [10]. Tourists can choose to fly either Penang, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur, and Johor Bahru. The travelling period for the tourists is at any time in July 1st 2011 to November 10th 2011. This is because we want more tourists to come to Penang for vacation and also at the same time we can promote different cultural events and festivals that are being celebrating every month [10].

Furthermore, Penang State Tourism is promoting their state as by the campaign goes “Visit Penang 2010-1012”. So there are many kinds of activities and events is held for example Esplanade in Action- an Evening of Cultural Performance, Penang Sakura Blossom, Chinese New Year cruise-Lili Marleen and many more. Besides that, the food is one of the attractions besides cultural events in Penang for example, Thai Food Fiesta 2010, Penang Durian and Fruits Festivals, Pesta Pulau Pinang and many more.

According to Natalie Lee, one of the students from University New South Wales stated that Facebook is one of the top growing social networking in the world nowadays which has more than 140 million users in the whole world. It allows us to find and communicate with our friends and share photos, promoting tourism sites and many more. Penang promotes their tourism sites through Facebook, websites, blogs and many more to pull tourists from every parts of the world. They can share photos, promote hotel rooms, flight tickets to Penang, and update latest events in penang and promote it to all their family members, friends and many more. It is one of the best ways to promote Penang to outsiders [11]. .

Theoretical/ Conceptual Framework

Theoretical framework

As what I have showed the conceptual framework below shows that the research is focus more on the cultural events that being celebrated by all races in Penang. It will be scoped into structural support and cultural infrastructure/ spaces for the cultural events. Next under structural support diagram it will be divided into few points such as handling promotions, ticketing, licensing, printing and distribution of flyers. Besides that, for the cultural infrastructure / spaces will be divided into two main points which is cultural hub and also communities.

At the top part of the framework shows that some of the events and festivals that is being celebrated by all races in Penang. Cultural festivals that being celebrated in Penang is Pesta Pulau Pinang, Hungry Ghost Festival, Chingay, Bon Odori and many more. The purpose of celebrating these festivals is because to sustain and promote the cultural events in Penang thus promote it to tourists from every parts of the world.

For the second phase of the framework, is the cultural infrastructure and spaces which can be divided into two parts which is cultural hub and communities. According to S.B.Tan, Professor School Of Art, University Sains Malaysia says that the cultural hub, is basically where the performances or festivals is going to carried out, for example museums, restaurants, and many more. Whereby, for the communities are basically about where the festivals or events should should be placed in areas where most of the people live,for example city in Georgetown or Balik Pulau. It would be much easier for the people in Penang to travel to those particular places to celebrate the events [12].

Moving on, on the third phase is the structural support for example handling promotion, ticketing, licensing, distribution flyers and printing.

Scope and Limitations

The scope for this study is mainly based on the Tourism Industry in Penang that is rapidly growing in this 21st century. The importance of this sector to the Malaysia’s economy is to pull more tourists to come and visits Penang through the 3 years campaign of the state government by promoting their “VisitPenang 2010- 2012” [13]. According to hotel statistics, in 2008 [14], Penang received 6.3 million tourist inbounds excluding the excursionist who arrive on cruise or live with their family and friends. The figure is higher than previous year which is 5.1 million. Penang State Government’s has a mission to target 10 million tourists in 2014 which is 4 years from now. Penang’s most profitable income earner comes from tourism sector after manufacturing. According to Ministry of Tourism, Malaysia, the number of local and international tourists arrivals in Penang in 2005 is 48% international tourists whereby for the locals is 52% which comes up 4, 351,909 tourists overall. Every year, the number slightly increased doesn’t matter it is international tourists nor local people. Regrettably, in 2009 the number of tourists declined sharply which is from 6,307,468 in 2008 but unfortunately in 2009, the number has dropped to 1,347,356 overall totals. Penang this is because Penang focuses more on developing medical tourism and eco-tourism in this few years [13]. This study will look at the statistics rate or the number of tourists come and visits Penang to celebrates and experience the cultural events and festivals thus food as well. There were limitation sources to find for this topic. To find for data and information’s, researcher using Google Scholar with journals, articles, Pdftop.com, Kdu Library and online book. Some of the journals and articles need to be purchased or log in as a member in order to read the articles and journals.

1.8 Significance of the study

Significance of studying this topic is to analyze the number of tourists inbounds in Penang during the cultural events celebrations whether it gives impacts towards Penang’s economy or local environment. Besides that, it is important for us to know what is Penang’s mission and target for the tourism sector. Currently, Penang is being ranked at no.4 in foreign and domestic tourists arrivals in Malaysia after Kuala Lumpur, Pahang and Sabah. YB Danny Law Heng Kiang, Chairman for the State Tourism Development Culture, Arts, and Heritage says that he really hopes one day Penang would be No.1 or No.2 in foreign and domestics tourist’s arrivals in Malaysia. According to statistics, the number of hotel guests is increasing rapidly from 68.8 million in 2008 compared to 61.6 in 2007 especially during the cultural events and festivals that being celebrated every month. It shows that the graph for tourism sector will increase every year [15].

Chapter 2
2.1 Literature Review
Definition of cultural events

Events are something that happens at a given place. An event is one of the top growing tourism industries and also most thrilling and yet it is connected to leisure. One of the reason why so many countries keeps on promoting their events so that they can pull more tourists from every parts of the world to come and visits their country. Basically, an event is more to persuade tourists to come or participate during their events and also can makes them stay longer in that particular area. According to Getz, events are one of the important roles in tourism industry because it can attract more tourists thus to fill up their free during their visits to that particular country (1991). Most of the tourists expects for festivals, events or attractions in a tourism destination. Events or festivals also can intensify tourists experience and perhaps can make tourists stay longer thus persuade them to extend their holidays in particular tourism destinations (Getz, 1991). Cultural events basically are for religious, public events such as arts, performances, crafts demonstrations, and many more (Richards, 1996).All the small towns are actively has cultural events for profit, or to boost the tourism industry (Goldblatt, 2002). Most of the tourists are attracted to unique cultural events and somehow they will participate when the event is held. Organizers would make the cultural events livelier to ensure that the tourists meet their satisfaction during the festivals thus to make sure that they gets more profit from the tourists. Why is it so because to increase the tourism industry and to promote our country to worldwide.

2.2 Statistics Rate Tourists Come to Penang

Statistics plays important role in counting the number of tourist’s inbounds in Penang 2005 – 2009. How many tourists have been visiting Penang? To calculate and determine the actual statistics requires big costs of money to collect data, to analyze and to present it to the state government. The number of tourists visiting Penang announced by the Tourism Ministry is based on immigration cards filled with their profiles at the by visitors and have to show it at the port of entry. Tourists are freely to move everywhere within the country unless visitors did bad mistakes.

According to Penang State Government, Penang has their own statistics rate number of international and local tourist’s arrivals in Penang in 2005 to march 2009. Within these 5 years, overall total number of tourists either locals or international is about 21, 881,848 people arrived in Penang .In 2005 the local tourists arrival is about 2,267532 people whereby the international tourists approximately about 2,084,377 people. Furthermore, the overall total number of tourists in 2006 is about 4,688,504 people which are in percentages 54% of local tourists and 46% of international visitors. Moving on, the overall total number of tourist’s arrivals in Penang in 2007 has increasing compared to year before which is 2006 which is 5,186,611 tourists. Among the 5 years between 2005- 2009, the highest amount of tourists arrival is in 2008 which is 6,307,468 visitors in percentages it would be 55% for the locals and 45% for the international tourists inbounds in Penang. Finally, in 2009 the total number of tourists inbounds in Penang was sharply dropped from 6,307,468 tourists in previous year whereby in 2009 the overall total number of tourists is 1,347,356 visitors’ arrivals in Penang (2010).

As stated by the Tourism Minister, Datuk Seri Ng Yen Yen, tourist’s arrivals in 2009 has dropped from 6,307,468 to 1,347,356 tourists due to the Influenza a (H1N1) scare. On the other hand, international tourists from Europe and United Kingdom remained the same. She stated that the tourists are safe as health authorities helps to prevent the spread of the disease towards the tourists. On top of that, Datuk Ng.Yen Yen had a discussion with the directors of 44 Tourism Malaysia regarding promotional plans to persuade tourists to visits Malaysia because Malaysia is one of the countries safe from Influenza H1N1 (Bernama).

As mentioned earlier, Malacca overtakes Penang as tourist’s destination in 2009. Statistics shows that tourist’s arrival in Penang dropped from 6.3 million in 2008 to 1.3 million in 2009. Compared Penang to Malacca, Penang has a lot and good accessibility and products for example foods, beaches, cultures, and many more. Datuk Seri Dr. Ng Yen Yen strictly wants the state government to do something in order to increase more tourists in 2010. She suggested that Penang has a potential to become one of the country’s leading tourists destination because Penang has 191 flights from 12 international airlines flying in Penang. Besides that, she recommend that state government should put more initiative in hiring well-trained tourists guides which experts in the field of Penang history and heritage. These tour guides, service counters, and restaurant employees should know very well and are able to share the history and stories behind heritage buildings. In this way, we can give the visitors special services and make them satisfy during their visits to Penang (Y.Y.Ng, Nov, 2010).

2.3 The Economic and Social cultural Impacts on Cultural Events in Penang

According to Gawler Visitor Information Centre, cultural events is one of the most exciting festival celebrations that can pulls many tourists from every parts of the world to make revenues in the economy of tourism industry . On top of that, behind the significant of cultural events, it has its economic and also socio cultural impacts on cultural events in Penang. There are few factors will indicate the economic and socio cultural impacts on cultural events in Penang.

Economic impacts on cultural events in Penang

As stated above, there are few factors that show the economic impacts on cultural events in Penang and it can be divided into negative and positive. Negative economic impacts on cultural events in Penang are the revenue or loses generated by tourists as to the cost incurred by the state government to these events. According to Priscilla, Penang tourism sector requires approximately RM 50 million for tourism in Penang. Based on 2008 statistics, there were 6.3 million tourists arrivals in Penang and as what the Chief Minister said that RM 500,000 is not enough for the tourism to conduct an activities and events especially which is connected to the infrastructure, promotions, and also improving the facilities (2010). The RM 50 million are required in order to have events, festivals, upgrading the quality of beaches and many more as now Penang is the third highest contribution state in tourism sector. According to Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, in 2009, the tourists arrivals in Penang has dropped to 1.3 million due to the influenza H1N1 thus there were loses generated by tourists as to the high amount of cost incurred by the state government to these tourism sector (2010). The money that they use to upgrading the facilities, promotions, events and festivals is not balance with how much money the tourists spend during their visits to Penang thus it would be a lose for Penang. The positive economy impacts on cultural impacts in Penang are can increase the tourism economy and society development in Penang (Jafari, 2000). Positive impacts on cultural events in Penang would be the job opportunities in Penang. In 2008, hotels in Penang received approximately 6.3 million tourists which are locals and also international compared to 2007 about 5.1 million tourists’ arrivals in Penang. The statistics shows that there was slightly increase of 1.2 million visitor’s arrivals which would indicate that there are so many job opportunities out there for the people who really need to work (Administrator III, 2009). This is say that they need more labors to work in such places like hotels, restaurants, tour guides, and many more. Moving on, in 2010, Penang Tourism Minister target 10 million tourists’ arrivals in 2014. Indirectly says that they need more employment to work in this industry (Administrator III, 2010).

Socio Cultural Impacts on Cultural Events in Penang

In this part of literature review, one of the socio cultural impacts on cultural events in Penang is diplomatic relations. According to The Star Online, Penang Government and Russian Embassy are thinking to organize a Russian cultural event every year in order to remembrance of the Russian battleship (Zhemchug) close by Penang coast during the World War. Vorobyeva Lyudmila Georgievna the new Russian ambassador said that their sailors we’ve been buried in Western Cemetery on Jalan Utama in Penang Island and Pulau Jerejak. Besides that, she also expresses her gratitude to Penang State because the help to clean and uphold those 12 sailors that have been buried in Western Cemetery. Furthermore, she spoke to Datuk Seri Lim Guan Eng and said that it would be much better to organize a Russian cultural event in Penang every year. She suggests that the Russian cultural event would have interesting Russian folk performances, classical, Russian music, and also Russian food as well. Thus, Malaysia can have bond relationships Russian and with the Russian cultural event it would help to encourage more Russian tourists to come to Penang in the future (2010).

Conclusion

In conclusion, cultural events are one of the pull factors to bring in tourists from every parts of the world regardless the international or the local tourists. To have such cultural events or festivals can increase our economy in tourism sector thus Penang can be one of the states to be recognize internationally with the uniqueness and amazing beaches, nice foods, great heritage and many more. The existence of cultural events can also promote and bond relationships between the locals and visitors by having lots of activities and know how to appreciate different cultures, religion and race.

Chapter 3
Research design and methodology
3.1 Overview

In Chapter 3, there will be 5 main points to highlight in this sample proposal. In the first part of this topic is the general idea on the research design and methodology. Next, it is the elaboration about the introduction of the research proposal. Basically, it talks about the purpose of doing this topic and explanation about the cultural events that s being celebrated by all races in Penang. Moving on, there will be a research design in this chapter 3 such as investigating the population and the sampling techniques that is going to apply. After that, it will be explanation regarding the procedures of data collection and data analysis which will be divided into 2 sections which is primary data and secondary data. And lastly, there will be a short explanation about the questionnaires design.

Reff
Administrator III (2009) “boost in Penang tourists arrivals”
http://www.visitpenang.gov.my/portal3/penang-tourism-news/539-boost-in-penang-tourist-arrivals.html
Administrator III (2010) “Speech by The Rt Hon Mr Lim Guan Eng, Chief Minister of Penang- Launch of the Penang Investment Tourism Office (PITO), Singapore”
http://www.visitpenang.gov.my/portal3/penang-tourism-news/1187-speech-by-the-rt-hon-mr-lim-guan-eng-chief-minister-of-penang-launch-of-the-penang-investment-tourism-office-pito-singapore.html
PRISCILLA DIELENBERG (2010) “CM: Penang needs RM50mil for tourism”

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?sec=nation&file=/2010/4/18/nation/20100418170830

Ministry of tourism Malaysia (2010)”NUMBER OF TOURIST ARRIVALS FROM TEN LEADING COUNTRIES TRANSITING THROUGH PENANG AIRPORT 2004 – 2008?

http://www.penang.gov.my/index.php?ch=16&pg=44&lang=eng

Jafari, J. (2000). APEC international tourism symposium: the scientification of tourism.

