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Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries.

Airline Reservation System is one of the intermediaries of the distribution channel in the aviation industry. An airline reservation system is part of the so-called passenger service systems (PSS), which are applications supporting the direct contact with the passenger.

Airline reservations systems contain airline schedules, fare tariffs, passenger reservations and ticket records. An airline’s direct distribution works within their own reservation system, as well as pushing out information to the GDS. A second type of direct distribution channel is consumers who use the internet or mobile applications to make their own reservations. Travel agencies and other indirect distribution channels access the same GDS as those accessed by the airlines’ reservation systems, and all messaging is transmitted by a standardized messaging system that functions on two types of messaging that transmit on SITA’s HLN [high level network]. These message types are called Type B [TTY] for remarks-like communications and Type A [EDIFACT] for secured information. Message construction standards are set by IATA and ICAO, are global, and apply to more than air transportation. Since airline reservation systems are business critical applications, and their functionally quite complex, the operation of an in-house airline reservation system is relatively expensive.

Prior to deregulation, airlines owned their own reservation systems with travel agents subscribing to them. Today, the GDS are run by independent companies with airlines and travel agencies as major subscribers.

As of February 2009, there are only three major GDS providers in the market space: Amadeus, Travel port (the merged World span and Galileo systems), Sabre and Shares. There is one major Regional GDS, Abacus, serving the Asian marketplace and a number of regional players serving single countries, including Travel sky (China), Infini and Axess (both Japan) and Topas (South Korea).

Inventory management

An airline’s inventory contains all flights with their available seats. The inventory of an airline is generally divided into service classes (e.g. first, business or economy class) and up to 26 booking classes, for which different prices and booking conditions apply.

Inventory data is imported and maintained through a schedule distribution system over standardized interfaces. One of the core functions of the inventory management is the inventory control. Inventory control steers how many seats are available in the different booking classes, by opening and closing individual booking classes for sale. In combination with the fares and booking conditions stored in the Fare Quote System the price for each sold seat is determined.

In most cases inventory control has a real time interface to an airline’s Yield management system to support a permanent optimization of the offered booking classes in response to changes in demand or pricing strategies of a competitor.

Availability display and reservation (PNR)

Users access an airline’s inventory through an availability display. It contains all offered flights for a particular city-pair with their available seats in the different booking classes. This display contains flights which are operated by the airline itself as well as code share flights which are operated in co-operation with another airline. If the city pair is not one on which the airline offers service it may display a connection using its own flights or display the flights of other airlines.

The availability of seats of other airlines is updated through standard industry interfaces. Depending on the type of co-operation it supports access to the last seat (last seat availability) in real-time. Reservations for individual passengers or groups are stored in a so-called passenger name record (PNR). Among other data, the PNR contains personal information such as name, contact information or special services requests (SSRs) e.g. for a vegetarian meal, as well as the flights (segments) and issued tickets. Some reservation systems also allow storing customer data in profiles to avoid data re-entry each time a new reservation is made for a known passenger. In addition most systems have interfaces to CRM systems or customer loyalty applications (aka frequent traveler systems).

Before a flight departs the so-called passenger name list (PNL) is handed over to the departure control system that is used to check-in passengers and baggage. Reservation data such as the number of booked passengers and special service requests is also transferred to flight operations systems, crew management and catering systems. Once a flight has departed the reservation system is updated with a list of the checked-in passengers (e.g. passengers who had a reservation but did not check in (no shows) and passengers who checked in, but didn’t have a reservation (go shows)). Finally data needed for revenue accounting and reporting is handed over to administrative systems.

Fare quote and ticketing

The Fares data store contains fare tariffs, rule sets, routing maps, class of service tables, and some tax information that construct the price – “the fare”. Rules like booking conditions (e.g. minimum stay, advance purchase, etc.) are tailored differently between different city pairs or zones, and assigned a class of service corresponding to its appropriate inventory bucket. Inventory control can also be manipulated manually through the availability feeds, dynamically controlling how many seats are offered for a particular price by opening and closing particular classes.

The role of the ticketing complex is to issue and store electronic ticket records and the very small number of paper tickets that are still issued. Miscellaneous charges order (MCO) is still a paper document; IATA has working groups defining the replacement document the electronic multipurpose document (EMD) as at 2010. The electronic ticket information is stored in a database containing the data that historically was printed on a paper ticket including items such as the ticket number, the fare and tax components of the ticket price or exchange rate information. In the past airlines issued paper tickets; since 2008 IATA has been supporting a resolution to move to 100% electronic ticketing. So far, the industry has not been able to comply due to various technological and international limitations. The industry is at 98% electronic ticket issuance today although electronic processing for MCOs was not available in time for the IATA mandate.

KEY ISSUES & CURRENT TRENDS

India is set to experience a transformational growth profile.

The challenges are becoming much greater as the size of the industry increases.

2000aˆ?2010: Indian aviation had to cope with an additional 84m pax,at times, this truly stretched the system;

2010aˆ?2020: Indian aviation may have to handle an incremental 300aˆ?320m pax;

In absolute terms the challenge ahead will dwarf recent history.

Long term planning in line with a clear vision is imperative. We require imagination, strong commitment, a clear and robust regulatory framework and capital.

Is Indian aviation ready to meet this challenge?

How do we create the appropriate framework for the long term?

What kind of regulation do we want -government as regulator or independent regulator?

Independent regulation requires that government does not have stakes in airlines/airports.

Is the industry ready for complete deregulation as in the UK/EU?

Do we want rapid or gradual change?

After reaching agreement on these issues, the roadmap for regulation must be documented.

CAPA believes that India has a cleanaˆ?sheet opportunity to create an effective new frame work, that supports industry viability and is focused on security, safety, skills and sustainability.

Key Success Factors for the Next Decade

1. National Agenda: A long term, structured national plan (as part of a broader transportation plan) with an appropriate policy framework is necessary to attract capital.

2. Regulator: A modern, unified, professional regulator, with enhanced expertise.

3. PSUs: Air India and the AAI need to be gradually privatized, while corporatization of air navigation services is essential.

4. HR & Training: World class education & training infrastructure is essential for safe and efficient aviation.

5. Safety: Implementation of safety systems and culture which are comprehensive, enforced and collaborative.

6. Liberalisation: Market access should be liberalized but there must be a level playing field for Indian operators.

7. Taxation: A less punitive fiscal regime -particularly sales tax on fuel -which recognizes that airlines must be viable, is imperative.

8. Investment: Private sector capital should be encouraged in airport development.

9. Profile: Enhanced profile and recognition of aviation within government. And state governments must be educated on the role that aviation plays economic competitiveness

10. Vision: Ministry to concentrate on policy and providing strategic leadership.

PEST ANALYSIS
OVERVIEW:

Air travel has grown in the past decade. Travel grew strongly for both Leisure and business purposes. India will have nearly 800 to 1000 airplanes by2023, it was estimated by Airbus. In spite of growth between 30 to 50 per cent in Indian aviation industry, losses of approximately 2200 core is estimated for the current year.

During 1991-1992, Modiluft, East West and Damania went bankrupt. Air Sahara and Jet Airways survived along with government own Indian Airlines because they had the capability to bear losses. Globalization and privatization had a major impact on aviation industry. Indian aviation industry was deregulated by the government in 1990s. As a result now 14 airlines are operating today in Indian sky. Now, collaboration with international organization and foreign direct investment are welcome to improve infrastructure and technology. Today people who cannot afford high prices of Full Service Carriers (FSC) can travel by Low Cost Carriers (LCC) or budget airlines. Air Deccan was India’s first LCC started in 2003. It flies to several metro and non-metro destinations. All airlines have three major fixed costs i.e. fuel costs, financing or aircraft lease and labour cost. But LCC costs are 10 to 15per cent lower than FSC. This is because of three reasons. Firstly, saving on distribution cost as passenger’s book tickets on the internet. Secondly, no frills are offered on board. Thirdly, to accommodate additional seats, catering and cabin crew space in these aircraft has been used. So these aircraft have 40 seats more than the FSC.

INDUSTRY ANALYTICS:

PEST analysis of any industry sector investigates the important factors that are affecting the industry and influencing the companies operating in that sector. PEST is an acronym for political, economic, social and technological analysis. Political factors include government policies relating to the industry, tax policies, laws and regulations, trade restrictions and tariffs etc. The economic factors relate to changes in the wider economy such as economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and inflation rate, etc. Social factors often look at the cultural aspects and include health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, changes in tastes and buying patterns, etc. The technological factors relate to the application of new inventions and ideas such as R&D activity, automation, technology incentives and the rate of technological change. The PEST Analysis is a perfect tool for managers and policy makers; helping them in analyzing the forces that are driving their industry and how these factors will influence their businesses and the whole industry in general. Our product also presents a brief profile of the industry comprising of current market, competition in it and future prospects of that sector.