65 Korea Tourism Policy, summer, Vol.2, No.3, 56-59. Seoul: Korea tourism Research Institute (KTRI).

http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2002/2002kwonh.pdf

Tourism facts sheet “gawler visitor tourism centre”

http://www.gawler.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/5_Gawler_Impacts_Tourism.PDF

The star online (2010) “Annual Russian fest proposed”

http://thestar.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2010/11/6/north/7320843&sec=north

ProbleemanalyseInleiding

Bij het opstarten van een project is een probleemanalyse van essentieel belang. Na het bestuderen van het probleem en de vragen van de opdrachtgever, wordt een helder en duidelijk managementprobleem geformuleerd. Naast de opdracht formuleer je wat je gaat onderzoeken, op welke manier je dat gaat doen en waarom. De onderdelen die in de probleemanalyse aan bod komen zijn het managementprobleem, het onderzoeksprobleem, componenten, de onderzoeksdoelstelling gevolgd door de onderliggende onderzoeksvragen en op het einde het theoretisch kader, waar alle begrippen en theorieen in vermeld worden.

De probleemanalyse wordt aangeboden aan de opdrachtgever, die de analyse goed- of afkeurt. Bij goedkeuring aanvaardt de opdrachtgever dat het projectteam de opdracht gaat uitvoeren.

Managementprobleem

De NHTV international hogeschool Breda is een allround kennisinstituut op het gebied van recreatie en toerisme. De NHTV leidt niet alleen (inter)nationale studenten op, maar organiseert ook congressen en neemt deel aan workshops en seminars over de hele wereld.

De missie van de hogeschool luidt als volgt: ‘NHTV wil een bijdrage leveren aan de maatschappij door in nauwe samenwerking met de internationale werkvelden (jonge) mensen op te leiden tot verantwoordelijke professionals voor een globaliserende werk- en kennisomgeving. De instelling wil medewerkers en studenten inspireren en uitdagen hun talenten optimaal te ontwikkelen, hun kennis en kunde te integreren en deze als professional of als wetenschapper op excellente en duurzame wijze toe te passen in de samenleving. (NHTV, 2010)

Daarnaast is de hogeschool nauw betrokken bij het internationale toerisme en recreatieve bedrijfsleven, vooral als het gaat over innovatieve en duurzame ontwikkelingen. De hogeschool is een door de World Tourism Organization gecertificeerde opleiding die serieus meedenkt over etnische vraagstukken in het internationale toerisme. Daarnaast is de NHTV nauw betrokken bij de Initiatiefgroep Duurzaam Uitgaan Toerisme (IDUT).

De opleiding Management Toerisme denkt erover om, in navolging van IDUT, een nieuw platform op te richten, namelijk het Internationaal Innovatieplatform Toeristisch Vervoer. De NHTV, de wereld, de toerist en de recreant hebben namelijk een ding gemeen: ze zijn altijd in beweging. Het probleem is echter dat er een heldere visie op toeristisch en recreatief vervoer ontbreekt.

Niet eerder is nagedacht over of onderzoek gedaan naar aspecten als ethiek, duurzaamheid, snelheid, prijs enzovoorts. Met het oog op de ontwikkelingen naar een beleveniseconomie en zelfs een transformationele economie, wil het Internationaal Innovatieplatform Toeristisch Vervoer een visie laten ontwikkelen op toeristisch-recreatief vervoer die de basis vormt voor een betekenisvol belevingsconcept. Er wordt als het ware een creatieve en overtuigende vertaalslag gemaakt van de droom (visie) naar de daad (concept). Het concept dient vervolgens globaal getoetst te worden op ethische en duurzaamheidaspecten.

Tot op heden is er ook geen onderzoek gedaan naar nieuwe volggroepen die aansluiten bij de producten en het concept. Het is de bedoeling dat een of meer volggroepen zich aantoonbaar aangesproken gaan voelen door de beleving die deze producten oplevert. De karakteristiek van deze volgroepen dient op basis van de waardegeorienteerde lifestyle-segmentatiemodellen gegeven te worden.

Daarnaast dient het belevingsconcept aantoonbaar geschikt te zijn voor de ontwikkeling van een aantal verschillende en onderscheidende belevingsproducten. Daarbij dient een belevingsproduct op hoofdlijnen uitgewerkt te worden.

Uiteindelijk zal aangegeven worden hoe de betrokkenheid en/of binding tussen volggroep en belevingsproduct door interactieve communicatie kan worden bevorderd. Daarbij gaat het om het regisseren van de communicatie. (Handleiding CPO2, 2010)

Onderzoeksprobleem

Zoals in het managementprobleem beschreven staat, ontbreekt een heldere visie op toeristisch en recreatief vervoer. De NHTV geeft de student Management Toerisme om die reden de opdracht om – op basis van een persoonlijke visie op toeristisch recreatief vervoer – een sterk belevingsconcept voor een specifieke vorm van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer te ontwikkelen, waaraan verschillende onderscheidende belevingsproducten gekoppeld kunnen worden en waardoor met naam te benoemen volggroepen zich aangesproken en verbonden voelen.

Met de introductie van het belevingsconcept voor vakantievervoer dient de eerste publicatie van het Internationaal Innovatieplatform Toeristisch Vervoer gevoed te worden.

De compacte vraag die ik mijzelf bij dit project heb gesteld luidt als volgt:

“Hoe kan ik vanuit een persoonlijke visie komen tot een belevingsconcept?”

Om antwoord te geven op de bovenstaande onderzoeksvraag dient er informatie te worden verzameld over de diverse aspecten die bij dit project van belang zullen zijn. Zo zal de aanbodkant van het toeristisch-recreatief vervoer in kaart moeten worden gebracht en dient er onderzoek gedaan te worden naar de trends en ontwikkelingen van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer. Daarbij zal er gekeken worden naar de situatie op micro- en meso-niveau. Aan de hand van de micro-analyse dient er in kaart te worden gebracht wat de kernwaarden en motieven zijn, welke in verbinding staan met het toeristisch-recreatief vervoer.

Een duidelijk beeld van de bovenstaande aspecten maakt het mogelijk een persoonlijk visie te formuleren waarna je kunt komen tot een belevingsconcept.

Componenten

Om antwoord te geven op de onderzoeksvragen zijn een aantal deelstudies noodzakelijk om te voorzien in de gedefinieerde informatie- en adviesbehoefte. In de opstartfase diende iedere student een keuze te maken tussen vervoer via land, water of lucht. De keuze is uiteindelijk gevallen op de vervoerssector ‘transport over water’. De reden hiervoor is dat het transport over water, in tegenstelling tot andere toeristisch-recreatieve vervoersmogelijkheden een stijgende lijn kent in het aantal passagiers. Daarnaast ontdoet het ‘transport via water’ zich van zijn stoffige imago en hebben cruisemaatschappijen hun focus gelegd op de bouw van innovatieve schepen en het aanspreken van nieuwe doelgroepen.

Het ABCDEF-model loopt als de rode draad door het conceptontwikkelingsproces heen. Deze methodiek is een uitbereiding van het conceptontwikkelingsproces en bevat de onderdelen: aandacht en analyse, broeden en beleven, creeren van een concept, design van belevenissen, experience platform en follow up. De ABCDEF-methodiek is kwalitatief van aard en gaat om het blootleggen van het hart of de ziel en deze in conceptvorm te vangen.

Allereerst zal worden ingegaan op een nadere uitwerking van de aanbodkant. Er dient onderzocht te worden welke mogelijkheden reisorganisaties bieden, welke trends en ontwikkelingen er van toepassing zijn en waar de vervoerssector zich in onderscheid. Informatie hierover is te vinden op internet, in de databases van Tourpress en de Reisrevue. Daarnaast worden websites van touroperators en transportbedrijven geraadpleegt.

Vervolgens zal worden ingegaan op vraag- en (deels) aanbodkant van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer over het water. Deze onderdelen bevat deelvragen die het doel hebben de situatie op macro-, meso- en micro-niveau te beschrijven. De macro-omgeving zal beschreven worden aan de hand van het DSTEPJ-model en de meso-omgeving zal beschreven worden aan de hand van het ABCD-model.

De micro-analyse maakt onderdeel uit van de vraagkant, waarbij gekeken wordt naar de kernwaarden en motivaties van reizigers. Bij de micro-analyse zal gebruik worden gemaakt van het Mentality-model van Motivaction, die onderscheid maakt in verschillende sociale milieus. Daarnaast zal bij het onderzoeken van consumententrends publicaties en databases van Tourpress, Reisrevue, NBTC, TNS NIPO en de ANVR geraadpleegd worden.

Theorieen en begrippen betreffende visie, duurzaamheid en ethiek, concept- en productontwikkeling etc. zijn te vinden in de literatuur van Nijs en Peters ‘Imagineering’, Rijkenberg ‘Concepting’ en Boers en Beunders ‘De andere kant van de vrije tijd’.

Onderzoeksdoelstelling

Inzicht verkrijgen in de aanbodkant, trends en ontwikkelingen en kernwaarden en motivaties van het toeristisch-recreatief vervoer teneinde een visie te ontwikkelen op toeristisch-recreatief vervoer die de basis vormt voor een betekenisvol belevingsconcept.

Inzicht verkrijgen in de aanbodkant, trends en ontwikkelingen en kernwaarden en motivaties van het toeristisch-recreatief vervoer teneinde een sterk belevingsconcept voor een specifieke vorm van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer te ontwikkelen, waaraan verschillende onderscheidende belevingsproducten gekoppeld kunnen worden en waardoor met naam te benoemen volggroepen zich aangesproken en verbonden voelen.

Onderzoeksvragen
Hoe ziet het aanbodkant eruit van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer over het water?
Hoe ziet de situatie eruit op macro-niveau?
Hoe ziet de situatie eruit op meso-niveau?
Hoe ziet de situatie eruit op micro-niveau?
Theoretisch kader

Het ABCDEF-model loopt als de rode draad door het conceptontwikkelingsproces heen. Deze methodiek is een uitbereiding van het conceptontwikkelingsproces en bevat de volgende onderdelen

Analyse en Aandacht. Analyse van vraag als aanbodkant. Inleven in de ziel, de aard, het unieke DNA van het aanbod aan toeristisch recreatief vervoer.
Broeden en Beleven. Ontwikkelen van een subjectieve en onderscheidende visie op toeristisch recreatief vervoer en de daarin gekozen sector.
Creeren van een Concept. Het vertalen van een visie in een concept.
Design van belevenissen. Ontwerpen van belevingsproducten, diensten of belevenissen.
Experience platform. Emotionele betrokkenheid, loyaliteit creeren.
Follow up. Het werken met belevingsconcepten en -producten leidt tot innovaties binnen het bedrijf. (Projecthandleiding CPO2, 2010)

Bij het maken van een situatieanalyse kan een onderscheid gemaakt worden in een externe (ook wel omgevingsanalyse genoemd) en een interne situatieanalyse. De externe analyse bestaat uit variabelen die van invloed zijn op de activiteiten van de organisatie, maar waarop door de organisatie zelf geen (of weinig) invloed kan worden uitgeoefend. In de literatuur wordt hierbij een verder onderscheid gemaakt in macro-omgeving en meso-omgeving.

De macro-omgevingsanalyse, ook wel eens trendanalyse genoemd, wordt gebruikt om de huidige en toekomstige trends en/of gebeurtenissen te lokaliseren, die potentiele mogelijkheden of bedreigingen vormen voor de organisatie. Bij de eerste onderzoeksvraag zal gebruik worden gemaakt van het DSTEPJ-model, waaronder de demografische factoren, sociaal culturele omgevingsvariabelen, technologische omgevingsvariabelen, economische omgevingsvariabelen, politieke omgevingsvariabelen en juridische variabelen vallen.

Demografische factoren: kenmerken die te maken hebben met de Nederlandse bevolking.
Economische factoren: kenmerken die te maken hebben met de economie van Nederland.
Sociaal-culturele factoren: kenmerken van cultuur en leefgewoonten van Nederland.
Technologische factoren: kenmerken van de ontwikkeling op technologisch gebied.
Ecologische factoren: kenmerken die te maken hebben met de fysieke omgeving en milieu.
Politiek: kenmerken van overheidsbeslissingen.
Juridische factoren: kenmerken van overheidsbeslissingen (Intemarketing.nl, 2010)

Factoren uit de meso-omgeving hebben te maken met factoren binnen de branche, die van invloed zijn op het functioneren van de organisatie. Hierbij gaat het vooral om marktvormen, marktstructuur en marktorganisatie vanuit de vraagzijde en vanuit de aanbodzijde. En ook de concurrentie- en concurrentieanalyse is hier van belang. De vraag naar vakanties in het algemeen, de binnenlandse vakantie in het bijzonder en specifiek naar kamperen, zijn ontwikkelingen binnen de branche van verblijfsrecreatie, die voor een camping van belang zijn. De meso-analyse zal worden beschreven aan de hand van het ABCD-model, waaronder de afnemers-, bedrijfstak-, concurrentie- en distributieanalyse behoren.

Bij de micro-analyse wordt de kernwaarden, motivaties en trends van de consument onderzocht. Dit zal gedaan worden aan het hand van hand van de verschillende Mentality-milieus van Motivaction, waarbij onderscheid wordt gemaakt in socio-demografische gegevens en de normen en waarden van de verschillende milieus.

De gemaksgeorienteerden: de impulsieve en passieve consument die in de eerste plaats streeft naar een onbezorgd, plezierig en comfortabel leven.
De opwaarts mobielen: de carrieregerichte individualisten met een uitgesproken fascinatie voor sociale status, nieuwe technologie, risico en spanning.
De nieuwe conservatieven: de liberaalconservatieve maatschappelijke bovenlaag die alle ruimte wil geven aan technologische ontwikkeling, maar zich verzet tegen sociale en culturele vernieuwingen.
De kosmopolieten: de open en kritische wereldburgers die postmoderne waarden als ontplooien en beleven integreren met moderne waarden als maatschappelijk succes, materialisme en genieten.
De postmaterialisten: de maatschappelijke idealisten die zichzelf willen ontplooien, stelling nemen tegen sociaal onrecht en opkomen voor het milieu.
De postmoderne hedonisten: de pioniers van de beleveniscultuur, waarin experiment en het breken met morele en sociale conventies doelen op zichzelf zijn geworden.
De traditionele burgerij: de moralistische, plichtsgetrouwe en op de status-quo gerichte burgerij die vasthoudt aan tradities en materiele bezittingen.
De moderne burgerij: de conformistische, statusgevoelige burgerij die het evenwicht zoekt tussen traditie en moderne waarden als consumeren en genieten. (Motivaction.nl, 2010)
Werkwijze

Aanbodkant van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer

Inleiding

In dit hoofdstuk zullen we het gaan hebben over de verschillende mogelijkheden binnen toeristisch-recreatief vervoer in het algemeen en gespecialiseerd op de sector vervoer over water. Er zijn drie doelen van het gebruik van transport die toegelicht zullen worden, namelijk: als doorvoer, als bestemming en als toeristische attractie.

Mogelijkheden binnen toeristisch-recreatief vervoer

Transport als doorvoer

Het belangrijkste doel van het gebruik van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer is het transporteren van mensen naar een andere bestemming dan de plaats van herkomst (bijna 90%). Nadeel voor de touroperator is dat hij weinig tot geen controle uit kan voeren op de geboden service. Door middel van yieldmanagement zal er een poging worden gedaan een optimale mix van prijs en bezetting te behalen.

Toch kan het vervoer gezien worden als een belevenis, mits er hoog wordt gescoord op de volgende criteria: het type transport, de persoonlijkheid van de toerist, de frequentie van het reizen en de reissamenstelling van de toerist. Deze criteria dienen te worden vergeleken met nadelen van vervoer als lange wachtrijen en vertragingen.

Transport als bestemming

Eenmaal op de bestemming aangekomen maken toeristen veelvuldig gebruik van vervoers-middelen als huurauto’s, taxi’s, busdiensten en veerboten. Vaak spelen vervoerders op de bestemming hierop in door producten aan te bieden voor specifiek gericht zijn op het toerisme. Hierbij kunt u denken aan excursies en kaarten voor het openbare vervoer in het gebied. Vervoer op de vakantiebestemming is goed voor 10% van het totale toeristische gebruik van vervoer.

Transport als toeristische attractie

In een aantal gevallen is het vervoersmiddel de attractie tussen bestemmingen in een of meerdere landen. De grootste markt hiervoor is de cruise-industrie. Daarnaast zijn er voorbeelden van treinreizen als de Oriental Express, dagtrips met een ferry door Engeland en kanaalcruises door Amsterdam.

Vormen van reizen

De meest voor de hand liggende manier voor het analyseren van toeristisch-recreatief vervoer is door te kijken naar de verschillende vormen van reizen: land, water, spoor en lucht. De keuze van de toerist voor een bepaalde vorm van reizen hangt samen met invloeden als: afstand en tijd, status en comfort, veiligheid en nuttigheid, prijs/ service en dienstverlening, geografische ligging en de hoogte van de concurrentie tussen de verschillende diensten.

Componenten

Er kunnen vier basiselementen worden onderscheiden, namelijk: de weg, de wachtruimte, het vervoersmiddel en de drijfkracht. De weg kan omschreven worden als het middel waarin het vervoersmiddel kunstmatig (weg, rails) of natuurlijk (lucht, water) opereert.

Wachtruimtes geven de reiziger toegang tot het vervoersmiddel of fungeren als schakel tussen verschillende wijzen van vervoer. Niet alle vervoersmiddelen hebben een geavanceerde terminal nodig. Zo stoppen stadsbussen bijvoorbeeld op plaatsen langs weg. Het vervoers-middel is het voertuig dat het vervoer vergemakkelijkt. De aard van het vervoersmiddel wordt beinvloed door verschillende factoren als: vraag- en technologische ontwikkelingen en drijfkracht, het belangrijkste element in de ontwikkeling van transport. Vervoersmiddelen kennen een steeds grotere capaciteit, zijn sneller en worden vooral milieuvriendelijker.

De vervoersindustrie is een concurrentiegevoelige en complexe industrie. Verschillende vormen van vervoer, verschillende bedrijven en verschillende landen beconcurreren elkaar met hun product. Consumenten kiezen aan de hand van de volgende factoren voor een bepaald vervoersmiddel of bedrijf: veiligheid, kosten, snelheid, afstand, gemak, vertrek- en aankomsttijd, betrouwbaarheid, beschikbaarheid, flexibiliteit, service, comfort, prikkels en status en prestige. (Tourism principles and practice, 2010)

Toeristisch-recreatief vervoersaanbod van de sector water

Toeristisch-recreatief vervoer over het water kunnen we verdelen in vervoer per veerboot en cruiseschip. Rondreizen per cruiseschip zijn vervolgens onder te verdelen in zeecruises en riviercruises. Er zijn twee verschillen tussen aan te duiden tussen zee- en riviercruises: het soort water dat bevaren wordt heeft gevolgen voor het soort schip en bij een zeecruise wordt er ‘s nachts gevaren, in tegenstelling tot bij de riviercruise, waar varen zelf juist de grootste attractie is en daardoor overdag gevaren wordt. De cruise is voortgekomen uit de overcapaciteit aan schepen, die ontstond toen er in de jaren vijftig geen of nauwelijks meer interesse bestond voor de lijndienstscheepvaart. Sinds de jaren tachtig en het begin van de negentiger jaren is de cruisebusiness in een stroomversnelling terecht gekomen. Jaarlijks boeken zo’n tien miljoen mensen wereldwijd een cruise. De schepen hebben zich ontwikkelt tot gestroomlijnde drijvende resorts die duizenden passagiers kunnen vervoeren. Ze varen voornamelijk in het Caribisch gebied, de Bahamas, naar Alaska en zelfs Antarctica. Daarnaast zijn er trans-Atlantische cruises naar New York en ‘bescheiden’ cruises in de Middellandse Zee.

In tegenstelling tot zeecruises vinden riviercruises voornamelijk plaats in Europa. Voor de Nederlandse markt zijn bestemmingen binnen Europa dan ook veruit het belangrijkste. Er worden cruises aangeboden op de rivieren: de Rijn, de Maas, de Donau, de Elbe, de Rhone, de Seine en de Don. Luxueuze riviercruises buiten Europa komen voornamelijk voor op de Nijl en de Mississippi. Ruim honderd jaar geleden werd de ‘akte van Mannheim’ getekend, door landen die aan de Rijn liggen. In deze akte werd het varen op de Rijn aan regels onderworpen, hetgeen een grote invloed heeft voor de huidige scheepsvaart op de Rijn. Een van de onderdelen was, dat de schepen op de Rijn en haar zijrivieren bepaalde afmetingen niet mochten overschrijden, zodat een van de belangrijkste kenmerken van een riviercruiseschip is – in tegenstelling tot het zeecruiseschip – dat het maximaal vier verdiepingen mag hebben, waardoor het schip onder de bruggen door kan varen.

Door de bovengenoemde voorschriften komen in West-Europa de riviercruiseschepen niet boven de capaciteit van tweehonderd passagiers uit. De tarieven worden voornamelijk bepaald door de luxe van het schip. Prijzen liggen tussen de circa ˆ 100,- en ˆ 350,- per persoon per dag. (De wereld in toeristische bestemmingen, 2004)

Wat betreft het vervoer van voertuigen en goederen op korte overtochten, bieden veerboten goedkope, betrouwbare en veilige diensten. Vervoer per ferry is de enige mogelijkheid in het geval van een afgelegen en klein eiland waar geen luchthaven aanwezig is. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan Griekenland, waar slechts 15 luchthavens tot 95 bewoonde eilanden dienen. In dit geval verbinden grote veerboten het vasteland, de havens en de eilanden met elkaar.

Bovendien verzorgen kleinere regionale veerboten het vervoer tussen de eilanden, met name in het hoogseizoen.

In veel gevallen kan de luchtvaart een uitstekend alternatief zijn voor het vervoer tussen de grotere eilanden en het vasteland. Het belangrijkste voordeel van de ferry in vergelijking met het vliegtuig is de prijs, gecombineerd met het feit dat passagiers op de bestemming gebruik kunnen maken van hun eigen voertuig. De populariteit van autovakanties en self-drive pakketten, evenals de invoering van het roll-on-roll-off principe – die het voor de haven mogelijk maakt een groter volume van de voertuigen te verwerken – tonen de stijging van de vraag naar veerdiensten aan.

De geleidelijke liberalisering van het luchtvervoer in Europa, de daling van de kosten van vliegtickets en de ontwikkeling van alternatieve vervoersmogelijkheden hebben ervoor gezorgd dat veerdiensten vors investeren om hun schepen te verbeteren, de snelheid te verhogen en recreatieve voorzieningen te ontwikkelen. Routes met langere overtochten bieden de reiziger tegenwoordig een ruime keuze aan recreatieve voorzieningen en een consument-gerichte service.

Moderne schepen als de catamaran en draagvleugelboten zijn in de afgelopen decennia op bepaalde routes ingevoerd. Moderne schepen hebben meer vermogen dan de traditionele veerdiensten en arriveren dus sneller op hun bestemming. Ze varen tot drie keer sneller dan een normale veerboot, terwijl ze een grote wendbaarheid en een snelle turn-around hebben in de haven. Daarnaast nemen ze veel minder ruimte in beslag dan traditionele veerdiensten waardoor ze een minimum aan dokfaciliteiten nodig hebben. Moderne schepen trekken dan ook voornamelijk up-market toeristen aan die de wens hebben hun bestemming zo spoedig mogelijk te bereiken. Nadelen van deze schepen: ze zijn veel duurder dan traditionele veerboten, kwetsbaarder in slechte weersomstandigheden en kunnen luidruchtig zijn.

Naast de veerboot, het cruiseschip, de catamaran en de draagvleugelboot kennen we nog een aantal categorieen, zoals de binnenvaart, kleine pleziervaartuigen, het zeilschip en de rondvaartboot. Kenmerken van deze vervoersmogelijkheden zijn dat ze vaak op de bestemming zelf gebruikt worden of bevaren worden door de eigenaar van het vaartuig. Daardoor worden ze niet allemaal beschouwd als toeristisch-recreatief vervoer. (Tourism principles and practice, 2010)

Recente cijfers cruisetoerisme:

Terwijl een groot deel van de Nederlandse reisbranche de negatieve gevolgen van de economische crisis ondervindt, is de cruisesector bezig met een spectaculaire opmars.

De cruisemarkt toont aan zich onder lastige omstandigheden aanzienlijk in de toeristische sector te blijven ontwikkelen.

Nederland heeft daarentegen een flinke achterstand in te halen op echte cruisenaties, zoals de Groot-Brittannie, Italie, Duitsland, Frankrijk en Spanje. In 2008 werden er 4,5 miljoen cruisepassagiers geteld uit Europa, waarvan er 1,5 miljoen uit Groot-Brittannie kwamen en 0,9 miljoen uit Duitsland. Desondanks is Nederland bezig met een opmars en de meest recente cijfers voor Nederland liegen er niet om. In 2008 nam het aantal Nederlandse cruisepassagiers al met ruim 44 procent toe tot ruim 48.600 en in het eerste kwartaal van 2009 kon de opgaande lijn voortgezet en versterkt worden, aldus Norbert van der Glas, voorzitter van de Dutch Cruise Council (DCC). Aan het einde van het jaar verwacht hij tenminste 60.000 cruisepassagiers te verwelkomen, wat een stijging betekend van 25% ten opzichte van het jaar daarvoor. Tot 1 april 2009 boekten ruim 38.000 Nederlanders een cruisvakantie, 47 procent meer dan in dezelfde periode in 2007. Als de prognose voor heel 2009 uitkomt is het aantal cruisereizigers in twee jaar bijna verdubbeld.

“De cruisemarkt is in rap tempo bezig zich te ontdoen van haar stoffige imago en spreekt een steeds jonger publiek aan. De beeldvorming is zich bij een breed publiek ingrijpend aan het wijzigen. Dat komt niet alleen door de voortdurende vlootvernieuwing, maar ook door de ‘verjonging’ en modernisering van activiteiten aan boord. Natuurlijk hebben we nog steeds veel senioren onder onze passagiers, maar ook steeds meer families vinden cruisen geweldig”,

zo zegt Norbert van der Glas.

Tenslotte krijgt de cruisemarkt een opwaartse impuls door het groeiend aantal vertrekken vanuit Nederlandse havens, verwacht Van der Glas. “Mensen zien dat of horen daarover en krijgen dan ook zelf zin om op reis te gaan”.

Voor cruiseschepen die in Amsterdam hun thuishaven krijgen zal het effect door de verwachte komst van een tweede cruiseterminal nabij de Coentunnel op langere termijn positief worden beinvloed. De huidige Passenger Terminal Amsterdam (PTA) zal dan vooral voor dagbezoek van cruises worden gebruikt. Naar verwachting zal die ontwikkeling in de loop van 2013/2014 haar beslag krijgen.

De spectaculaire opmars van de cruisesector werden gepresenteerd tijdens de lancering van

de Dutch Cruise Council in 2009. Daarin hebben twintig rederijen of hun vertegenwoordigers in Nederland zich verenigd om samen het cruiseproduct ‘in de breedste zin van het woord’ te promoten bij reisbranche en consument.

De situatie op macro-niveau

Inleiding

In dit hoofdstuk zal onderzoek gedaan worden naar trends en ontwikkelingen op macro-niveau. Het doel van trendonderzoek is om voorspellingen te doen op de langere termijn. Het verschil met modes en rages is dat deze grillig en tijdelijk zijn, in tegenstelling tot trends waarbij het om langdurige, fundamentele, autonome maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen gaat.

Er zal in dit hoofdstuk, tenzij anders vermeld, gebruik worden gemaakt van de andere kant van de vrije tijd (2007) en het artikel Trendwatching Trends voor 2010 (2009).

Demografische ontwikkelingen

De belangrijkste demografische trends in de westerse wereld zijn vergrijzing, ontgroening en gezinsverdunning. Vergrijzing betekent de opkomst van actieve en koopkrachtige senioren. Daarnaast ontstaat een groep ouderen die met een zeer beperkt inkomen dito mogelijkheden hebben. De ontgroening leidt tot een afname van de jongerenmarkt qua omvang, maar deze wordt deel gecompenseerd door toegenomen bestedingsmogelijkheden. De gezinsverdunning leidt tot een toename van het aantal uren huishoudelijke arbeid en daarmee op macro-niveau tot een afname van de hoeveelheid vrije tijd. De tijdsbesparende functie van nieuwe huishoudelijke apparatuur wordt daardoor op macro-niveau ook grotendeels tenietgedaan.