POLITICAL FACTORS:

In India, one can never over-look the political factors which influence each and every industry existing in the country. Like it or not, the political interference has to be present everywhere. Given below are a few of the political factors with respect to the airline industry:

1. The airline industry is very susceptible to changes in the political environment as it has a great bearing on the travel habits of its customers. An unstable political environment causes uncertainty in the minds of the air travelers, regarding traveling to a particular country.

2. Overall India’s recent political environment has been largely unstable due to international events & continued tension with Pakistan.

3. The government’s inability to control the unbalanced internal situations like the Gujarat riots have also led to an increase in the instability of the political arena.

4. The most significant political event however has been September 11. The events occurring on September had special significance for the airline industry since airplanes were involved. The immediate results were a huge drop in air traffic due to safety & security concerns of the people.

5. International airlines are greatly affected by trade relations that their country has with others. Unless governments of the two countries trade with each other, there could be restrictions of flying into particular area leading to greater loss of potential air traffic (e.g. Pakistan and India)

6. The development of freedom of movement and trade in the European Union has led to greater levels of competition on European routes coupled with increased movement of people.

7. With the liberalization of the Indian aviation sector, the aviation industry in India has undergone a rapid transformation. From being primarily a government-owned industry, the Indian aviation industry is now dominated by privately owned full-service airlines and low-cost carriers. Private airlines account for around 75 per cent share of the domestic aviation market. Indian carriers currently have a fleet size of 310 aircrafts, but have 480 aircrafts on order, scheduled for delivery by 2012. Increasing liberalization and deregulation has led to an increase in the number of private players.

8. Price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) crashed drastically in December 2008, hitting US$ 0.665- US$ 0.789, which is its lowest level since the last four to five years. With this move, airlines are likely to prune their airfares considerably. Jet Airways, the country’s largest private carrier, has slashed domestic fares by 40per cent and national carrier Air India has announced that it will cut basic fares anywhere between 45 per cent and 60 per cent in February 2009 following a drop in ATF prices.

9. Modernization of Airports: The Ministry of Civil Aviation has decided to modernize and upgrade 35 non – metro airports across India. Leading airport developers are readying to participate in bids to win the right to construct and operate commercial property at these airports. Apart from this, the government is also planning to build Greenfield airports at Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra),Kunnur (Kerala), Hassan and Gulbarga (Karnataka), Ludhiana (Punjab), GreaterNoida ( NCR), Paykong (Sikkim), Cheithu (Nagaland) and Chakan (near Pune,Maharashtra).

10. Entry Barriers for New Players: Stung by the competition unleashed by lowcostplayers like Air Deccan and Spice Jet, bigwigs of the Indian aviation industry have unleashed a hushed campaign for introduction of stiff entry barriers which will prevent competition from intensifying. The current demand is to increase the minimum investment level for scheduled airlines to Rs 250 crore as compared to the current Rs 30 crore. The ministry has also been urged to increase the minimum fleet strength to 10 instead of the current five.

SOCIAL FACTORS:

Social factors relate to pattern of behavior, tastes, and lifestyles. A major component of this is a change in consumer behavior resulting from changes in fashions and styles. The age structure of the population also alters over time (currently we have an ageing population). An understanding of social change gives business a better feel for the future market situation. Increased popularity of foreign travel leading to a boom in demand for air travel. However, this has been adversely affected by international terrorism.

1. For many years in India air travel was perceived to be an elitist activity. This view Arose from the aˆ•Maharajahaˆ- syndrome where, due to the prohibitive cost of air travel, the only people who could afford it were the rich and powerful. Indecent years, however, this image of Civil Aviation has undergone a change and aviation is now viewed in a different light – as an essential link not only for international travel and trade but also for providing connectivity to different parts of the country.

Aviation is, by its very nature, a critical part of the infrastructure of the country and has important ramifications for the development of tourism and trade, the opening up of inaccessible areas of the country and for providing stimulus to business activity and economic growth.

2. India witnessed record 9.4% GDP growth in FY07, and has continued the strong growth by recording 9.3% growth in Q1FY08, characterized mainly by strong performance in industry and service sectors. Explosive growth in wages during this period has led to significantly higher disposable income, bringing about a distinct change in the life style of the middle and upper class population, which essentially is the target market of aviation sector. Over the years, airline passenger revenue, as a percentage of private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) on transport services, has grown from about 7.8% in FY03to about 9.8% in FY06. There is an expectation for this to increase to 12% byFY10.

3. Employment Opportunities: India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world. The Airport Authority of India (AAI) manages total of127 airports in the country, which include 13 international airports, 7 custom airports, 80 domestic airports and 28 civil enclaves. There are over 450 airports and 1091 registered aircrafts in the country. This huge and very fast growing sector provides large number of employment opportunities

4. Globally aviation industry is under the scanner because it is the fastest growing cause for global warning; and EU aircraft emissions alone have risen by87% since 1990. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by air travel doubled between 1990 and 2004; and with huge expansion in air traffic forecasted in both Asia and Europe, predominantly driven by low cost leisure travel, the trend is expected to continue. It is also pertinent to note the high altitude nature of carbon and other airline emission make air travel potentially more damaging than most other forms of transport

It is a phase of rapid growth in the industry with estimated growth of domestic passenger segment at 50% per annum. This has led to intense price competition due to which full service carriers like Jet Airways, Indian Airlines and Air Sahara are giving discounts of up to 60-70% for certain routes to match the new entrants’ ticket prices. The customer has thus gained enormously as a result of liberalization of the sector.

ECONOMIC FACTOR:

Economic factors include economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and the inflation rate. These factors have major impacts on how businesses operate and make decisions.

1. Investments in the Sector: The government estimates that the country will need US$400m in private investment in these 35 non – metro airports, while the state – run Airports Authority of India will also have to spend an equal amount. Demand for air travel is growing in India as a result of economic development, globalization, and regulatory liberalization and declining passenger fares. We expect air travel to grow 16% CAGR (14.7% for domestic and 16.5% for international passengers) over the next four years until FY10. This growth in passenger traffic will drive a far larger growth of 20% in airline revenues. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today said the government was considering foreign direct investment (FDI) of up to 25 per cent in Indian carriers by foreign airlines. (Business standard January 14 2009.

2. Rising GDP and increasing per capita income is positively impacting the airlines industry. Another major driver is the booming tourism industry in India. However, the low cost airline segment is facing challenges of increasing competition, rising fuel prices and inadequate infrastructure.

3. Global economic slowdown reflects the impression of hard time in airline sectors of India too. The most popular airlines (Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines) which providing their operations in India are facing a tough time in festive seasons. The situation had become so worse that the management of various airlines services was forced to begin sacking of their employees as the aviation industry facing big loss. The whole world witnessed the dramatic scene of firing of 1900 employees of Jet Airways those were taken back under the political pressure. Kingfisher Airlines which is principal rival of Jet Airways also declared some deduction in their number of employees. The situation forced to sign an operational alliance between these two airline flights Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines. Just a few days ago all things were going well. Kingfisher Airlines had demanded for new air crafts also a few days ago but all of sudden the whole scene is changed and the airline postponed their decision of including new air crafts in the airline. The various airlines blame the high cost of air fuel in this year in India as compared to the rest of the market for this.

4. Lower interest rates have meant that people have more disposable income to spend on luxuries like long distance air travel.

5. Privatization of International Airports is in offing through Joint Venture route. Three Greenfield airports are getting developed at Kochi, Hyderabad and Bangalore with major shareholding of private sector. The work on Bangalore and Hyderabad airports are already done. Few selected non-metro airports are likely to be privatized. 100% foreign equity has also been allowed in construction and maintenance of airports with selective approval from Foreign Investment Promotion Board. In the context of a multiplicity of airlines, airport operators (including private sector), and the possibility of oligopolistic practices, there is a need for an autonomous regulatory authority which could work as a watchdog, as well as a facilitator for the sector, prescribe and enforce minimum standards for all agencies, settle disputes with regard to abuse of monopoly and ensure level playing field for all agencies.

The CAA was commissioned to maintain a competitive civil aviation environment which ensures safety and security in accordance with international standards, promotes efficient, cost-effective and orderly growth of air transport and contributes to social and economic development of the country.

6. Low-cost Airlines Raise Demand for Aircraft Manufacturing: The entry of several low cost carriers like Air Deccan, Spice Jet etc is increasing the demand for aircraft manufacturing. The demand for helicopters is also likelyto increase with more emphasis on heli-tourism, adventure sports etc.

TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS:

Over the years, airlines have been straddled with legacy business processes with hardly any effort at re-engineering innovative solutions. With IT industry providing a commendable backbone, airlines can now emerge from the inefficiency they have been restrained with. Innovative strategies and new technologies may well offer cost savings, but at the same time they can be hard to implement given the cost.

1. Modern aircraft are safer and more economic to run than in the past making possible cheap air travel.

2. Growth of Electronic Ticketing: while industry is reducing its exposure to brokers/ travel agents, online ticketing and direct bookings are of late witnessing an increase trend as is clear from the below chart

3. Technical Cooperation with EU: In 2004, India and the EU upgraded their already strong overall relationship into a strategic partnership. This strategic partnership is underpinned by an agreed Joint Action Plan in which civil aviation plays a key enabling role. Since the adoption of the Joint Action Plain September 2005, co-operation in the area of civil aviation has been given new impetus. As a first significant step, the two sides agreed to restore legal certainty to all the bilateral air services agreements between India and EU Member States.

Therefore, it was agreed that a aˆ•horizontal agreement will be finalized as a matter of priority. The aim of the “horizontal agreement” will be to amend certain provisions in the bilateral agreements thereby bringing these into conformity with Community law thus restoring legal certainty to these agreements and the operators flying under them. Secondly, building on the very successful results achieved under the1999-2006 aˆ•EU-India Civil Aviation Co-operation Projectaˆ-, Messrs. Prepared a Joint Action Plan that will set out the key priorities for strengthening future technical and technological co-operation.

The Joint Action Plan will identify the main priority areas for future technical cooperation which will cover aviation safety (including strengthening the cooperation with the European Air Safety Agency (EASA)), security, airport infrastructure, air traffic management, environmental policy, economic regulation, training and industrial cooperation. At the EU-India Aviation Summit, India was also invited to become associated in major EU technological programs such as GALILEO, the satellite navigation program, and SESAR, the air traffic management project.

THE RUNWAY AHEAD

According to recent estimates by The International Air Transport Association (IATA), India is likely to be a significant player in the global civil aviation business, which was estimated at US$ 5.6 billion in 2008.The Indian Civil Aviation market grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 percent, and was worth US$ 5.6 billion in 2008. The government is planning to upgrade 45 big and small airports across India. For Greenfield airports, foreign equity up to 100 percent is allowed through automatic approvals. For upgrading present airports, foreign equity up to 74percent is allowed through automatic approvals and 100 percent through special permission (from FIPB).

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation(CAPA) has forecast that domestic traffic will increase by 25 percent to 30 percent till 2010 and international traffic growth by 15 percent, taking the total market to more than 100 million passengers by 2010. India’s civil aviation passenger growth, presently at 20percent, is one of the highest in the world, and is expected to surpass countries like China, France and Australia. By 2020, 400 million Indian passengers are likely to be airborne. By 2020, Indian airports are expected to handle more than100 million passengers including 60 million domestic passengers and around3.4 million tonnes of cargo per annum.

Domestic air traffic is likely to more than double and touch 86.1 million passengers by 2010, up from 32.2 million passengers in 2007, states the market research firm PhoCus.Moreover, significant measures to propel growth in the civil aviation sector are on the anvil. The government plans to invest US$ 9 billion to modernize existing airports by 2010. The government is also planning to develop around300 unused airstrips, and subsequently, Boeing and Airbus, along with Embraer(Brazil), Bombardier(Canada), Sukhoi(Russia), ATR(France) and BAESystem (UK) are now looking at foraying into the Indian jet market.

CLEAR SKIES AHEAD: The Indian aviation sector is likely to see clear skies ahead in the years to come. Giovanni Bisignani, Director General and CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), has called on India to give direction to the efforts in shaping future aviation policies, including environment and commercial freedoms. “In a few years, Asia Pacific will be the largest single aviation market. India is a key driver of that growth. India’s enormous size makes it an important market.” With a growth rate of 18 percent per annum, the industry will see rapid expansion in terms of players as well as the number of aircrafts. The strength of the Indian fleet is projected to be 500-550 by 2010.

aˆ? Cargo transportation is likely to touch 3.4 million tonnes in 2010.

aˆ? 480 aircrafts will be delivered by 2012.

aˆ? The number of passengers to touch 400 million by 2020.

Advances in technology combined with its more effective use are generally assumed to be a good trend for the global expansion of trade and commerce. Technological advances are commonly believed to quicken the globalization process with improved economic growth and business profitability is consequently assumed to be the beneficial results. Globalization and the use of improved technology increase the potential for increasing efficiency as the electronic and digital transfer of information and financial transactions means that customers can be gained on a global, regional, or national level. Like most other industries or economic sectors, the hospitality and tourism industries have been affected by the use of and improvements in technology in recent years. Hospitality as will be argued, is an industry like any other that can potentially increase its distribution channel efficiency through more widespread or more effective use of technology. Traditionally the use of technology was confined to improvements in the mode of transport available to travellers. Hotels and places of hospitality have been strategically placed for the benefit of travellers. For instance the development of trains, cars, ships, and planes all helped to expand the tourism and hospitality industries as people found it easier, quicker, and more cost-effective to travel further distances. However, it is the use of technology such as television advertising, personal and business computers, and the Internet that arguably has the potential to increase the distribution channel efficiency in hospitality. For the purpose of this essay it would be sensible to remember that the hospitality industry deals with two main types of customer, tourists or holiday -makers alongside business travellers. Whatever motivates people to travel is not as important as the factors that makes pick a place to stay and possibly tempts them to stay there again and again. As will be discussed the use of technology is not the sole factor in distribution channel efficiency in the hospitality industry, yet it can be the decisive factor.

To begin with the hospitality industry has always been reliant upon the transport infrastructure available at any given time, the less developed that infrastructure the less likely people are willing to travel great distances or so often. Prior to the onset of improvements in transport and communications technology during the 19^th century there were little pressures for the hospitality industry to have Distribution Channel Efficiency. Poor roads and sail powered ships meant that most travellers only went short distances. Only the very wealthy could afford the time and the expense of travelling widely. Luxury hotels existed in small numbers to cater for their needs. More generally hospitality was confined to small hotels and inns, often located on main roads. Without the development of the railways, steam powered ships, and later the car, the modern hospitality industry would not have evolved. The railways made short breaks and day trips affordable for the masses, whilst steam ships reduced the sea voyages from weeks to days (Cooper, Fletcher et al, 1998 p. 395). Transport costs are still a vital consideration for the hospitality industry to consider. For instance the greater availability of charter flights made package holidays more affordable from the 1960s (Vellas & Becherel, 1995, p.79). For instance, for a time after the 9/11 attacks higher insurance costs as well as safety concerns reduced the number of travellers (Higley, 2004). The expansion of newspaper sales combined with the invention of the telegram and the telephone made international and national communications quicker and more effective. Such developments meant that hospitality was able to develop marketing and advertising strategies on a national and sometimes an international basis. The need for Distribution Channel Efficiency in hospitality developed in conjunction with the expanded opportunities that resulted from improving technology (Cooper et al, 1998, p.424). Income levels also have an impact upon the hospitality industry; people who cannot afford to travel will not be effected by Distribution Channel Efficiency (Vellas & Becherel, 1995, p.91).

The appropriate use of modern information technology equipment can certainly help improve Distribution Channel Efficiency in hospitality although it does not guarantee commercial success. Individual travellers and hotels can use computers systems and databases to make travel and accommodation arrangements with increasing ease (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 16). The use of automated booking and payment arrangements means that customers no longer have to make travel and accommodation arrangements in person or via correspondence. As long as hotels are linked to national and international databases and network bookings can be made at any travel agency, booking office and even online. The automation of the payment process began once the use of credit cards became more widespread, especially in North America, Japan and Western Europe. Credit cards, debit cards, and the use of automated credit transfers allowed transactions to take place anywhere in the world at any time of day. Travel agencies, transport companies, and hotels have developed booking systems that allow tourists and business travellers to arrange their travel and accommodation more effectively (Killingworth-Baird and Carter, 1996 p. 12). The expansion of automated payment systems has had the greatest impact on hotel reservations, with hotels and booking agencies using computer databases to know the level of vacancies and reservations at every hotel within a local area network or now across the globe. As with other areas of commerce the efficiency and speed of those systems has improved markedly with adaptation of Internet technology (www.gcis.ca).

It was developments in the United States that led to the modernisation and expansion of hospitality industry through the invention of computer reservation systems. The computer reservation systems are usually referred to as global distribution system or GDS. The most widely used GDS systems are Sabre, Galileo, Amadeus, and Worldspan. Once compatibility problems were resolved these systems have proved invaluable for the global hospitality industry. For travellers the main benefit of GDS is that it gives them the ability to make their arrangements in advance, provides a good level of customer service and it means that holidays or business trips are efficiently planned. For the parts of the hospitality industry that have fully automated bookings and payment procedures the ability to make bookings in advance is a great help for the achievement of Distribution Channel Efficiency. The companies that pioneered GDS such as Thomson used it to expand rapidly (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 16). The taking of advanced bookings means that hotels can budget for a known amount of income coming in at any given time and set staffing levels accordingly. Hotels have more time to attract more visitors if they know that the hotel will have a higher number of vacancies and therefore offer discounted stays at short notice to hire out as many rooms as possible. Logically the more accurate information that hotels have about the number of bookings already made and the amount of bookings still available then they can make suitable arrangements for extra marketing, discounted room hire and the holding of special events. The development of GDS when combined with the increase in charter flights and package holidays meant the rapid growth of the hospitality industry on a greater scale and fashionable new destinations such as Benidorm in Spain (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 149).