Bevolking per component

Net als de bevolkingsgroei laat de huishoudensgroei een langzaam afnemend verloop zien (Van Duin en Loozen, 2009). Ondanks het feit dat de huishoudensgroei de komende jaren met 0,5 tot 1 procent per jaar zal groeien, zal deze in 2040 geleidelijk tot nul zijn afgenomen. De relatieve groei van het aantal huishoudens zal in de aankomende jaren tweemaal hoger liggen dan die van het aantal inwoners. Dit wordt veroorzaakt door het groeiende aantal alleen-staanden, waardoor de gemiddelde grootte van huishoudens voortdurende afneemt. Een andere belangrijke oorzaak is de vergrijzing. Ouderen zijn na het verlies van hun levenspartner vaker alleenstaand dan personen van middelbare leeftijd. De laatste groep kiest er sinds de jaren zeventig steeds meer voor om ongehuwd samen te wonen. Omdat ongehuwde stellen hogere scheidingsrisico’s met zich meedragen, zal deze informalisering gepaard gaan met een toenemende instabiliteit. De verwachting is dat de huishoudensver-dunning rond 2040 vrijwel uitgewerkt is.

Vergrijzing/ ontgroening

Uit cijfers van het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek – die de nieuwe regionale prognose beschrijft van de periode 2009-2040 – blijkt dat de vergrijzing in Nederland in de afgelopen jaren is toegenomen. In de periode tussen het einde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog en het begin van de jaren zeventig lag het aantal geboorten in Nederland beduidend hoger dan in de jaren ervoor en erna. Dit had tot gevolg dat Nederland hedendaags een grote bevolkingsgroep van 39-63-jarigen heeft. Het aantal ouderen zal door de instroom van de 39-63-jarigen vanaf 2011 snel stijgen. Het aandeel van 65-plussers zal stijgen van 15 procent in 2009 naar 26 procent rond 2040.

Door de stijgende levensverwachting blijven ouderen bovendien steeds langer in leven. Van de mensen die dit jaar 65 werden zal naar verwachting in 2025 ruim 70 procent 80 jaar worden. Van de mensen die in 1990 65 jaar werden, haalde slechts zo’n 60 procent de 80 jaar.

Het verschil in vergrijzing tussen ‘stad’ en ‘platteland’ komt duidelijk tot uiting indien gekeken wordt naar de verstedelijkingsgraad. Niet-stedelijke gemeenten hebben over het algemeen een oudere bevolking dan stedelijke gemeenten. Volgens de prognose neemt dat verschil de komende decennia nog iets toe. In de regio’s Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam en Utrecht blijft het aandeel ouderen tot 2040 lager dan een kwart. In deze regio’s zijn de grote steden economische groeipolen en deze oefenen, gecombineerd met een groot aanbod aan (onderwijs) faciliteiten, een sterke aantrekkingskracht op jongeren uit.

Bevolkingsgroei en -krimp

Na de sterke bevolkingsgroei in de jaren vijftig, zestig en zeventig, veroorzaakt door de aanhoudende geboortegolf en de grote stromen immigranten die Nederland ontving, is hier in de 21ste eeuw langzaam een kentering in gekomen. In snel tempo daalde de bevolkingsgroei in de eerste helft van dit decennium en bereikte in 2006 een dieptepunt toen de bevolking met slechts 24 duizend personen groeide en er voor het eerst sinds lange tijd sprake was van een vertrekoverschot. In 2007 trok de immigratie weer sterk aan, met een recordaantal van 143 duizend in 2008. In de bevolkingsprognose van het CBS wordt verwacht dat de bevolkings-groei van Nederland nog zo’n 30 jaar zal aanhouden. Wel zal het tempo veel lager liggen dan in het verleden. Is krimp op nationaal niveau dus nog niet aan de orde, voor bepaalde regio’s en steden ligt de situatie anders. Diverse grote steden hebben, als gevolg van suburbanisatie, in de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw hun inwonertal zien afnemen. Deze trend is overigens gekeerd door nieuwe inzichten in het beleid en daarmee samenhangend meer woningbouw aan de randen van de grote steden. Meer informatie over deze ontwikkeling is te vinden onder het verstedelijking, verderop in dit hoofdstuk.

Huishoudensgroei en -krimp/ Afnemende omvang van huishoudens

In beleidskringen heeft de discussie over groei en krimp meestal betrekking op het aantal personen. Voor de woningbouw is het echter veel belangrijker hoe de ontwikkel

“Selling a hotel room used to be simple; business would literally walk in off the street. No more. As the number of channels a customer can use to book a hotel room grows, hoteliers will be forced to take a more holistic view of their technological infrastructure”, as quoted by Bruno des Fontaines (2007), Vice President for Amadeus Hospitality Group Asia Pacific.

Revenue Management is a complex phenomenon with many factors affecting the final outcome. Out of these innumerous factors, playing their role in revenue management, price is indeed one the most powerful tools a hotel can use to increase revenue. The key however is to know how to set the right prices and which distribution channels to use in order to maximize your revenue.

Tools using which, any product or service is provided to end consumer, constitute Distribution Channel of that product or service. Success or failure of a product relies greatly upon distribution channels. “In hospitality business, a successful channel management strategy consists of selling inventory at the highest possible rates, while pushing reservations through the lowest-cost channels”. (Barash 2005)

It is therefore of prime importance that a hotel chooses most effective distribution channels in order to manage prices and eventually to maximize its revenue. There is, however, a great array of approaches available to manage distribution channels which makes it a very challenging task for hoteliers, requiring for them to understand all distribution options available.

In past hotel distribution channels used to be most simplistic, the traditional main distribution channels were:

Brochures

Advertising

guide books

mail shots

call centers and

Travel agencies.

All of these modes, even though very simple and easy to manage, are extremely expensive and have a very limited range. They could be effective for local clientele only. With the passage of time and advancement in technology, other sophisticated and complex distribution channels originated that were never even thought of, such as

Central reservations

Global Distribution systems

Hotel Booking Agent

Tour Operator

Online wholesalers

However most of these channels only acted as a go-between hotel and the global-distribution-system (GDS)/travel agent. (Barash 2005). This wide array of distribution channels no doubt provide a great deal of benefit to the hotel in the sense that its availability to customers increases infinitely, customers all over the world can get to know about any hotel anywhere in the world through a travel agent or website etc. however at the very same time this phenomenon makes hotel distribution channels most complex and difficult to manage. Reasons for decline of GDS as an effective distribution channel as reported by HeBS (2002) can be due to following reasons:

“Slower than expected travel industry recovery and the weak economy

Channel shifting from traditional Consumer-Travel Agent hotel reservations to online bookings (leisure and unmanaged business travelers) and self-booking corporate systems.

Growing popularity of online business models (e.g. merchant) that do not utilize the GDS.

The emergence of direct interfaces between major online agencies and major travel suppliers thus bypassing the GDS.

Services like WorldRes, which utilize direct interfaces to the major hotel brands’ CRSs also undermine GDS distribution.

Decreased corporate travel: the latest survey by NBTA (September 2002) showed that 68% of corporate travel managers said travel was down in their companies from last year, in some cases by as much as 20%. Also, 72% of them said that current travel is below the 2000 levels-the last time travel was at normal volumes.”

Distribution of hotel rooms through traditional distribution channels such as GDS/travel agent and call center/reservation office, proves to be inefficient and extremely expensive, especially in light of the current weak economic situation. Focusing only on traditional distribution channels will result in lower occupancy rates, and higher distribution and operational costs. In this current scenario internet channels are emerging as more popular distribution channels that are being given increasing preference over traditional channels of distribution.

Internet distribution of hotels is of two types:

Direct Online Distribution

Indirect or Third party online distribution

Direct online distribution is where hotel pushes its property through a website constructed and owned by the hotel itself. Whereas third party web-based travel intermediaries such as online travel agents, have a certain number of rooms allocated to them that they sell through their own sites where mostly air tickets and car rentals are also offered among other things. The indirect distribution channel can be further subdivided into further subcategories such as channel to sell “distressed inventory” such as priceline. (HeBS 2002)

A hotel’s revenue is greatly affected by the method that a customer uses to book his/her room. If a lot of middle parties are involved in booking process then hotel’s share, in the amount that a guest pays for booking a room, can reduce to a great extent. According to Marvel (2004) “a room booked through a travel agent and the GDS (global distribution system) typically costs the hotel 15% of the reservation’s total. Contrary to popular belief, third-party websites are no bargain either for the hotelier, as they keep about 13% of a booking’s value. So-called “merchant” websites (such as Priceline.com or Hotwire) which basically buy inventory from hotels usually average a 33% mark-up on the rooms they sell. Bookings arriving via the central reservation system of voluntary chains (such as Minotel) can cream over 25% of the client’s original payment between travel agent, tour operator and chain fees. Many tour operators working in mass leisure destinations only pay 50%-60% of the normal room price to the hotelier who is lodging their clients”.

Looking at Hilton Amsterdam’s site also reveals similar facts, as can be observed from following table:

ADVANCE PURCHASE FULL PREPAYMENT, NO REFUND OR CHANGES (price in GBP)

Hilton website

243

Laterooms.com

258.76

Orbitz

243.5

Booking.com

254.871

(Rate differences between Hotel’s website and other online sources: The rate for Twin Hilton Deluxe Amsterdam room, on different booking sites available online, for one day 30th April – 1st May 2011. These rates were observed on 4th April 2011)

The fact can be clearly observed that best rates for room bookings are given by hotel’s own website, and obviously so because direct online booking on hotels’ own website has proven to be the best and cheapest source of distribution for a hotel.

eTRAK Full Year 2009 report on “hotel bookings by distribution channel” as quoted by Starkov (2010) shows that the online channel is the only channel that is growing even in today’s difficult economic conditions where demand for rooms is far less than the supply, “Internet bookings for the top 30 hotel brands increased by a remarkable 6.6% in 2009 vs. 2008”. Whereas hotel room bookings through GDS and Voice Channels, decreased considerably.

“HeBS’ findings based on the latest eTRAK benchmark report, surveys and industry data from PhoCusWright and ARC” as quoted by Starkov (2010) are as follows:

1) GDS Channel Is in Steady Decline:

GDS hotel bookings via the CRS of the top 30 hotel brands declined by 3.7% 2009 vs. 2008, and constitute 23.6% of total CRS bookings in 2009 vs. 27.3% in 2008 (eTRAK).

Back in 2006, GDS CRS reservations constituted 31.3% of total CRS bookings for the top 30 brands. GDS share has decreased by 24.6% from 2006 to 2009, when it was reported at the 23.6% level.

Travel Agency Share from Total Travel Market in the U.S. dropped from 41% in 2006 to 33% in 2009 (PhoCusWright).

U.S. Travel Agency Locations decreased by 7% in 2009 vs. 2008. The number of locations has been decreasing at an average rate of 4% every year since 2001, and the number of travel agencies has declined from as high as 35,000 in 1995 to less than 16,450 in September 2009 (ARC, HeBS).

2) The Voice Channel Contribution Is Decreasing:

Voice channel hotel bookings via the CRS of the top 30 hotel brands declined by 2.9% in 2009 vs. 2008, and now constitute 22.2% of total CRS booking in 2009 (eTRAK). Last year’s decrease is in addition to a decline of 2.8% for the full 2008 vs. 2007 (eTRAK). The Voice Channel is in decline for the 6th consecutive year (HeBS).

3) The Shift from Offline to Online Channel is Permanent:

54.2% of overall CRS bookings for the top 30 hotel brands come from the online channel, which is an increase of 6.6% vs. 2008 (eTRAK).

60% of leisure and 40% of business travel will be booked online in the U.S. this year (PhoCusWright).

45% of hotel bookings in 2010 will be via the Internet (direct + indirect online channels) (HeBS).

4) Direct online bookings are on the rise:

In 2009, 70.9% of online bookings came from the direct online channel (i.e. the major hotel brands’ own websites), while 29.1% came from the indirect online channel i.e. the Online Travel Agencies. Whereas in 2008 direct online bookings constituted 75.2% part of online bookings and indirect bookings were 24.8%. This represent a great increase in the number of bookings made directly on the hotel’s website as compared to indirect bookings. (Starkov 2010)

Hotel management perceptibly has greater interest in promoting the online booking, especially direct booking on the hotel’s own site, because it is far cheaper. According to a report on E-commerce estimated “cost of direct reservations by traditional means (i.e. fax, telephone, e-mail, etc.) could be as much as 300% higher than processing the same reservation through the GDS, which costs between $3-$5.Furthermore, most reservations, passing through the GDS, are generated by travel agents who charge an average fee of 10%. Bookings via a chain central reservation system cost the hotel $6 to $10 and reservations by a toll free telephone number $4 to $8”. However for hoteliers the cheapest and most satisfactory mode of booking a room is direct online booking variable cost of which is only about $1.50. (Marvel 2004).

Even though GDS still constitutes the major distribution channel for hotel rooms with a 68% share in 2003, their share is diminishing fast due to higher growth rate of the internet, according to Marvel (2004) overall electronic booking increased by only 1.6%, while online reservations rose by 35.5%. However the best source of distribution for any hotel is direct online booking because in indirect bookings the third party intermediaries take away the major chunk of hotels’ revenue in the form of commission. Therefore the major concern of hoteliers nowadays is to devise ways to attract customers to make room bookings directly to the hotels’ website. Several examples of such efforts are as follows:

Four Seasons do not allow any direct bookings over third-party websites.

Hilton (USA) declines “HHonors points” or “air miles for online bookings” to all the bookings that are made indirectly i.e. not on Hilton’s own website.

As of January 1, 2004, Starwood has also take a step in this regard i.e. all bookings made through indirect internet channels will not be eligible for any in-house benefits. Marvel, M. (2004).

Therefore all in all direct online bookings are on the rise and they appear to be the preferred mode in present conditions of recession. However in order to take advantage of this growth in the online distribution channel especially the direct online channel, hoteliers need to make strong and proactive Direct Online Channel Strategy. This strategy should be backed by funds. “Hoteliers must carefully employ ROI-centric initiatives, including website redesign, website optimization and SEO, paid search, email marketing, online display advertising and proven social media initiatives”. (Starkov 2010)

Even in this economy, the budget for internet marketing, and most importantly of direct online channel, should not be decreased or even diminished, because after observing past trends and results of various researches it can be safely said that online channel is the only growth channel for hoteliers and the “only light at the end of the tunnel in this environment. Even in these difficult times we see “Return on ad spend” (ROAS) as high as 3500% from Internet marketing campaigns we run for our clients”. (Starkov 2010)

Another obvious pattern in Hilton Amsterdam’s direct online pricing is that the rates given on hotel’s website are the most expensive when the booking is completely flexible (customer has complete liberty to alter his/her plans as well as they get their full money returned if cancellation is made before or on the day of arrival) whereas other sites give cheaper rates in this situation.