The hospitality industry had already began to make use of improved Distribution Channel Efficiency before the internet became widely available and dramatically altered the prospects for commerce and marketing. For the hospitality industry the use of the internet has made it possible for hotels to advertise their vacancies and their locations on a global basis. Individual hotels and international hotel chains were quick to realise how the internet could increase the chances of improving Distribution Channel Efficiency through the effective use of technology. The internet allows the opportunity for hotels to advertise and make bookings online, as well as gaining bookings through travel agents as well as being in brochures and tourist information offices. Many customers now prefer to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements online so the hotels have their own websites or can be booked through other websites have a stronger opportunity to increase their sales compared to those hotels that cannot be booked online. The internet provides the chance to book hotel rooms as customers can view what the hotel is like without going there in person. Customers can learn about a hotels precise location, transport links to the hotel, and the closeness of tourist attractions or important business sites that could be nearby (www.gcis.ca). The internet is also a great media for showing other features of the hospitality and leisure facilities available at hotels. For instance, hotels no longer just provide somewhere to sleep and eat. Facilities, which can be attractive to customers, include gyms, swimming pools, bars, and restaurants. Customers’ expectations of what hotels should provide them with have also altered due to changes in technology. Whereas travellers would have once been happy with a bed, tea- making facilities with en-suite bathroom, now they would like televisions, mini bars and phone sockets so they can access the internet via their laptops (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 17).

For larger hotels and hotel chains the hospitality they provide has certainly changed for the reasons mentioned above. Hotels are no longer about having a bed for the night; they are about having an enjoyable experience, which means the customer will wish to use the hotel company again. It could be argued that providing such services and facilities make the hospitality industry more expensive to run, yet such expenditure could be justified if hotels are able to increase the number of happy guests and keep the loyalty of their customers. The Distribution Channel Efficiency of technology will, if used effectively, prove more profitable to the companies that are prepared to implement changes as soon as they become possible. Keeping pace with technological changes allows hotels and other hospitality providers to improve and maintain their standards of customer service. Hotels are not able to provide their guests and customers with a higher level of service when it comes to providing information about travel and the leisure activities available at the hotel itself or within the surrounding areas of it. It is possible if the hotel or hospitality provider is linked with travel and leisure companies that customers can arrange to pay for all other services not provided by the hotel when they make their hotel bookings. Smaller hotels and hospitality providers might not be able to match all the services provided by a larger or chain of hotels, yet they can still provide their customers with a higher level service than they did before the internet became widely available (Higley, 2004).

Improvements in technology do not automatically equate to a better Distribution Channel Efficiency for hotels and other hospitality providers. There are certainly actual and potential drawbacks to the greater use of technology within the hospitality industry. Staff and managers have to have enough training to use new technology properly, whilst not all customers may be able to use new technology and will need to make their hospitality arrangements by more traditional means such as going to a travel agent, booking by telephone, or even by letter. For smaller companies and hospitality providers it might not be cost effective to use every piece of new technology as their income and resources would not be increased by as much as the cost of upgrading their equipment. Smaller hospitality providers have tended to avoid such drawbacks by forming links with the larger companies such as Thomson. The use of GDS suits small operators as the larger companies fill up their rooms, whilst the arrangements suit the large companies as it increases the number of bookings from customers that they can meet (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 16). For smaller hospitality providers there is another potential drawback that new technology becomes obsolete too frequently. Once again strong links with the larger tour operators can mean that even with older technology that the smaller hospitality providers can still stay connected to global databases or booking systems such as GDS. It also means that the efficiency of the payments they send and receive is increased (www.gcis.ca).

Another drawback that could provide problems for the hospitality industry when it is seeking Distribution Channel Efficiency is that when tour operators and smaller hospitality providers are so busy meeting current demands that they do not plan adequately for the expansion or contraction of tourist destinations. When growth levels in certain resorts are very strong hospitality providers have found it difficult to match demand with actual capacity. Tourism booms that in some holiday resorts may seem destined to last for a long period yet such resorts are prey to the changing tastes or budgets of tourists. Unplanned or too rapid an expansion of holiday resorts could lead to the areas becoming spoilt and burdened with declining popularity and profits. Experience has shown that the decline of popularity in some holiday resorts can be as rapid as previously high levels of tourists staying. Perhaps the classic example of a tourist resort expanding rapidly and suddenly declining in popularity is Benidorm. For the best part of two decades the demand for bookings was barely met as new hotel construction only just stayed ahead of demand. Rapid expansion had spoilt the original character and attractiveness of the area for tourists and the level of hospitality provided varied greatly across the resort. The popularity of Benidorm fell sharply at the end of the 1980s with bookings down by a third. Expansion is never infinite and the consistent adoption of technology to Distribution Channel Efficiency cannot make people go to certain destinations (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 149). The popularity of hospitality providers and holiday resorts can be affected by factors outside of their control such as poor weather, changes in tastes and income, or especially relevant after the 9/11 attacks on the United States by security concerns. Regional conflicts can have detrimental affects on tourism and hospitality as people are unwilling to travel near war zones (Outhart, Taylor et al, 2000 p. 196). American hotels frequently responded to the downturn in business after 9/11 by shelving or reducing company training programmes which arguably affected efficiency and certainly lowered customer services standards. To some extent the availability of online training has addressed some of those training needs (Higley, 2004).

To some extent the Internet provides an alternative way of making hotel and travel arrangements. People that use the Internet are in a position to make their own plans, as they are able to bypass travel agents and make bookings directly from travel and hospitality providers themselves. People that want to arrange things independently of other people are using the technology developed by the hospitality providers to do so. The main alternative to the evolving electronic booking and payments systems would be to use older less efficient offline versions although they would still work they would not be as fast or as accurate (www.gcis.ca).

Therefore the use of technology can greatly assist the Distribution Channel Efficiency of the hospitality industry. However technology alone does not make or break hospitality operators. A combination of information technology, plus advances in transport, changes in consumer tastes, and effective marketing can make all the difference between success and failure. Technological advances since the 1960s have radically altered the ways in which hospitality is provided, booked, and paid for. The expansion of charter flights and the development of GDS allowed large international travel and hospitality companies like Thomson to flourish and to form links with hotels, airlines, and other transport providers to offer complete travel packages that could be booked and paid for at the same time. Perhaps the most single important technological advance that affects Distribution Channel Efficiency in the hospitality industry is the Internet. On the Internet customers can make their own travel and accommodation arrangements by assessing operators deals and taking advantage of the payment and GDS that are part of websites and hospitality networks.

Bibliography

Cooper C, Fletcher J, Gilbert D, & Wanhill S, (1998) Tourism – Principles and Practice, 2^nd edition, Longman, London and New York

Higley J, Hoteliers need to rediscover training benefits, Hotel & Motel Management Sep. 6 2004

Outhart T, Taylor L, Barker R, & Marvell A, (2000) Advanced Vocational Travel and Tourism, Collins, London

The General Center for Internet Services Inc, The Internet has greatly helped to increase the efficiency of transactions, July 15, 2002 from www.gcis.ca

Vellas F & Becherel L, (1995) International Tourism – An Economic Perspective, MacMillan Business, Basingstoke

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION1.1 Background

Wedding is once-a-life event in people’s life. For most of families, they are willing to spend a considerable amount of money to ensure the wedding is organized as perfect as possible. According to Howard (2006), wedding today is a $70 billion business in U.S., and the average cost of wedding is $26,000 per couples. As a spinoff the larger discipline of event management, the business of wedding planning will provide business to a broad array of supporting industries, such as hotels, retails, and catering service.

Comparing with the other personal events, such as birthday, anniversaries, wedding is more complicated, because it involves friends and families and a range of related service activities covering from catering to entertainments (Shone & Parry, 2004). In order to make sure everything goes smoothly in the wedding day, most of the prospective couples would like to plan the wedding in sometimes year in advance. Both brides and grooms put much effort into the wedding preparation including the venue selection, honeymoon booking and dress design etc. However, not all of them have enough time and energy and knowledge in wedding planning to arrange everything themselves. They need someone to assist them in wedding planning, budget preparation, planning detail checklists, venue arrangement as well as onsite supervision and coordination on the wedding day. Wedding planners, the professional dealing with all the details of wedding, provide a one-stop service to potential couples by charging some considerable consultant fee (Wikipedia org, 2009). The role of the wedding planners is to save time, look after details, make couples’ dream come true, stay on the budget and save money. Wedding planners have become one of the outsourced labours in modern society (Blakely, 2007).

With the rapid development of the society in the last decade, more and more couples prefer to go to college and start their own careers after graduation. Marriage is happening later in brides and grooms’ life (Mayling, 2002). This means couples have more disposable income to afford the wedding expenses; and they are more likely to look for some special unique wedding styles, such as theme wedding, green wedding etc., which probably involves different elements, such as ethic, religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice and individual tastes and preference (Howard, 2006). As a result, wedding planners, who are providing professional advices and assistance to the couples from the moment of distributing the invitations, arranging the style of cake ceremony, table setting, and setting for banquet, are necessarily needed and developed dramatically (Markby, 2006).

1.2 Wedding in China

In traditional Chinese culture, marriage was creating alliances between families. Therefore, it was strictly arranged by parents or elder people in families. Wedding should be planned strictly according to the customs. For example, people should choose a good year, a good month, a good day as well as a good time for wedding ceremony; and use “red” in the declaration for everything with the purpose of auspicious. Wedding is also one of the ways for Chinese families to present their social classes therefore the families are willing to spend a large mount of money on wedding, and much of which were supported by parents or relatives.

Because of the reform and opening-up policy in the late 1970s, nowadays, the living standards in China have been dramatically increased. According to the China Statistic Yearbook – 2008 (2009), the GDP per capita in Mainland China is increasing steadily and has reached 18,934 RMB in 2007. At the mean time, the social culture is becoming diversified. More and more Chinese people, especially the younger generation who have better education, began to accept the western culture. Most of the prospective couples would like to experience different types of weddings that can make their special day more measurable. For example, some people choose “white” wedding instead of traditional Chinese “red” wedding; some may prefer destination wedding instead of having wedding at home, which may require more time and professional planning and organizing throughout the wedding preparation. Therefore, wedding planners, as a new business in China, has developed rapidly during the last decade. According to the ministry of commerce of the PRC (2008), wedding service today has become a big business in China covering about 76 industries, such as matchmaking business, wedding planning as well as banquets, tourism industries etc. where the photographer has the highest profit that is above 30% while the wedding planner is 15%. The average expenditure for more than 3.7 million new Chinese couples in 2006 was about 126,600 RMB. Based on the statistics of Ministry of Civil Affairs of the PRC (2009), about 11 million couples got married in 2008 with the growth of 10.8% than 2007. All the statistics above show that wedding business in China has a huge market and potential.

This research will focus on Pearl River Delta, the most economically dynamic region in southern part of China. PRD covers nine prefectures of Guangdong province including Guangzhou, Shenzhe, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Foshan, Huizhou, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing; and has become one of the leading economic regions and a major manufacturing center of China, which accounted for 10.2% of China’s GDP. People in PRD have more purchasing power than the other region. The per capita GDP in PRD ranges from 35,700 to 79,600 RMB which is much higher than the national per capita GDP (HKTDC, 2008). Because of the advantages of its location and open-door policy, PRD became the first region in China which allowed the foreign investments. Thus, apart from the economic strength, people in PRD were influenced by the western cultures earlier than the other places of China.

1.3 Research problem statements

Due to the low entry cost in the wedding planning business, the number of wedding planners has increased rapidly in China in the last decade. Generally, two to three persons having relevant planning experience can establish a wedding planning company with around 100,000 RMB investments in China. They just need an office for meeting with clients and an official blog or website for promotion. Despite of the rapid development of the wedding business, the service/product offered by the wedding planners is similar. Comparing with the wedding photo service business, there is a lack of leading brand in the wedding planning business. With the growth of income level and education level, the couples in China are becoming more and more demanding towards the wedding service/products and face a problem that how to choose a suitable wedding planners who can provide excellent service/product. Thus, from the supply side, identifying and satisfying the important and unfulfilled needs of prospective couples is one of the ways for wedding planners to differentiate their products from the competitors, and make success in the competition.

However, there is few studies indentifying prospective couples’ needs or attitudes toward products or service of wedding planner in Pearl River Delta even though in Chinese mainland, nor research about how well the wedding planners in China is meeting the needs of prospective couples.

Therefore, this study will focus on the following questions to find out the needs of prospective couples (demand side) towards the wedding planners in PRD

What’s the reason for couples hiring wedding planners?
What’s the factors affecting the selection of wedding planners? Reputation? Price? Or other?
Do the needs of prospective couples toward wedding planners in Pearl River Delta vary according to the different demographical characteristics?
1.4 Research objectives:
To find out the needs of prospective couples’ when hiring the wedding planners in the Pearl River Delta;
To investigate the relationship between the needs for prospective couples and the choice of product/service offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta Region;
To investigate how the needs of potential couples are influenced by their demographic profiles;
To make recommendations to the wedding planners in Pearl River Delta.
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the previous studies related to wedding, wedding planners as well as the consumer purchase behavior will be reviewed.

2.1 Nature of wedding

From the view of sociology, Edward (1987) defined that weddings are rites of passage, which belong to the class of rituals that everywhere mark the transition of a person or persons from one status to another. Wedding therefore becomes a private and highly-personalized event in people’s life. Event is held for a purpose that brings people together to share an experience and produce a measurable outcome no matter public or private, commercial or charitable, celebratory or commemorative (Silvers, 2003). Shone and Parry (2004) defined the wedding, together with the other personal events (e.g. birthday or anniversaries), as a type of special events. Their phenomenon arise from leisure, cultural, personal or organizational objectives which are set apart from the normal activity of daily life and their purpose is to enlighten, celebrate, entertain or challenge the experience of a group of people. The characteristics of special events include personal interactions, ritual or ceremony, intangible, fixed timescale, labor intensive, ambience and service, perishability as well as uniqueness. Getz (2007) also defined wedding as a form of planned events because it is held in venues that cater to individual and small-group clients which may require professionals or be entirely arranged by the participants. From this point of view, Getz (2007) believed that the wedding is a multi-meaning experience in both personal and social aspects, and it is can be considered as celebrations in which a theme and emotional stimulation are essential.

Although, wedding is usually defined as a type of small or personal events, it is still an area lack of study and research compared with meeting, exhibition, incentives or other events. There is quite a few academic book or journal devoted to the planning and design of weddings, parties or other private functions.

2.2 Wedding planners
2.21 The nature of wedding planner

Arranging an event is complicated as it involves different elements such as the specialist sets, props, customers for participants or guests, and all the range of support requirements from special effects and lighting to music and entertainment. Event management companies are increasingly common in the events business in the last decades, which have specialized in providing of the complete event by careful planning and management. People can enjoy a number of benefits of having an EMC including the expertise, ideas and experience they can draw on (Shone & Parry, 2004). Shone and Parry (2004) found that although there are some major companies in the event business, there are a wide range of smaller organizations and individuals that are willing to provide events-related service particular for the personal event market, which include the organization of parties, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and many of similar events. Professional party planners or event organizers are those professional who deal with the nitty-gritty details of planning, organizing, operating and managing an event to ensure everything goes smoothly.

According to Wikipedia (2009), wedding planners are the professionals who deal with all the details of the wedding, which includes planning, organizing, operating and management, to ensure everything goes smoothly and correctly. Ellis-Christensen (2008) defined that wedding planner as an event professional whose responsibility is not only to plan a memorable wedding, but also to give some professional advices to the couples including the venue selection, equipments preparation etc. They usually act as a wedding advisor, coordinator, supervisor, financial planner and mediator during the wedding (Brush Creek Weddings, 2008). Peters (2007) also stated that the range of service offered by wedding planner is widely. Some may prefer to offer consulting service only while some may prefer to provide comprehensive wedding package. At the meantime, Peters (2007) also pointed out that the global trend of the wedding business has been toward offering total coordination of the entire blessed event from the beginning to the end, which includes identifying the needs of new couples, budget preparation, planning detailed checklist, venue arrangement, identifying the professionals (e.g. florists, photographers etc.) as well as on-site supervision and coordination on the wedding day. The consultant fee varies widely depending on different locations or different packages. The consultant fee may be higher in larger cities where disposable income of couples is higher than the other places.

2.22 The requirements of a wedding planner

Having a strong organizational skills as well as an eye for details are necessary and basic requirements for a successful professional meeting planner because meeting process is both comprehensive and meticulous. Moreover, meeting planners must have the ability to work successful under pressure, to react calmly to constant change, and to make quick decisions (O’Brien & Shaw, 2002).

Howard (2006) stressed that wedding planning is highly customer oriented as most of the couples are looking for special, unique and memorable wedding. Ethic and religious custom, family tradition, class identity, regional practice, and individual tastes and preferences certainly all played a role in shaping wedding consumption. Peters (2007) suggested that good communication skills, good organizational skills as well as good interpersonal skills are very essential for being a successful wedding planner, because wedding planners act as a middle person who deals with both clients and suppliers.