However on the other end Hotel website gives best rates in case of fixed reservations i.e. reservations in which no room is available for any changes and in case of cancellation hotel keeps all the money.

This could be due to the reason that in case of cancellation hotel has to bear the entire cost whereas booking sites that usually have rooms allocated to them do not have to face any such penalties.

ADVANCE PURCHASE FULL PREPAYMENT, NO REFUND OR CHANGES (price in GBP)

FLEXIBLE RATE, (Price in GBP)

Hilton website

243.524

278.438

Laterooms.com

258.76

277.31

Orbitz

243

262

Booking.com

254.871

273.201

Another observation is that Advance booking rates are different from immediate booking rates. It is an effective tactic to increase confirmed sales. Customers are encouraged to book their rooms well in advance, by offering them lower than usual rates. Booking cycle of a hotel determines how well in advance customers can book rooms, a hotel offers greater discount at the beginning of a cycle whereas higher rates are offered towards the end. (Ismail, 2001). This also helps in managing the bookings in lean seasons i.e. in off seasons lower booking rates are offered to attract greater distribution. Best rate for Hilton deluxe twin room decreases to ?202 from ?243 if the booking date was moved from 30th April to 31st April.

Hilton also offers package rates, hotel package comprise of a hotels room combined with any other service of the hotel, most commonly it is room and meal package that hotels offer.

There are many kinds of package deals available at Hilton hotel, such as:

Bread and breakfast package, where room is bundled with breakfast for two at a discounted price.

Another package combines air ticket, car rental and room all three in one package price.

Beside package pricing Hilton also offers group rates, i.e. booking a larger number of rooms for a party mostly at a lower rate.

Keeping in view the benefits and complexities of using multiple channels in hotel distribution we can say that the key to adopting best distribution channels and increasing revenues is to choose distribution channels as per hotels needs “without falling prey to an increasingly convoluted snakes’ nest of technology”. Managing these distribution channels also costs money and considerable time of hotel employees. . (Fontaines 2007) Complex hotel distribution systems are strategically dangerous for a hotel as managing a complex distribution may raise the price for customer who may switch to low cost channels.

GAUGE TO PREVENT TOURISM-RELATED CRIMES

PROPONENTS:

ARINGO, MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER
GUIANAN, AUBREY
MANZANILLA, NICKO
RABANO, JAYE CLARENCE
SABAO, JASPER

ADVISER:

JIDDEH N. SELDA, MBA

Introduction

Growth in tourism has led to increase opportunities and incidences of crimes. These crimes happened for several reasons. First, tourists are lucrative targets since they typically carry large sums of money and other valuables. Second, tourists are vulnerable because they are more likely to be relaxed and sometimes careless while on vacation. Finally, tourists are often less likely to report crimes to testify against suspects, wishing to avoid problems or a return trip.

Crimes are made by people who motivate themselves to create bad intensions. In order for the researchers to purposely maintain tourism in the country and to promote the magnificence of the Philippines, one must consider the security and safety of the tourist destination. Tourists must be aware of crimes. Crimes may happen in a bus, subways, hallways, airports, terminals, trains or tricycles. One common crimes in Albay is snatching.

The study clarifies the different terminologies use: Gauge is an instrument or device for measuring the magnitude, amount, or contents of something, typically with a visual display of such information;¹ Prevent means to stop (someone or something) not to do something or to stop (someone or something) from doing something;² Tourism is the commercial organization and operation of vacations and visits to place of interest and;³ Crimes is an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be persecuted by the state and is punishable by law.⁴

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to know the gauge in preventing tourism-related crimes in Albay and it specifically answer the following questions:

What are the tourism-related crimes in the Second District of Albay from 2012-2013?
What particular areas are the common targets of tourism-related crimes in Albay?
What are the ways to prevent tourism-related crimes in Albay?

Scope and Delimitation

The study focused on the gauge to prevent tourism-related crimes in Albay. The study focused on the selected municipalities and cities in the 2^nd district of Albay, namely: Legazpi City, Daraga, Camalig and Rapu-Rapu.

The study is concerned with the conflicts and problems as experienced by the municipalities and cities in Albay.

Significance of the study

Philippine national police – This study will serve as the basis of the number of crimes in the year 2012-12013. To maintain the peace and order.

Community – The community, stakeholder, professionals, and the parents will find this study relevant in utilization of innovative measures along the crimes.

Future researchers – The findings of this study will be useful to the future researchers who conduct studies on the said innovations. The study also will serve as basis for future studies on innovation not in this study. Likewise, the findings can enrich the studies of researchers.

Students- This study will help the students so that they know what are the dangerous areas in the 2nd district of Albay. And to east to enable them to prevent crimes.

Media- This study will help the reporters to know some of the crimes that happen in each area. And it will also help them to their research problems.

Tourist- This study will help for them to know what place they should not go. And also to know what kind of crimes often do to tourist.

Present researchers-

Introduction

The tourism industry in Albay is one of the leading economic contributors in the country’s Its help our country to be one of the successful tourism industry in the world but one of the reason why our tourism industry was decreasing because of the crimes that happening in our certain place or destination, for example like a kidnaping, snatching, holdapping, sex tourism and etc. It’s happened in our beloved and successful country in the industry of tourism. And that is the disadvantage in our certain place or destination. We need to prevent or stop tourism crime so that the the tourist that came in our country or province will not be afraid to come and visit our destination. If the tourism crime decrease in our place it will one of the key to become successful contributors in our country. Despite of the economic distribution and contribution and opportunities that growth the potentials of tourism has been and still threatened by many factors such as poverty, crimes, killing people and unemployment. Albay is one of the beautiful landscape and natural attraction that you will see, but crimes is one of the threatened reasons that affect our province.

As for now the tourism crimes in our province is low crime rate but to prevent it the community people in our province will cooperate to prevent tourism crimes, be aware to the people who does who are doing crimes like to do in our tourist. To decrease the crime rate all of the people in the community will help each other in stopping crimes like protect our tourist stop the snatching, kidnapping, sex tourism, poverty, etc, so the tourist will not take negative impact in our certain destination. Our topic is one of the interesting study that our province will surely recognize our study in gauge to prevent tourism-crimes in Albay.

Vehicular- caused by or resulting from the operation of a vehicle, relating for designed for vehicles.

By: Merriam-webster dictionary

Man made crimes or human made crimes- human-made hazards can result in the form of a human-made disaster. In this case, anthropogenic means threats having an element of human intent, negligence, or error; or involving a failure of a human-made system. This is as opposed to natural hazards that cause natural disasters. Either can result in huge losses of life and property as well as damage to peoples’ mental, physical and social well-being

By: Wikipedia

Hold-up- is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear.

By:Wikipedia

Kidnap- is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person’s will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority. This may be done for ransom or in furtherance of another crime, or in connection with a child custody dispute

By: Wikipedia

Cyber sex- Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering or conversex is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more people connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience

By:Wikipedia

Scam- A confidence trick (synonyms include confidence scheme, scam and stratagem) is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, in the classical sense of trust. A confidence artist, con-man (or con artist) is an individual, operating alone or in concert with others, who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naivete, or greed.

By: wikipidia

Thief- is the taking of another person’s property without that person’s permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.[1] The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, library theft, and fraud.

By wikipedia

The goal of the Albanian tourism development is to increase the quality of living for a considerable number of Albanians. Tourism development should be measured and assessed in a medium and long-term manner in relation to its ability to improve the well-being of Albanians. As such, it is, can be (and should be) part of the country’s strategy to achieve development priorities, such as the Millenium Devlopment Goal commitments. More tourists do not necessarily mean more development or revenue for Albanians. The kind of tourism that the country chooses to develop is mainly defined by the contribution to the well-being of its citizens.

Emphasizing natural and cultural tourism will keep in focus the benefits for local communities, which are currently faced with limited economic opportunities.

The tangible benefits expected from a successful tourism strategy include: increased employment rates, additional revenues for the economy (core or additional), improved infrastructure, and increased tax revenues that would contribute to the improvement of health-care, education, and other social developments. Less tangible benefits include: confirmation of local culture and traditions, creation of opportunities to keep the young generation interested in residing in Albania or returning to their towns, and exchange of contacts with people of different cultures.

The following pre-conditions are necessary to achieve the objectives and realize the application of the necessary strategies in order to achieve these:

1. Principals of Sustainable Tourism Development be accepted on all levels of planning

Sustainability is a key factor for the tourism development in Albania. Only an environment friendly development process shall be the basis for an economically successful tourism development.

2. Basic infrastructure

The limited infrastructure is a major problem for a quick tourism development in most regions in Albania. The main international Airport in Rinas near Tirana and Durres has to comply with international standards. An additional airport in the South has to be set up for civil use (charter flights) in the future. For the international tourism market charter flights will be of utmost importance in the future. An efficient garbage and sewerage system is indispensable to keep the areas clean and attractive and thus ensuring a sustainable development. The handling of construction waste must also be improved. Connecting streets, water and electricity supply are also essential issues.

3. Clarification of ownership of land and buildings

The clarification of ownership of land and buildings must be completed as soon as possible. Sector Strategy: Tourism Development in Albania 4 Ministria Rregullimit te Territorit dhe e Turizmit

4. National and regional tourism law and regulations

The responsible governmental bodies have to work out a modern tourism law and additional regulations for tourism development.

5. Law enforcement

The enforcement of the existing law, especially in the field of construction such as regulations, building permissions, pollution is essential for a sustainable tourism de-velopment.

6. Clear responsibilities for tourism development on all levels

Responsibilities for the department of tourism within the ministry and all other Minis-tries and Institutions touching the field of tourism must be clearly defined.

7. Regional and national stability

8. Improved statistical information system

Effective tourism development needs profound information of the development of supply and demand. Therefore an efficient collection and analysis of the necessary data according to international standards must be organized on national, regional and local level.

9. Public / Private Commitment

The development of the tourism sector must be promoted through the government, particularly in the beginning. Most important is the concentration of the limited re-sources to few selected areas with the highest tourism potential and the best cost / benefit ratio. Also the private sector will need to commit funding if the potential benefits of tourism are to be achieved. This funding will need more than one year funding cycles and stronger public/private partnerships will be required if government funding is to be leveraged effectively. Sector Strategy: Tourism Development in Albania.

2.2.2 Tourism Development from 2003 to?????/

The number of foreign visitors has increased from 309,000 in 2003 to 914,000 in 2006

Tourism revenues as part of the GDP are calculated at 3.8%

The number of people employed in the tourism sector is 138,000

Tourist accomodation units (TAU)

No. of hotels

No. of beds in hotels

No. of TAU

No. of beds in TAU

No. of licensed hotels

No. of classified hotels

666

20 917

908

31 712

36

28

80 % of hotels have 1-20 rooms,

13 % of hotels have 20-40 rooms,

7% of hotels have more than 40 rooms,

14.29% of hotels are classified as one-star,

25% of hotels are classified as two-star,

35.71% of hotels are classified as three-star,

14.29% of hotels are classified as four-star,

10.71% of hotels are classified as five-star

Distribution of hotels
Most hotels are found in Tirane, Velipoje, Golem and Sarande.
Concerns related to “Incentive Person” titles

The existing tourism development situation shows that to date 96 structures, mainly in the coastal areas, have been given incentives. Fifty-one of them have been constructed on non-public state property and 45 on private property. The agreements signed with these subjects present developmental, economic, and financial concerns, bringing about:

Development of a site into a different destination (use) from tourism,
Low impact on employment, tourism-related professional updating and limited use of local product,
Use of tourism development priority construction sites (land-site, limited source) for residential buildings, which limits the generation of revenues from tourism,
Incentive benefits for non-tourism related structures.

Table: IP with a rent agreement (RA)

Area
IP with RA
Types of structures
Surface area rented out
Tourist Village
Tourist Complex (resort)
Hotels
Tourist ports

Golem

40

13

16

11

586254 m2

58,6 ha

Durres

Shkembi Kavaje

3

2

1

59100 m2

5,9 ha

Sarande-Ksamil

5

2

2

3 202 130 m2

320 ha

Orikum

2

1

1

127 400 m2

12,7 ha

Gjiri Lazli

1

1

120 000 m2

12 ha

TOTAL

51

16

18

14

2

401 ha

In the World Economic Forum (WEF) report of 2007, which evaluates and ranks country competitiveness, Albania ranks in 90th place of 124 countries, ranking above countries that have a long-time successful and established tourism, such as Kenya, Ecuador and Nepal. This proves that Albania has the potential to compete successfully. The analysis considered strong and the weak points in regard to cultural and natural assets, sector and human resources upgrading, institutional roles in long-term building and successful support of the tourism sector.

Albania’s ranking proves its excellent potential for tourism. The people are hospitable and open to visitors and the country is secure and stable. However, the ranking also points to weaknesses that harm competitiveness, such as lack of political will to undertake concrete actions, weak system of environmental protection and management, a difficult investment climate, unresolved land title rights and non-effective infrastructure and promotion efforts.

WEF REPORT: ALABANIA AND THE NEIGHBORING COUNTRIES

General index

Regulatory framework

Business environment and infrastructure

Human, cultural and natural resources

COUNTRIES

Ranking

Ranking

Ranking

Ranking

Albania

90

94

114

43

Macedonia

83

114

82

44

Serbia-Montenegro

61

79

80

13

Croatia

38

58

40

11

2.3 Role of the government in tourism sector

The objective of the law for the tourism Nr .9734, date 14.5.2007 is:

To establish the principles and rules that operate in the field of tourism, the establishment and development of standards in tourism services and other services related.

-Government support for the development of tourism

State bodies, in cooperation and under the auspices of the Minister of the Ministry responsible

on tourism, facilitate the development of tourism:

a) drawing up tourism development plans for each municipality and comune;

b) providing tourist information and organizing educational activities and

promotion;

c) taking measures for infrastructure development and establishment of facilities in areas

tourism development, tourist villages, tourist areas, tourist sites and resorts;

d) promoting investments in tourism in remote areas and with low population;

e) proposing fiscal policies incentives for tourism businesses, for individuals and

legal entities in the areas of tourism development, touristic villages, places and touristic points

that are operating in tourism enterprises.

-Tourism development plans prepared in accordance with the provisions of this law contain:

a) provisions for the development of tourism and the definition of specific areas for

this purpose;

b) evaluation of the invested capital from different investors, in accordance with national plans, municipal and communal, development for a period of 5 years, 10 years or longer;

c) the provisions of the work plan in the infrastructure of the area in places and touristic points, in line with national tourist potential and the socio-economic development plans;

d) The provisions of promotion and marketing activities;

e) the provisions of educational activities and the need for continuous professional development.

2.3.1 Infrastructure issues

The lack of basics infrastructure was identified rightly as the key core issue to impede the development of Albanian tourism and major efforts have been made to improve the situation in the recent years. Water supply, waste water and canalization, solid waste collection and disposal, highways and coastal access roads and parking at the touristic hot spots during the season are just the key issues which had to be addressed and have been addressed in the recent years. A lot has been achieved but given the immensity of the challenges of this still poor country which has lost most of the 20th century and was not been part of the western modernization drive of the 19th as well the gap between Albania and even its close neighbors of Montenergo and Macedonia is still a major obstacle to touristic development. The road issue has improved but water and waste is still the major challenge. Water especially is actually the biggest challenge of Albania. There is either too much or too less and it is never where it should be. In winter there is too much rain leading to flooding or snow emergencies in the mountains and flooding later in the season. If there is too less of it the energy situation turns precarious as most of the energy comes from the Drin Hydropower cascade and with a lack of rain the country is reaching not just a energy emergency but as well a budgetary crisis due to the subsidized energy imports necessary. During the tourist season the water supply to the main tourist site has a history of issues as has the elecrictiy supply due to the demand peaks in August which the systems lack the capacity to cope with. Waste water is another issue as despite major GoA and donor support still a lot of waste water is left untreated into rivers and the sea and the resulting environmental and hygienically situation is the issue of many bitter memories of Kosovo tourists with skin disease of their children following their Durres holidays. Solid waste removal and cleaning of the beaches has been another issue which has to be tackled. Again the issues of licensing beach areas to private operators following the Montenegro example seems to be the better approach then to rely simple on municipality services. Concerning solid waste it seems less a issue of collection capacity but of collecting of municipal waste fees. This leads again to ownership issues and the solutions described in that chapter. And to the fact that given the low and reasonable low tax rates of 10% flat, it is a fact as flat as the tax that all over charges like waste, water and electricity have to be set at levels that are covering all costs and allow for profits and neither of them allows as a means for social transfers. Nobody owning a property in a prime touristic area is in the need of subsidized community services.

Basic infrastructure is a prerequisite for tourism development and somebody has to pay for it. It can be the state or its international donors, the property owners of the area or the consumers meaning the tourist’s using it or best a combination of all based on case by case utility.

Casino gaming has experienced extremely growth in the some other countries such as US, Macau of China during the past many years. Some researches shows that casino gambling is accepted by economically wrestling location and that it can be a potential development strategy. The impacts slowly come down to other area of the economy, including income maintenance payments recipient (Kale, S. H., 2004). However, many from the Singapore local community have blamed the casinos for the negative impacts caused to the country. On the other side, local governments and local workers do not appear to reap the big share of benefits, as much of the income gained by casinos is went to pot through leave out outside the main country.

Positive Economical Impacts

Firstly, casino can provide more job opportunities for local employees. Almost jobs are relatively low-skilled, low-paying service types, though there is evidence that tips swing the balance to higher than average pay for some occupational groups. However, unionized casino workers are nearly ten times more than the national average to have their health coverage paid in full and have subsidize payment that surpassed the national average. Casino jobs have been a magnificence “welfare to work” example. Furthermore, casino jobs can create immediately employment opportunity in some areas.

Secondly, Economic development is a multifaceted concept that reflects numerous concerns not captured by conventional income statistics (Chen, J. S., 2010). Per-capita income, imperfect as it is, still provides one plausible measure of economic well-being. Per capita income grew nearly five percentage points faster in casino counties than in their non-casino county counterparts. This result is statistically significant. Therefore, casinos not only grow the local economy, but on average residents gain as well.

Thirdly, gambling can be a powerful economic development tool. The basic criteria for economic development success are for a project to increase a region’s net exports. Specifically, the amount of goods or services that are exported needs to be increased or the amount that are imported decreased. This is the only way that income can increase (Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre, 2009). Projects can certainly be an overall economic success in terms of profit without doing either of these, but those profits come at the expense of other businesses.

Moreover, the city that casino is located in will gain a more amount of tax from the casino, also making that city more wealthy. If a casino is opened in a country side where there lack of businesses, there will bring other businesses in, such as restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and even theme parks, which will bring in more revenue for the city, in this case, Marina Bay Sand can be a very good example. The country will get more from the profits, taxes and anything the casino need to pay to the Singapore’s gaming commission in order to be able to operation. If the casino is not located near many other casinos or the size of the country is not so large such as Singapore, that will attractive more tourists to the area, bringing in even more profits (Alfonso, R. O., 1997).

On the other hand, this is not a sign that gambling in casinos should be banned permanently. Casinos have been in appears for hundreds of years and the games have been played for centuries. Moreover, as a form of entertainment, gambling also has its advantages, such as relaxation. Generally, the objective is to win if you can. One should not completely eliminate the aspect of losing. This means risking only the amount of money that you can to lose in game (Alfonso, R. O., 1997). The key to a successful game is simply managing it with the good mindset. In fact, in gambling, where betting risks are great, in which case a wagering system is advised. This includes of discipline or the ability to manage by yourself, especially if you come to a losing streak and your previous winnings start to reduce.

Negative Economical Impacts

The main negative impacts include the consuming on public services, like sewers and road maintenance, and the costs of increased crime prevention in casino neighborhoods and even in adjacent communities. In other word, the negative impacts are related to the economic carrying capacity of the region relative to the size of the new casino.

While the money invested in several gambling projects and the jobs at the first instance created are cleared, the industry has been criticized for inflating the potential grows economic impacts and unremarkable the negative impacts (Goodman, R., 2001). The industry tends to focus on specialized factors provides an unfair view of the localized economic positives, also refusing the strategic business economic costs to the country as an adequate. Using legalized gambling activities as a strategy for economic development was carefully reputation losing during the hearing.

Moreover, gambling activities and the gambling philosophy are straightly effect to the business principles and economic development. Legalized gambling activities also have bad effect to education at philosophically and fiscally (Clotfelter, C. T. & Cook, P. J., 1991).

On the other hand, states which grip legalized gambling activities can expect major socioeconomic costs and reduce the quality of life. Otherwise, legalized gambling activities provide addicted and potentially addicted consumers to the market, and most existing traditional businesses will find it a bit challenge to compete. For instance, some researchers strongly suggests that the introduction of popular legalized gambling in Resort World Sentona, including casinos and video lottery terminals, over a 4 months’ time span caused 1% increase in the number of problem and potential pathological gamblers (Sim, A., 2010). Based on a research, each new pathological gambler has been calculated to cost society from $26,200 SGD to $78,000 SGD per year (Hooi, D. H., 1999). These costs are not just impacted in society as a whole, but also impact on all businesses.

On the other hand, major businesses should be concerned with the expanding various forms trending of legalized gambling activities. Non-gambling related businesses will not be rivaling for benefits on a level playing field, because legalized gambling activities can provide to a potentially addicted market segment. Since the Singapore economies are extensive in scope, the socioeconomic negatives combined with legalized gambling activities can keep hidden for a long time period. However, a particular activity is legalized by a government not mean that the societal effects or negative business have been reduced.

In addition, varieties casino styles and locations are better than the others, but these factors are not outstanding specify of casino effects at this time. Nevertheless, a new casino catering to Singapore local market can generate positive secondary economic effects through its employees if it induces an increase in total employment in and around its host community. Such affects are greatest for new casinos in areas of high demand of employment.

Task 2
2.1. Target Markets

With highly competition around the ASIA, the IRs will enhance Singapore’s image as best destination. The IRs will allow Singapore can have more advantage from the Asia Pacific tourism sector. Factor in Singapore’s strategic location, its good flight connect with low cost airlines and a world-class infrastructure, the IRs will present lots of good opportunities for Singapore (The Business Times, 2010).

Using the Bahamas and Las Vegas as a comparison, the local Integrated Resorts will provide distinct world-class development coupled with a whole range of amenities such as luxury hotels, entertainment shows, theme attractions, convention facilities, and also casino gaming. The IRs is expected to create nearly 35,000 jobs, and the industry is expected to invest US$7.1 billion in IRs (US$3.5 billion in Marina Bay; US$3.6 billion in Resorts World) (singaporecasinopromo.com, 2010).

2.2. Location

There are different ways to look at potential markets. We might classify players as grind, middle or premium, or might also identify local, traveler or destination markets. What it boils down to understand how much that your customers will spend and how far they have to travel to reach the casino. Other significant niche markets include Asian or Middle-Eastern players (Dandurand, L., 1990).

The proposed world-class resort, suitably named Resorts World at Sentosa, is destined to be Asia’s most mesmerizing family resort and will entrench Singapore as one of world’s leading leisure holiday destinations. They are both established names in the region in the leisure, hospitality and gaming industries and boast a customer base spanning the globe with an impeccable track record, excellent industry relationships and an unrivalled sales and marketing distribution network in Asia and beyond. It will be develope on the island of Sentosa, off the southern coast of Singapore (temasekreview.com, 2010). The 49 hectare integrated resort will cost S$600 million solely for land, and S$1.6 billion just on a Universal Studios theme park called Universal Studios Singapore.

2.3. Entertainment

At a cost of just under $5 billion US, the integrated casino resort Singapore’s Resort World Sentosa just makes the others such as Mirage and Bellagio in Las Vegas, US look downright cheap. If the Mirage needed $1 million US a day to cover its $630 million US price tag, early reports suggest RWS is so far an unqualified success. According to Union Gaming Group they have been winning between $7 million US and $8 million US a day since doors opened in February 2010 (Livedealer.org, 2010).

Other while, Resort World Sentosa is neither the biggest nor the most ambitious casino project that has been built in the last five years. Less than 5 kilometers down the road from Sentosa Island at Singapore’s Marina Bay, a casino is due to open in less than a fortnight’s time. This one cost $5.5 billion US to build. The Marina Bay Sands is the current benchmark for big budget casino resorts (CHP Partnership, 2005).

2.4. Current IR Promotions

Recently, Singapore could be one show closer to becoming the “Broadway of Asia” comes next March 2011. That’s when Disney’s award-winning Broadway musical, “The Lion King” will opens at the new 1,630-capacity Sands Theatre at Marina Bay Sands. Marina Bay Sands and BASE Entertainment, main partners who bringing in the musical, made the announcement together on 26 October 2010, to get the Southeast Asia debut of the mega-production, which will cost more than S$10 million to stage and produce over the next few years (Marina Bay Sands Singapore, 2010).

BASE Entertainment Asia’s vice president Milan Rokic said, “This production is one of the many 1st class events we’re bringing to Southeast Asian audiences, as part of BASE plan to help Singapore become the world best live entertainment destination for the region and all over the Asia.” (Channel News Asia, 2010).

On the other hand, Resorts World Sentosa offers venues for MICE, such as Meetings, Incentive Groups, Conventions and Exhibitions, that few places can match. Customers can showcase their business at the world’s biggest WaterWorld amphitheatre, or hold a stunning themed party in Egypt, or New York, or Hollywood, or the futuristic Sci-Fi City (Resort World Sentosa, 2010).

Task 3
Improving Security and Surveillance Procedures with Help of Technology

Each day, millions of dollars change hands in a casino in the form of chips and money. With the help of technology, casinos are able to modify the way security and surveillance procedures are being utilized in their premises.

IP Video Management Software

Marina Bay Sands Casino in Singapore is using a powerful complex surveillance problem-solving based on XProtecta„? Corporate of Milestone Systems, a very big open platform company in IP video management software. From June 2010, Marina Bay Sands Casino also took over complete control of security monitoring for the Marina Bay Sky Park, close at hand within the casino, where some VIPs stayed during the Nation Day in August 2010 (Sim, A., 2010). “Like all other casinos we need to follow to standard laws and regulations for security and internal formalities. Our casino also tries to provide the best service to our customers. So we have decided to work with the best advanced surveillance technology on the market,” said Baybars Oral, Director-VIP Gaming (and also known as Director of Mass Table Games) (Sim, A., 2010).

The technology is used Milestone Systems’ IP video open platform solution, XProtect Corporate. With a few simple clicks, controllers can manage hundreds of oversee cameras at the same time, viewing reality or store images from different servers concomitantly. Furthermore, the video material is easily accessed when the police want evidence.

Thousands cameras are linked to the servers, with a storage capacity of 10 TB of each. This is necessary for the video storages since recordings from the gambling tables must be saved for 31 days followed the law, also the images from the cash transactions must be keeping around 62 days. The video records with sound and this gives a very good advantage: when customer asked to put the money on the table and there is reasoning, the operators can play back to determine precisely what did happen, which fast resolves any misunderstanding or mistake. The images are also used to ensure that all internal procedures are appear (Sim, A., 2010).

“With Milestone we can find correct views from many different corners, and scroll back, checking quickly, and also zoom in for close-ups. The checking often does with who has put a chip on the table at a certain time and for an unusual amount. We can collect the images from many cameras at the same time and see the details of a person action,” says Baybars Oral.

Overall, Baybars Oral believes that the systems based on Milestone platform, are priceless when one willing to take the risks related with operating a casino. According to Baybars Oral, there are many experts out there who have made a career out of cheating. “Our people are trained to identify those cheaters, and when that appears we are talking about huge money. That’s why it really important for us to invest in such high technological solutions, and that also provide more benefits to our customers from our security and service” Baybars Oral said (Sim, A., 2010).

Task 4
4.1. Concepts of Responsible Gambling Framework

Problem gambling is defined as all gambling behavior patterns that can compromise, disrupt or damage personal, family or vocational pursuits. It can affect both the person who gambles to excess as well as others (such as family members, co-workers, employers or community members) (Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, n.d.).

Source: Journal of Gambling Studies (2002).

4.2. Reduction and Rehabilitation of problem Gamblers

Some research studies have shown that pathological gambling is a form of addiction affecting more than 5.5% of the general population. Researchers have developed a research on responsible gambling and problem gambling and associated addictive behavior. According to professionals, these researches help school and workplace managers recognize and manage gambling problems that may appear in students and employees. Moreover, to incurring significant debt, problem gamblers or compulsive gamblers typically display a lack of interest in school or work, develop relational, and emotional problems (Singapore EXPO Convention and Exhibition Centre, 2009). Hence, it is necessary that problem-gambling prevention should be incorporated into school and workplace regulation. Prevention is the action taken to prevent an undesirable problem. It identifies the needs of people who may be at risk of developing a gambling problem.