The appearance of the professional wedding organization was an important benchmark in the rise of wedding planner business, indicating that wedding planning service today are more and more professional. These professional organizations help wedding planners naturalize particular customs and practices on a potentially national scale by sharing etiquette and customs. They provide some training course for wedding planners. Getting a certificate from professional organization has became one of the evidences for professional and made the customer confident with the service quality. Additionally, the organization also centralized and rationalized a consultants’ business, providing important resources and information regarding the markets as well as the trend (Howard, 2006).

2.23 Demand of wedding planners

Wedding is an important event in people’s life that many people are willing to organize by themselves on the small and more intimate scale. However, not all of them have the time and wish to expend the effort on doing so and happier to pay a professional to come along and deal with all the details of planning, organizing, operating and managing to ensure everything goes smoothly (Shone & Parry, 2006).

According to Blakely (2007), the supply of commercial service increases dramatically along with the growth of demands for family jobs. Wedding planners are a form of outsourced labor in the modern society. These jobs which are transported from home to the public marketplace are responding to the time crunch produced by work-family conflict. From this point of view, Blakely defined wedding planners as commercial substitutes.

Besides, Edwards (1987) conducted a research to examine the relationship between the wedding’s commercial development and its nature as a rite of passage. He found that the reason of the success of the wedding business was the convenience offered by the wedding planners and the demand from consumers for larger and more sumptuous celebrations. Consumers were looking for a wide range of wedding-related service (one-stop service) through a single organization.

2.4 The trend

Firstly, the wedding today tends to be more customized than before. According to Hensdill (1996), because of the cultural exchange among the global village, traditional wedding customs are giving way to the trends of Western societies. Some new styles of wedding exist, such as theme wedding, destination wedding and green wedding, because more and more couples are looking for unique wedding.

Destination wedding is a new wedding style that a couple decides to hold their wedding in a location where neither one of them resides (Daniels & Loveless, 2007). There are several top destinations for wedding in the world, such as Caribbean, Las Vegas, Hawaii as well as Maldives. Generally, some special theme may be adopted into the destination wedding. For example, hotel in Las Vegas has organized Italian-style wedding for wedding couples (Stratton, 2001). Moreover, the destination wedding often merges into the honeymoon (Daniels & Loveless, 2007).

Secondly, the internet and e-commerce has shaped the modern wedding consumption and gave it a new immediacy and flexibility. As a result, the wedding planners can target different segments of the bridal markets through developing website that advertised their goods and services and allowed consumers to make agreement or shop directly through their online site (Howard, 2006).

2.2 Consumer purchase behaviors toward wedding

“Consumer behavior is defined as the behavior that consumers display in searching form, purchasing, using, evaluating, and disposing of products and services that they expect will satisfy their needs. It focuses on how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources” (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007).

2.32 Factors affecting consumer purchases

As people are willing to devote time and effort to the ritual occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving, some researches regarding the types of purchases associated with ritual occasions have been conducted by researchers in consumer behavior (Lowery, 1994). According to some market analysis, consumer purchase behavior is strongly influenced by social, cultural and individual characteristics.

a) Social factors

According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007), consumer behavior is influenced by two major groups, namely the reference group and families.

“A reference group that is perceived as credible, attractive, or powerful can induce consumer attitude and behavior change” (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007)

Based on the traditional family life cycle, the prospective couples belong to the stage II, honeymooners, who have available a combined income that often permits a lifestyle that provides them with the opportunities of more indulgent purchasing of professions, which means that the honeymooners are happy to accept the professional products and service and willing to pay more money for them as they pursuit high quality of life. The reason hidden behind may be because they have more disposable income and more free time for themselves before the born of young children. Additionally, for the newlyweds, the advice and experience of other married couples (e.g. parents or friends) are likely to be important when they start-up their expenses to establish a new home (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007).

“For many consumers their family is their primary reference group for many attitudes and behaviors. The members of a family assume specific roles in their everyday functioning; such roles or tasks extend to the realm of consumer purchase decisions. Key consumer-related roles of family members include influencers, gatekeepers, deciders, buyers, preparers, users, maintainers, and disposers. A family’s decision-making style is influenced by its lifestyle, roles, and cultural factors.” (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007).

Different social classes have different preferences in clothing, home decoration and leisure activities as well as saving, spending and credit habits. Based on the market study by Bride’s magazine, 20% of the buyers of the wedding products identified themselves as buyers of Bride’s magazine who were mainly middle class women employed in white-collar, professional and technical fields and had higher medium annual income, when combined with their future husband’s. This means that the bride had more control over future consumer decisions that the couple would make (Howard, 2006).

Another research about the division of wedding labor and its meaning for couples by Sniezek (2005) indicated that women complete the a disproportionate amount of wedding work just as women do more of kin-work, housework, childcare and managerial family work. He also pointed out that couples were not likely to label the unequal division of labor as unfair which may potentially put the relationship in a state of conflict. From this point of view, his statement highly support Blakely’s study (2007) which stated that the wedding planning business’s targeted market is modern career women. Blakely also used the case study of wedding planning to confirm Hochschild’s thesis (2003) that feminism plays and important ideological role in the expansion of the commodity frontier.

However, after comparison of the emphases that brides and grooms place on artifacts selected for use in their weddings and reception, Lowery (1994) found out that the brides participating in the focus group had no difficulty describing artifacts that were important to them; while grooms had greater difficulty. They also suggest that the emergence of traditional or modern gender roles in wedding planning is partially determined by the attitudes of the bride and groom toward these roles. This is also proved by Schiffman & Kanuk (2007) that wedding purchase is a joint-decision in the family where the couples may play different roles in the decision making procedure.

b) Cultural factors

“Culture is the sum total of learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to regulate the consumer behavior of member of a particular society.” (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2007)

When explaining how culture affects the consumer behavior, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) indicated that all phases of human problem solving are directed and guided by culture, which includes various ritualized experiences and behaviors. For instance, in practice, rituals accompany with people throughout the human life cycle form birth to death, including a host of intermediate events such as confirmation, graduations and marriage. Besides the culture, subculture also plays an important in consumer’s behavior which includes nationality, religion, geographic, location, race, age and sex. For example, when comparing the husband-wife decision making between United States and China, Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) found out that there were substantially fewer “joint” decisions and more “husband-dominated” decisions for many household purchases in China. Even in the same country, another research showed that in larger city like Beijing, couples were more likely than rural couples to share equally in purchase decisions.

c) Individual factors

Apart from the social and cultural factors which affecting the consumer behavior, individual factors play an important role when people make decision (Dholakia, 1979). Schiffman & Kanuk (2005) explained the influences of the individual factors through several categories: motivation, personality, perception, learning as well as attitudes. As a driving force within individuals that force them to take actions, motivation is produced by a state of uncomfortable tension – unsatisfied needs. Liking to our topic, hiring the wedding planner may be motivated by the needs of couples, such as lack of time for preparation, looking for professional service etc. Personality determines and reflects how a person responds to his or her environment. Generally, people are looking for the balance between the perceived self-image and their behavior including the purchasing products or service. Some may prefer innovative wedding style (e.g. destination wedding, green wedding) while the other may choose traditional wedding. Moreover, each individual has its own process when he or she selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. This process is highly subjective and is based on what the consumer expect to see. There are several factors that can influence the perception including physical appearance, stereotypes, halo effects, irrelevant cues, first impressions, and the tendency to jump to conclusions.

2.3 Theoretical foundation- Consumer decision making process

This research is based on consumer decision making process, which is one of the theories of consumer behavior. Decisions are about the selection of an option from two or more alternative choices. According to Kotler, Bowen and Makens (2006), consumer decision process consists of five essential stages:

2.31 Need recognition

From the moment that the consumer recognizes a problem or need, the consumer buying process starts. The consumers’ needs can be stimulated by both internal and external factors. Advertisements, word-of-mouth, social cues from families, friends and anyone within the families can influence the customers’ need recognition. In the case of wedding planner, potential couples, their internal stimuli probably is lacking of time for preparation, looking for some unique and special wedding while the external stimuli may be the advertisement in the internet, the promotional events held by wedding planners, especially by the friends or families who have previous experience.

2.32 Information search

Searching information about their needs or problems is the second step of buying process. How much information a consumer looks for will depend on the strength of the drive, and the amount of initial information, the value placed on additional information. Linking to the wedding planners, couples will take some time for information searching. This is a stage that couples can decide if they would like to hire a wedding planners or if the products/service offered by wedding planner can satisfy their needs.

2.33 Evaluation of alternatives

After searching the relevant information, customers will use the information to arrive at a set of final brand choices. At this stage, potential couples may set up a personal comparison system through different attributes such as reputation, price, theme etc., in order to identify which would be the most ideal brand.

2.34 Purchase decision

Subsequently, consumer will buy the most preferred brand based on their evaluation in the previous stage. This is the stage that potential couples choose which brand, what kind of services and check if the product/service is available. This is also the stage that potential couples decide if they would like to hire a wedding planner or not.

2.35 Post-purchase behavior

Based on the performance of the service/products, the final stage determines whether the consumer satisfy the service/products or not.

2.4 Summary

After reviewing the previous studies related to wedding and wedding planners, we can find out that most of the studies were conducted in the developed countries such as U.S or United Kingdom, while there is a blank area regarding this field in China. Moreover, there is little study regarding the consumer purchase behavior towards the wedding planners conducted before. This research will based on the theories of consumer behavior to conduct three in-depth interviews to find out the reasons for potential couples hiring wedding planners; and the factors affecting their decision. Then, a quantitative research will be conducted to express the findings in statistical terms.

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This research will be designed as an exploratory, quantitative, cross-sectional investigation of prospective couples’ needs towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta.

3.1 Research Design

The advantage of semi-structure interviews is that it can allow issues to be explored deeply while questionnaire survey is that it can collect information from a large number of people and express the findings in statistical terms (Jennings, 2001). As limited study regarding the needs of potential couples towards the wedding service has been conduced in China so far, for this research, the important variables are not clear and still need to be defined. In order to develop a more reliable questionnaire to conduct quantitative research at the second stage, the first stage is to explore the important variables through a qualitative research. In-depth interviews with three potential couples will be conducted, which will facilitate the identifying the different requirements made by potential couples when selecting the wedding planners. These in-depth interviews are critical for the whole research because the finding of these interviews will be used to develop the questionnaire.

3.2 Questionnaire design

There will be four main parts in the questionnaire. The first part will be the screening questions with the purpose of screening the invalid sample through some questions. Then, the second part will include some questions regarding the prospective couple’s attitudes towards the service/products offered by wedding planners in Pearl River Delta. Respondents’ are required to indicate their personal opinions on each statement on a five-point Likert type scale: 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. In the third part, open-end questions will be included in order to examine the personal experience and intention of hiring a wedding planner. Finally, there will be a set of questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the respondents, which will include gender, age, income level, marriage status, and education level.

In order to explain the purpose of the research to the respondents, a covering letter will be attached to the questionnaire. The covering letter will include the information that how the sample was selected, the time will take to complete the survey, contact person for questions and assuring the response would be kept confidential and only used for statistical purposes.

3.3 Samp

The tourism industry is a major contributor to the gross state product of many countries (Reige and Perry, 2000) and in the last 50 years, tourism has developed into one of the world’s most powerful, yet provocative, socio-economic forces (Sharpley and Telfer 2008). Travel & Tourism industry has become one of the world’s most important and fastest growing economic sectors, generating quality jobs and substantial wealth for economies around the globe (WTTC, 2007). The recent global recession has not caused the tourism industry to grind to a complete halt, and the World Tourism Barometer indicated that the recession only caused a 4% decline in global tourism from 2008-2010 (UNWTO, 2011b) and now it is expected to grow again. WTTC President and CEO, David Scowsill (2011) says “Over the next ten years, its total contribution to GDP will rise by 4.2% per annum to US$9.2 trillion, bringing with it 65 million new jobs, but for that growth to be achievable and sustainable, governments must work together with the industry towards smarter policies and legislation that will help Travel & Tourism to thrive.” In Third world countries, governments encourage tourism investment because of the assumption that it will contribute to economic development of their countries (Hall, 1995). Third world nations and developing nations always seeks the potential benefits of tourism such as increased income, foreign exchange, employments and economic diversification (Sharpley and Telfer, 2008). According to Ferguson (2007) “The tourism industry directly provides around 3 per cent of global employment, or 192 million jobs – the equivalent to one in every twelve jobs in the formal sector”. As with other industrial sectors and fields of academic study, tourism has also developed over the decades and has been influenced by a multitude of internal and external factors. It is not surprising that many aspects of tourism are totally different than they used to be before because of the vast rate of technological change along with social, economic and environmental changes.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries, with its people packed into a delta of rivers that empties into the Bay of Bengal [BBC] (2011). It’s implementing its developing plans for a long time. They are not only trying to secure their economic growth but also trying to improve their social living standards. In Bangladesh, tourism was almost non-existent at the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. More recently tourism has seen as a means of the contributing to their attainment. Tourism contributes 4.8 % to Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP) and employs over 1509100 which contribute 1.9% of direct employments (WTTC, 2011). According to Bhatia (1986 in Jenkins and Tosun, 1998), many countries in the third world do not know the importance of tourism and the impacts that it can have, and Bangladesh is one of those countries. Essentially Jenkins and Tosun (1998) argue that, “tourism development took place in most of the places of this world as an unplanned activity” (p 102). “Like sustainable development sounds attractive” (Butler, 1992: 64), the phrase of sustainable tourism accepted immediately by this country even the meaning of this term is not understood fully. “Though “sustainable tourism” is the in thing across the world, Bangladesh, in spite of being endowed with nature’s bounties and beauty, still struggles with the concept” (Mahmud, 2010). Several destinations in Bangladesh such as Chittagong hill tracts, the Sundarbans, Saint Martin coral island, Nijhum Island, Srimanagol Lawachera rain forest, Tangua Hoar and Cox’s Bazar, which could be used as sustainable tourist spots (Mahmud, 2010).

Cox’s Bazar is the tourist capital of Bangladesh. By popular choice, Cox’s Bazar has recently been ranked as one of the ‘New Seven Wonders of the World'(Zamir, 2009), located conveniently on the east-west air-corridor making it a gateway to the Far East. It is endowed with resources and the potential for a tourism industry. In the southern edge of the country has a 125 km (77.6 miles) long beach of soft silvery sand, the world’s longest (Qadir, 2003) and a chain of hills that run parallel to the sea for almost the entire length, towering cliffs, colourful, ancient pagodas and Hindu temples (Anonymous, 2007), in a Riviera-like setting with crescent-shaped low hills overlooking the Bay of Bengal, and most visited tourist destinations in Bangladesh. The range of the hills covered in luxurious green groves is precious locations for tourists. Cox’s Bazar is located at the head of this terrain. Cox’s Bazar is also known as “Panowa”, literature meaning yellow flower. “Palonkee” was its other name.

The daughter of the sea Bangladesh is a beautiful surprise for the tourist. Since the tourism is reported as a relatively easy way to earn foreign exchange, many countries are eager to enter international markets as fast as they can (Jafari, 1974) and Bangladesh is one of them. According to Jafari (1974), tourists and news media of a developed countries come to be a kind of promotional agents for a developing country or for a under developing country. Though Hasan in his book “development tourism in Bangladesh” blames the international news media for representing a wrong appearance of the country and news media carefully avoid telling the world of the brighter side of Bangladesh than the rough side of it (Khairuzzaman, 2008) still there are some positive approaches from the international media. Lonely planet is one of them. The world leader in publishing travel guides and guidebooks ‘Lonely planet’ recommended Bangladesh as one of the top ten interesting travel destination in 2009 (Thomsen, 2009). This UK based publication ‘Bradt Travel guide’ is known as a “pioneer in tackling ‘unusual’ destinations, for championing the causes of sustainable travel and for the high quality of writing” (Thomsen, 2009). The first guide on Bangladesh published in 2009 and the back cover text states: “Bangladesh has a reputation for being poor and beset by flooding, but this ‘republic of rivers’ rewards those willing to look beyond the headlines. Leave luxuries behind and embark on the richest of travel experiences among some of the sub-continent’s friendliest people” (Thomsen, 2009). This kind of positive focus on Bangladesh is not possible to buy for money. Lack of consistent strategy on cooperation, appropriate knowledge and sustainability; are the great barrier to a positive development of Bangladesh tourism sector.

Environmental resources are an important asset not only in Cox’s Bazar but to other tourism destinations in all other third world countries. The tourism in Bangladesh is especially popular due to its coastal areas of Cox’s Bazar. If environmental resources are important economic assets in Bangladesh, the immediate action that need is that of sustainable utilisation of resources to benefit for present and future generations (Mbaiwa, 2005). It is well established that the presence of tourism in destination always brings with it environmental, socio-culture and economic benefit and this is why it is an effective development tool in any under developing countries and in the case of Bangladesh, A sustainable tourism strategy will have a major positive impact (Thomsen, 2009).

When carrying out a broad research on any substance, it is essential to become acquainted with contextual of that topic, by using relevant literatures. For this dissertation, it is most significant to obtain information in a number of different sources. Academic books, journals, newspapers, where available, will be used in the gathering of information for this dissertation. Here in this project, I will outline the history of sustainable tourism development first which will provide the context of how it is developing and will answer either it exists in the Bangladesh, particularly in Cox’s bazar. In order to gain this knowledge I will look at different publications related to research issue will be collected from academic books, daily newspaper, projects, related archives and tremendously up to date journals. For this purpose it will be extremely useful to look at relevant internet websites such as the websites of different ministry of Bangladesh and tourism industry based websites. Internet websites will be an important source to fill in the gap by providing useful information where books and periodicals are not so unequivocal.