There several ways that Singapore government and other stakeholders can assist in the reduction and rehabilitation of problem gamblers as following:

Public awareness and media campaigns

Provide accurate, balanced information on gambling, the harmful consequences of problem gambling and promote healthier alternatives by:

aˆ? Promoting the awareness of problem gambling issues and services in Resort World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands casino.

aˆ? Developing an overall prevention theme – Key messages that dispel myths.

aˆ? Proactive use of media to promote prevention messages and theme such as TV, Radio, Advertisement campaigns (Sentosa Casino Resort, 2010).

aˆ? Providing low risk guidelines that enable adults to self regulate and monitor gambling behavior.

Community Involvement

Support the development of municipal policies and prevention initiatives that foster a community environment where responsible gambling is the norm by:

aˆ? Inviting municipalities to partner in addressing issues related to problem gambling and responsible gambling – Partnership forum.

aˆ? Distributing information about the incidence and prevalence of problem gambling.

aˆ? Prevention providers working with schools and community groups.

Standards and Policies

Develop public interest standards and policies to decrease risks such as:

aˆ? Advertising Standards,

aˆ? Responsible Gambling Standards.

Professional Education and Skills Training

Develop and deliver ongoing training that is evidence based and reflects best practices in delivery of prevention programs:

aˆ? Develop accredited curriculum for delivery by some justice Institute.

aˆ? Develop and deliver curriculum to train allied professionals and collateral service providers.

aˆ? Develop and deliver training to increase skills of gaming providers – ART training.

aˆ? Support the development of problem gambling prevention components for university and college curricula.

Introduction

This report will give analysis and explain different aspects of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in terms of public relations. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, therefore it is important to carefully consider all the aspects and opportunities from a public relations perspective, as it is a great example of the different sides and features of public relations. After looking at the history of this festival, the report will provide an insight in the positive and negative aspects of the Fringe, name the main competitors and give SWOT and PEST analysis. Then the key public relation issues for the event will be analysed and analysis of the media environment relevant to the event will be given. Finally, a critical assessment of the success of the event’s PR strategy will be considered.

History of the Fringe

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival originated in 1947 and it was created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life in the wake of the Second World War. It first started when eight acts turned up at the Edinburgh international festival uninvited and decided to perform anyway this then lead to more acts following in their footsteps in the years to come. From this, the Festival Fringe Society was formed in 1959. The Fringe, these days, is now known as the largest arts festival in world and in 2010 the Fringe featured 40,254 performances of 2,453 shows in 259 venues. It is held every August for three weeks in the centre of Edinburgh and there are stages all over Edinburgh for example the Hilton Hotel, Edinburgh Castle and Underbelly. It is such a special event as it caters for everyone by having various acts put on, such as: theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, musicals, operas, music, exhibitions and events.

Positive aspects of the Fringe

The Fringe has been renowned for giving unknown performers a chance to be recognised as it is “made up of emerging and established artists” which is a review from edfringe.com. The Fringe has also been acknowledged for having worldwide recognition for being one of the best arts festivals in the world and this helps bring a lot of tourism into the capital city. Each year ticket sales rise incredibly as 1.8 million tickets were sold in 2009 and that increased to 1.9 million sold in 2010. This can be brought down to the effective communication from the society as they have advertised in newspapers, on posters, through television adverts, on radio adverts, on websites and they have even branched out to new technology by launching a Fringe iPhone app. The Fringe is so popular because anyone can enjoy a show as they have a range of entertainment for all audiences. They include free shows too, which are ever increasing because 558 shows at the 2010 Fringe were absolutely free, compared to 465 in 2009.

Negative aspects of the Fringe

During the research it was found that the children’s shows only made up 4% of the Fringe performance programme in 2010 and this may discourage families to come to the events as there is little choice for the children. Also the dance and physical theatre performances went down 0.5% to 4.5% in 2010 and this may be seen as the Fringe society not seeing these genres as important as others such as comedy. Another downside is that the performance locations are far too widely spread throughout city so many people will have to spend a lot of money on travelling. There are a high number of performances each year so this means acts will overlap one another causing people to miss out on some shows.

Main competitors

Throughout Scotland there are numerous festivals, whether they are large or small scale. It is known from the official fringe website that the Fringe has a market share of 75% of all attendance at Edinburgh’s year round festivals and annually generates ?75 million for Edinburgh and the Scottish Economy. These figures from 2004/05 demonstrate the high profile of the Fringe as an event in Scotland. Despite accounting for the vast majority of the market share in Scotland, there are other events throughout the country which seek visitors.

The Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival takes place over 18 days with 350 performances from well-known and rising comedians. The festival held at the kings theatre in Glasgow, specialises in comedy. This is different from the fringe where although there are comedy events, there is an array of other arts as well. For comedy enthusiasts the Magners comedy festival may be more attractive as it is specialised with more opportunity to see comedy. As the event is also only held at one location, it’s more simple to find and easier to experience many performances without trekking across the city. It may be on a much smaller scale that the Fringe but the less busy atmosphere may be much more appealing to some individuals.

The Stanza poetry festival which is held in St Andrews is described by visit Scotland as ‘where music, film, dance and poetry work in harmony’. The stanza poetry festival could be seen as a small scale Fringe festival however it primarily specialised in poetry. Within this, the aim is to combine other arts into the poetry. This unique selling point is a strength to the festival. Held at the Byre theatre in St Andrews, the festival is not incredibly well-known. This may have been due to a weakness in pr strategy and demand for this kind of event.

Although the comedy and poetry festivals cannot really contend with the fringe due to its mass scale, they are strong in some ways as they specialise in events for a specific target audience. However on a larger scale, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo can be seen a more pressing competitor. With performances from 40 countries, the Tattoo invites visitors from all over the globe to not only visit the event but also perform. Whereas at the fringe, it can be presumed that a large amount of the acts will be British. 35% of the 217,000 audience each year are from overseas which is advantageous as it means there is a great mix of cultures. The fringe see’s similar figures for its overseas percentage however towers over the tattoo with its number of visitors. The tattoo is one main event whereas the fringe is many events over a long period. Therefore it is difficult to compare the two as they are in completely different formats. However unlike the fringe, the tattoo is shown on television with 100 million viewers worldwide. This illustrates the publicity of the tattoo making it the fringe’s main competitor in Scotland. However as the fringe is the largest Art’s festival in the world, naturally it will come out on top of other Scottish festivals.

SWOT and PEST analysis

Through the SWOT analysis it was found that:

· Strengths – Brings tourism to Scotland, there is a range of entertainment available and its largest arts festival in world.

· Weaknesses – Acts overlap one another, too big so travel costs increase and there are not enough acts for children so may discourage families.

· Opportunities – Emerging acts can become recognised, it entices different cultures to experience Scotland and it creates more job opportunities in Edinburgh.

· Threats – The festival faces competition from rival festivals, environmental issues may prevent the festival taking place and they may have a lack of funds to support such a big event.

Through the PEST analysis is was found that:

· Political – It creates an environment where countries can combine and it also gives politics a light-hearted nature (by putting on plays about David Cameron, etc.).

· Economical – Brings money to Scotland and it also encourages tourism.

· Social – There are more tourists around and it enables the Scottish culture to be recognised.

· Technological – A new website has been launched and so has a new iPhone app, in order to promote the Fringe.

Analysis of the key public relation issues for the event
Analysis of the media environment relevant to the event
Opportunities and threats in terms of media relations

Edinburgh Fringe is a huge Festival, so there is a chance that it will get a lot of coverage – both good and bad The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the largest arts festival in the world so media will want to cover it. Also, there are a lot of opportunities to get media coverage outside Scotland and UK, especially in the European countries that are known for their love for arts such as France, Germany and Italy.

However, if something goes wrong there will definitely be a huge interest from the media therefore everyone will know about it. As Edinburgh Fringe is such a enormous event, taking place over several weeks , with so many performances going on and so many people attending there is a chance for great success as well as great damage in terms of media relations.

The key media

Firstly, the key media are the print media and web sites – history shows that newspapers and the websites of these newspapers are the sources of reviews and media coverage in general for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Secondly, the electronic media is a vital key media because this festival is all about the arts therefore photographic examples are very important. Thirdly, the radio is also one of the key media as people really like hearing the interviews with the event organisers and the performers of the acts from the Festival. And finally, the television, especially important during the Festival – people can see what’s happening in the Festival, see something they like and decide to attend. Television also captures the mood and the atmosphere of the festival best.

What would appeal to journalists and attract coverage

The popularity of the festival in social networks such as twitter, facebook, etc, as well as having its own blogs creates the word-of-mouth effect that’s not media generated so people get involved themselves and are not encouraged by the media but by other people. Media usually are interested if a lot of people get involved in this – they are intrigued – why is it so popular among the publics, is this a new phenomenon and why. It also attracts media because it seems more genuine this way – the company hasn’t spent lots and lots of money for campaigns to attract the attention. The media also like to write about events that are attended by celebrities because this guarantees the interest of the readers or about events that no one had expected or are shocking.

Bad stories – Fringe 2008

The resignation of the Edinburgh Fringe director, Jon Morgan, came at the end of a summer of bad news stories for the Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2008. Underlying them all is the question of how to cope with the unprecedented popularity of the world’s biggest arts festival. Most of the stories were about a new computer system that struggled to do the job. The ?350,000 Liquid Box Office crashed on its first day of operation, causing sales to be suspended for a week. Then it had trouble printing tickets, resulting in delays in postal bookings. Once the Fringe began, it sold too many tickets for certain shows, leading to reports of “weeping youngsters” being turned away.Finally the Fringe had to scrap the advertised two-for-one “ticket frenzy” on the final day, as the system couldn’t cope. One of the bad examples is also the self-styled comedy festival which was a marketing exercise designed to attract sponsorship (which it failed to do) and spread the costs of advertising between the big four venues: Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Underbelly and Pleasance. It caused consternation by including only the comedians who were playing in those venues and threatened to damage the profile of the Fringe itself. The central box office takings had dropped by 10% that year.

Good stories – 2009

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe was suffering the backlash of the media on the back of a box office meltdown in 2008. The UK was in the middle of the storm of the so called ‘credit crunch’ and many predicted the 2009 festival would be an expensive luxury that would be avoided by all but those most faithful to the festival. Under these circumstances it was a client that commissioned Whitespace to take a ‘blank canvas approach’ and re-think the traditional approach to marketing. The result was a genuinely original and creatively challenging campaign concept and materials featuring over 100 viral videos, and, for the first time ever, a multiple set of covers for the Fringe Programme – all on a very limited budget and under extremely tight deadlines. Whitespace created the concept of an iconic and metaphorical ‘egg’ that symbolised the fact that the Fringe is always different, and that one can never be sure what lies within. Whitespace filmed the scientific ‘discovery’ of a seemingly indestructible egg among Edinburgh’s tramworks. The resultant film became the viral centrepiece of the campaign. Having taken the egg to a secret Fringe laboratory overseen by Professor Ed Hegg, a series of filmed experiments ensued as he tried to reveal the egg’s contents. The story was launched several months before the Fringe. Dr Ed Hegg received a page of coverage in the Scotsman; pre-launch publicity not normally received by the Fringe. Whitespace then developed a range of printed collateral, from T-shirts to banners, displays to ticket wallets and press passes, as well as a campaign microsite and a social media campaign. This included Dr Ed Hegg’s twitter page and blog along with shooting over 100 video experiments for inclusion on the microsite. The result was an increase of nearly 9% in ticket sales and a programme reprint. The fringe site reached 32,906 unique visitors with a low bounce rate and dwell time of, on average, 4 minutes. 10% of all fringe site visits resulted in a visit to the booking section of www.edfringe.com and 21% of all visits resulted in a desired action.

Good Stories – Fringe 2010

“Fringecover was the top trending Twitter topic in Scotland on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th March and it was the second most tweeted topic across the UK.” Inspired by the Fringe’s principle that anyone with an idea and a vision can bring their show to Edinburgh; Whitespace invited the Twitter community to tell Johanna Basford the most unusual thing they’d like to see at the 2010 Fringe supplemented by #fringecover. For two days, from 10am to 10pm on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th March, Johanna recreated Twitterers’ suggestions in real-time in her own unique illustrative style.

The Whitespace creative team then applied Johanna’s illustrations to all aspects of the Fringe’s promotional materials including, three cover versions of the programme; the ticket, its wallet and envelope; the Fringe shop’s window display and pop-up exhibition panels. Audiences at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh bought nearly 2 million tickets last year, once again beating the previous year’s record. Kath Mainland, the event’s chief executive, said the sale of more than 1.95m tickets for more than 40,000 performances had shown the festival was “the greatest show on earth”. The Fringe said this year’s event, again dominated by comedy, had outstripped last year on most measures: there were 40,254 performances of 2,453 shows at 259 venues, involving more than 21,000 performers. More than 550 shows were free.

A critical assessment of the success of the event’s PR strategy
Conclusion

This report has analysed different public relations’ aspects of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It has provided research on the background and history of the event, analysis of the event, analysis of the key public relations issues for the event, analysis of the media environment relevant to the event, as well as a critical assessment of the success of the event’s PR strategy. One of the clear thoughts after the analysis of the festival is that the Fringe has definitely experienced bad times in terms of public relations; however, the organisers have only learnt from their mistakes and chosen much better PR strategies that have resulted in growth in the ticket sales, despite the very bad economic situation. Audiences have come to know the Edinburgh festival fringe as the place to see every kind of art; from the most imaginative children’s theatre to topical and incisive comedy and theatre which challenges audiences to discuss and re-consider not only their world but the world in general. Kath Mainland, the event’s chief executive has said: “Edinburgh is without doubt the world’s leading festival destination and audiences continued to be inspired and enthralled by the many and varied events on offer.”

The Indian aviation industry is one of the fastest growing aviation industries in the world with private airlines accounting for more than 75 per cent of the sector of the domestic aviation. It is stated that the Indian aviation sector will become one of the top five civil aviation markets in the world over the next five years. Currently, India ranks ninth in the global civil aviation market. The Hyderabad International Airport has been ranked amongst the world’s top five in the annual Airport Service Quality (ASQ). With the growth in the industry, airport retailing has also gained pace in the recent times. Development of new terminals and airports such as the recently inaugurated T3 in New Delhi has provided added impetus to this segment. The highest margin earners in this segment are food and beverages, beauty product, electronic items, apparel etc. It has been predicted that airports would provide around 300,000-400,000 square feet retail space by 2015. Many companies are also planning to leverage on this growing segment by launching specific products for air travelers.

In addition, the emphasis on modernization of non-metro airports, fleet expansion by airlines, service expansion by state owned carriers, development of the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) industry in India, opening up of new international routes by the Indian government, establishment of new airports and renovation and restructuring of the existing airports have added to the growth of the industry.

Present Indian Scenario

It is a phase of rapid growth in the industry due to huge build-up of capacity in the LCC space, with capacity growing at approximately 45% annually. This has induced a phase of intense price competition with the incumbent full service carriers (Jet, Indian, Air Sahara) this- counting up to 60-70% for certain routes to match the new entrants ticket prices. This, coupled with costs pressures (a key cost element, ATF price, went up approximately 35% in recent months, while staff costs are also rising on the back of shortage of trained personnel), is exerting bottom-line pressure.

The growth in supply is overshadowed by the extremely strong demand growth, led primarily by the conversion of train/bus passengers to air travel, as well as by the fact that low fares have allowed passengers to fly more frequently. There has, therefore, been an increase in both the width and depth of consumption. However, the regulatory environment, infrastructure and tax policy have not kept pace with the industry’s growth.

Enactment of the open sky policy between India and Saarc countries, increase in bilateral entitlements with the EU and the US, and aggressive promotion of India as an attractive tourism spot helped India attract 3.2 million tourists in 2004-05. This market is growing at 15% per annum and India is expected to attract 6 million tourists by 2010. Also, increasing per capita income has led to an increase in disposable incomes, leading to greater spend on leisure and holidays and business travel has risen sharply with increasing MNC presence. Smaller cities are also well connected now. Passenger traffic has increased and over 21 million seats have been sold, resulting in a growth of over 50%. The Indian travel market is expected to triple to $51 billion by 2011 from $16.3 billion in 2005-06.

Application of Porter’s Five Forces strategy in the Aviation Industry
Threat of New Entrants

A lucrative industry is always a target for investors looking at investment. One of the foremost factors in consideration while looking at the attractiveness of an industry is the threat of new entrants. In the airlines industry, this was a major threat a few years ago. The airlines operating in the industry were limited and the industry had few players like Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. However, as the industry had scope for accommodating more players many players joined the fray. The airlines industry however comes with its fair share of barriers. The investment in the airlines is very huge and acts as a major barrier to entry. Bundled with it were different permits for running an airline company from the civil aviation company and FDI limits. Factors that can limit the threat of new entrants are known as barriers to entry. Some examples include:

Existing loyalty to major brands

Incentives for using a particular buyer (such as frequent shopper programs)

High fixed costs

Scarcity of resources

High costs of switching companies

Government restrictions or legislation

Power of Suppliers

This is how much pressure suppliers can place on a business. If one supplier has a large enough impact to affect a company’s margins and volumes, then it holds substantial power. In the airlines company there is certain amount of bargaining power the suppliers have. Firstly, suppliers in the form of aircraft builders, who very often exceed the time limits. Adding to it are suppliers of oil who hold the key to running of the airlines. Here are a few other reasons that suppliers might have power.

There are very few suppliers of a particular product

There are no substitutes

Switching to another (competitive) product is very costly

The product is extremely important to buyers – can’t do without it

The supplying industry has a higher profitability than the buying industry

Power of Buyers

This is how much pressure customers can place on a business. If one customer has a large enough impact to affect a company’s margins and volumes, then the customer hold substantial power. Predominantly, in the airlines industry, it has been seen that the civil aviation ministry has been in favour of the customer and buyers thus have reasonable power. While most airlines companies are running with wafer thin margins, it is pretty difficult for companies to increase prices as the capacity utilization will be seriously affected. Here are a few reasons that customers might have power:

Small number of buyers

Purchases large volumes

Switching to another (competitive) airline is simple

The airline is not extremely important to buyers; they can do without the same brand for a period of time

Customers are price sensitive

Availability of Substitutes

What is the likelihood that someone will switch to a competitive product or service? If the cost of switching is low, then this poses a serious threat. Most airline companies have similar facilities and are listed on website such as makemytrip.com, yatra.com where customers choose from the cheapest available tickets. This shows that the customer has a lot of options and would

Not mind shifting to a new service. Here are a few factors that can affect the threat of substitutes:

The main issue is the similarity of substitutes. All low cost airlines have similar facilities.

If substitutes are similar, it can be viewed in the same light as a new entrant.

Competitive Rivalry

This describes the intensity of competition between existing firms in an industry. Highly competitive industries generally earn low returns because the cost of competition is high. The competition in the airline industry is cutthroat and each player is trying to gain an upper-hand based on non price factors. A highly competitive market might result from:

Many players of about the same size; there is no dominant firm

Little differentiation between competitors’ products and services

A mature industry with very little growth; companies can only grow by stealing customers away from competitors

SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE AVIATION INDUSTRY
Strengths:

Growing tourism: Due to growth in tourism, there has been an increase in number of the international and domestic passengers.

The estimated growth of domestic passenger segment is at 50% per annum and growth for international passenger segment is 25%

Rising income levels: Due to the rise in income levels, the disposable income is also higher which are expected to enhance the number of flyers.

Growth potential Liberalization of sector.

Modernization of non metro airports.

Rising share of low cost carriers.

Fleet expansion by state owned carriers.

The opening up of new international routes by Indian government.

Establishment of new airports and restructuring of old airports.

Weaknesses:

Under penetrated Market : The total passenger traffic was only 50 million as on 31st Dec 2005 amounting to only 0.05 trips per annum as compared to developed nations like United States have 2.02 trips per annum.

Untapped Air Cargo Market: Air cargo market has not yet been fully taped in the Indian markets and is expected that in the coming year’s large number of players will have dedicated fleets.

Infrastructural constraints: The infrastructure development has not kept pace with the growth in aviation services sector leading to a bottleneck.

Huge investment requirement for physical infrastructure for airports.

Shortage of qualified instructors due migration to schedule operation.

Pressure on quality standard of inducted pilots.

Infrastructural constraints.

Opportunities:

Expecting investments: investment of about US $30 billion will be made.

Expected Market Size: Average growth of aviation sector is about 25%-30% and the expected market size is projected to grow up to 100 million by 2010.

Economic Growth

Vibrant middle class: Increasing Consumerism and Affordability “common man”

Under-penetrated markets

Growth in Tourism

Currently domestic passenger market is growing at 50%

Threats:

Shortage of trained Pilots: There is a shortage of trained pilots, co-pilots and ground staff which is severely limiting growth prospects.

Shortage of Airports: There is a shortage of airport facilities, parking bays, air traffic control facilities and takeoff and landing slots.

High prices: Though enough number of low cost carriers already exists in the industry, majority of the population is still not able to fly to other destinations.

Security and safety.

Low profit margins and high operating costs.

This essay will examine the Porter’s fives forces model applied to the major airline industry. Secondly it will assess the market condition and nature of competition faced by Lufthansa and finally this essay will look at an effective competitive strategy and explain why it may be successful. From the analysis of the Porter five forces of competition model in the airline industry, we can conclude that there is moderate level of competitiveness within the airline industry with the exception of strong supplier power. In addition, we can also conclude that due to difficult market conditions and the nature of competition faced by Lufthansa, an effective competitive strategy would be cost leadership as it will enable Lufthansa to survive through the current economic crisis.

Competitive Rivalry is one of the central forces of the Porter five forces model that is used to assess the competition within an industry (Capon, C. 2009). In the case of the airline industry, it is one of the major industries in the world today and it exists in an intensely competitive market (Investopedia. 2009). Air France KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways are the leading companies in the European airline industry (Datamontior, 2008). The core activity of these airlines is passenger transportation and they are competing for the same customers for example, leisure and business travellers (Datamonitor, 2008). These airlines are continually competing against each other for price, in-flight entertainment, technology, customer service, catering services, ancillary services and other areas (Datamonitor, 2008). Air France KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways maintain their customer base by sustaining their differentiation within the services they provide to their customers. (Capon, C. 2009).

“The air industry in Europe has been deregulated to a certain extent, which makes it more attractive to new entrants” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.13). The second force of the Porters five forces is the threat of new entrants into an industry (Capon, C. 2009). The airline industry is so saturated that there is hardly space for newcomers (Investopedia, 2009). The important factor that new entrants will look at is the cost of entry. It is important to look at whether there are substantial costs involved in accessing bank loans and credit as this makes the likelihood of more airlines entering the industry higher if burrowing is cheap (Investopedia, 2009). It is evident that the capital required for a new company to enter the airline industry is considerably high, for example to acquire the fleet of planes, safety and security measures etc (Datamonitor, 2008). In addition, there are significant costs involved for even existing airlines to begin operating in Europe, such as overheads, wages etc (Datamonitor, 2008). Therefore, the bureaucracy and large financial outlay involved in setting up can serve as a deterrent to new companies entering the airline industry (Datamonitor, 2008).

In addition the infrastructure available is a barrier to entry. The infrastructure in “Europe is lagging behind the growth in traffic” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.14).Congestion is increasing and therefore slots at certain airports have become a commodity for certain airlines. This makes it difficult for new entrants to negotiate primetime slots at busy airports and can result in restriction to offering flights at only off peak times or having to fly to other less busy airports away from popular destinations (Datamonitor, 2008). The Global economic meltdown and the rise in oil prices have made it difficult for the airline industry in the year 2008. As a result although UK market revenues are high, the likelihood of new entrants is weak to moderate (Datamonitor, 2008). Another major barrier to entry is brand name of existing airline as they can lure customer into using their service, even if the costs are higher that other airlines (Investopedia, 2009).

Another force that Porter describes is the threat of substitute products or services. “The main substitutes for airline are other forms of transport, road, rail and marine.” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.15). The distance and time taken to reach a destination using a substitute service serves as a threat for the airline industry if the customer perceives the substitute service as equally good (Capon, C. 2009). The distance between European destinations are relatively small. The flight may be short in duration however, the time to check in can make the overall time of the journey similar to the rail travel service (Datamnitor, 2009). Another threat to the airline industry is the environmental impact of travelling. “Some consumers may see the greater environmental impact of air travel as a significant disadvantage compared to rail” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.15). However longer journeys are not a threat to the airline industry as “rail travel may be comparatively time consuming and rail fares often compare unfavourably, reducing the threat of this substitute” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.15). Overall, the threat of substitutes for travel to the airline industry is moderate (Datamonitor 2008).

The bargaining power of buyers is another force of the Porters five forces model. The main buyers in the airline industry are leisure and business travellers (Datamonitor, 2008). Buyers’ power in the airline industry is assessed as moderate overall. “The large number of individual consumers in this market diminishes buyer power, as the impact on an airline of losing one customer is marginal” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.13). Consumers are able to switch from one airline to another as it does not incur any additional costs therefore customers are free to shop around for the best deal for their particular journey (Datamonitor, 2008). Overall, the airline industry is highly price sensitive and many customers are eager to find tickets with the lowest price for their journey (Datamonitor, 2008). Buyers’ power has increased marginally due to “online booking sites that allow consumers to compare and contrast tickets according to price, flight times and number of stops en route and travel agents who assist customers in finding the best deal” (Datamonitor, 2008: p.13). In response to consumers being able to switch from one airline to another with ease, they are offering loyalty schemes such as BA’s executive Club to their consumers (Datamonitor, 2008).

In addition, another force that Porter describes is the bargaining power of suppliers (Capon, C. 2009). The airline industry is characterized by strong supplier power as a result of global duopoly of Boeing and Airbus that exists in the manufacture of aircrafts globally and that there is no viable substitute for jet fuel that has yet been discovered (Datamonitor, 2008). Airlines have little control over rising fuel prices as no alternative source of energy is available and as a result supplier power is strong (Datamonitor, 2008).

“On first of July 2009, Lufthansa finally took over BMI the second biggest carrier at Heathrow airport” (The Economist, 2009: p.60). This deal gave Lufthansa control of more flights from London Heathrow airport than any other airlines except British Airways (BBC, 2008). Lufthansa is facing extremely difficult market conditions due to the present economic crisis (Flottau, J. 2009). As a consequence of the Global economic downturn, the acquisition of BMI and two other smaller airlines makes Lufthansa strong enough to weather the storm better than others (The Economist, 2009). Lufthansa saw its premium traffic fall by 15% in the first four months of 2009 and its competitor British Airways premium tariff fall by 17% (The Economist, 2009). Due to plunging demands in the market, Lufthansa is trying to conserve cash and cut capacity. However, the last thing it wants to do is spend precious money and time trying to sort out the struggling, sub-scale airline BMI (The Economist 2009). Lufthansa faces competitive rivalry. Low cost carrier such as Easyjet, Ryanair, Air Berlin are Lufthansa’s most dangerous competitors (Flottau, J. 2009). Bargaining power of suppliers increases as the penalty for late cancellations of new aircraft orders are high (The Economist, 2009). This makes it difficult for airlines to cut down capacity to match the fall in demand (The Economist, 2009). In addition the rise in jet fuel prices by fifty percent since the beginning of the year, adds extra costs to the airlines (The Economist, 2009). This increases supplier power as there are no other alternatives to use (Datamonitor, 2008).

“The airline recently warned that without fierce cost cutting measures it would fail to make even an operating profit this year” (The Economist, 2009: p.60). An effective strategy for Lufthansa would be cost leadership (Capon, C. 2009). “Lufthansa’s declared aim is to increase the sustainable profitability of the segment by cutting costs” (Lufthansa Annual Report, 2008 p.1). This will be an effective competitive strategy for the current economic crisis. Lufthansa is making capacity adjustments to match plunging demands (Mayrhuber, W. 2009).”400 jobs (overhead) will be phased out by 2011. (That will save us costs of 55 million euros)” (Mayrhuber, W. 2009: p.4). In addition Lufthansa has planned to reduce personal unit costs by ten percent which will save cost of a hundred and ninety million euro’s and furthermore reduce material costs by seven percent by 2012 (Mayruber, W. 2009). In order to make profits, this strategy will enable Lufthansa to survive through the economic crisis.

To conclude, the porter five forces of competitive, rivalry, threat of new entrants, threat of substitute service and the bargaining power of buyers are assessed at a moderate level to the airline industry. However the bargaining power of suppliers is strong. I think that the airline industry should maintain this level of competitiveness in the industry as it will make them more efficient and improvement in the quality of their services will increase as a result. Lufthansa is facing very difficult market conditions (e.g. increase in jet fuel, decrease in demand etc) due to the economic meltdown and as a result I suggested the cost leadership strategy for Lufthansa in order for them to survive though this economic crisis.