2.0: Literature review

All tourism includes some travel but not all travel is tourism (Page, 2007). Tourism used to be recognised as an activity undertaken by those who travelled away from home for holidays, to visit relatives or to carry out professional business, in the past. Tourism is a composite of activities, services and industries that deliver a travel experience: transportation, accommodations, eating and drinking establishments, shops entertainment, activity facilities and other hospitality services available for individuals and groups that are travelling away from home (Goeldner and Ritchie, 2009). Therefore it encompasses a wide variety of purposes. The officially accepted definition by UNWTO (1993) is: “Tourism comprises the activities of person travelling to and staying places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, businesses and other purposes”. This definition challenges the commonly held perception that tourism is purely concerned with recreation and having fun (Holden, 2008). But according to Gunn (1994) the best working definition of tourism is that of by Mathieson and Wall (1982 in Gunn, 1994): “Tourism is the temporary movement of people to destinations outsides their normal places of work and residence, the activities undertaken during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their needs”. At the present time, tourism is even more far reaching with wider implications. Specialists have illustrious between ‘mass tourism’, which involves those features just mentioned, and ‘alternative tourism’, which can include cultural, educational, social, environmental, agricultural and political tourism (Wearing and Neil, 2009). Tourism promotes better cross culture understanding. For any third world and developing countries, tourism is seen as an important tool of their regional development, culture, environmental and in most cases; the tourism portfolio is attached to Economy. This provides us with an initial insight into the impact of tourism within all countries it has.

In addition to social, political and economic concerns, tourism has become a vastly important and global feature of environmental argument. Tourism development which consistently ignores environmental concerns is unlikely to remain viable in the longer term (Pigram, 1990). High volume of tourism can cause environmental including water, air and noise pollution which are extremely destructive to a location’s sustainable well-being. It is as a significance of the growing awareness of the harmful effect that tourism has on the environment, as well as a general heightened understanding of how global warming is affecting our planet, that tourism has been given an environmental focus. Indeed, sustainable tourism is now a widely known outlet of tourism, with the state of the environment being given more and more consideration. The term ‘Sustainable Tourism’ has been introduced in the context of wider debate about environmental sustainability and logically implies a form and level of tourism which maintains a total stock of natural resources (Sinclair, 1998). The growing awareness of environmental damage in this modern technological world is the reason to address this term. Getz (1986) says that when tourism planning was first developed in the 1960s, the discipline’s main focus came, “almost totally from the perspective of maximizing economic growth” (p. 21). Over the decades, the focus has shifted and is now, “more sensitive to non-economic issues” (p. 32). Murphy (1985) argues that it is the responsibility of the tourism industry to, “develop and protect its attractions, whether they are natural or man-made, and become a hospitality industry to make visitor experiences as enjoyable as possible” (p. 10). Though it is argued that too much emphasis is placed on relatively short term economic impacts at the cost of considering the long term social and environmental impacts of tourism, thereby encourages in a better awareness of the problems that the industry creates (Holloway et al., 2009). The importance of sustainable development is to carry growing successes into the future in such a way that future generations are not troubled (Pearce et al., 1990).

Sustainability, sustainable tourism and sustainable development are all well-established terms (Liu, 2003). There are two components in the definition of sustainable development. The meaning of development and the condition necessary for sustainability are those two components (Miltin, 1992). Croall (1995) compares sustainability to the “link between development and conservation”, which should not conflict to each other. According to Bartelmus (1986 in Tosun, 2001), “development implies a process that makes an effort to improve the living conditions of people”. To meet human needs and wants is the main objective of development (WCED, 1987) which involves wider apprehensions with the quality of life (Pearce et al., 1990). When applied to tourism, as Godfrey (1996 in Gunn, 1994)) points out the concept of sustainable development relates to a form of environmentally friendly tourism. Aside, Rees (Gunn, 1994 p.85) define “sustainable tourism development as a positive socio-economic change that does not undermine the cultural, ecological and social systems upon which local communities and societies are depended”.

The concept of sustainability first appeared on the public sense in the report by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The outline of sustainable development is that the economic growth and the environmental conservation are not only friendly but they are partners and one cannot survive without than other. The Brundtland Commission Report defines sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987). The Commission highlighted that sustainable development is not a fixed national agreement, but an active process of changes which ‘are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations’ (WCED, 1987: 46). A general weakness in the concept of the sustainable tourism development is that its principles and objectives have tended to manifest themselves in sets of guidelines that based on managing the limits of acceptable environmental and social change, which is unable to account for the almost infinite diversity of tourism development contexts (Sharpley and Telfer, 2008). In a research Liu (2003) found that sustainability is praised by Bramwell and Lane (1993 in Liu, 2003) and according to them “it is a positive approach intended to reduce the tensions and friction created by the complex interactions between the tourism industry, tourists, environment and the host communities to maintain the long term capacity and quality of both natural and human resources”.

“Miles of golden sands, towering cliffs, surfing waves, rare conch shells, colourful Pagodas, Buddhist Temples and delightful sea-food – all this makes what Cox’s Bazar is today , the tourist capital of Bangladesh” (NTO). Cox’s Bazar is one of the most attractive tourist spots, not only in the Bangladesh but also in the world. “The warm, shark free waters are good for bathing and swimming & while the sandy beaches offer opportunities for sun-bathing” (NTO). The tourist capital of Bangladesh includes conch shell market, tribal handicraft, and salt and prawn cultivation. According to a census of aquatic birds, a total of 15933 birds of 52 species have been spotted in Cox’s Bazar (The Daily Star, 2009) can be seen as other attraction. “Aggmeda Khyang, a Buddhist monastery at the hills, Himchari picnic spot, just about 8 km from Cox’s Bazar, Innani Beach 32 km away from the city, is one of the most spectacular sea beaches in Bangladesh which is very close to the world’s longest sandy beach in Cox’s Bazaar and it is situated within the Inani protected forest; Sonadia island with very little human visitation, Teknaf peninsula, some 80 km from town and picturesque St. Martin Island to the south at 13 km distance from mainland” are the around attraction of Cox’s Bazar (Ahammed, 2010). All these places are located around Cox’s Bazar and easily accessible by road and water sides what makes this place hub of tourism.

As an international destination, Bangladesh has a mixed image. Tourists from abroad perceive a negative awareness of Bangladesh from news media. People from outside perceive as place where the population is living in poverty, corruption and in natural disasters. Though the new seven natural wonders search 2009 have made the country attractive for tourism and is also charted as one of the top ten interesting destinations by new travel books (Quader, 2010). Bangladesh is still one of the countries in South Asia with the fewest arrivals and the lowest revenue earned from the tourism industry. WTTC (2011) predicts that the contribution from travel and tourism will increase 6.3% per annum till 2021. According to Bari (FE, 2010), “At present, around 0.50 million international tourists visit Bangladesh each year, It employs one million people”. Most of the tourists visited the country for business purpose, and “their stay in the country was brief as they had not been offered to explore the hills, seas and forests of the country brimming with natural beauty” (Mahmud, 2010). The only cause for this is the lack of awareness and proper arrangements. Though the economic contribution of tourism and the share of Cox’s Bazar to the national economy are not studied with reliable statistics (Ahammed, 2010) still the tourism industry leaders said in Financial Express (FE, 2010) that Bangladesh can earn US$2.0 billion in annual revenue from the tourism sector if it can attract two million international tourists. According to the general manager of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation, revenue earning from the tourism sector is experiencing a downward trend and the revenue from tourism sector was approximately ?51 million in 2008, which came down to ?47 million in 2009. Till June 2010, the revenue was ?26 million (FE, 2010).

Tourism in Bangladesh is managed by Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and tourism. There is no doubt that tourism is an effective development tool, helps economy to generate revenue, country gets benefited as well as the private sector and local community, Consciousness on preservation of nature and protection of environment tends to increase. Though Cox’s Bazar is easily accessible by road, still there is no rail links in this city. The government spending huge amount of money to get Cox’s Bazar rail linked within 2 years. Government’s infrastructure development planning includes the work on the upgraded submarine cable connection of Cox’s Bazar Landing Station to increase the bandwidth (Unb, 2011). Development of major infrastructure to serve resorts should be coordinated to meet the demands of the industry with boarder economic and social needs (Brohman, 1996). The presence of tourism in any destination always brings environmental, socio- culture and economic impacts. Less developed destinations like Cox’s Bazar are more susceptible. Development of tourism in Cox’s bazar brings external money flow which drives the living standard of the locals to higher level. Development of tourism in Cox’s Bazar on a long-term basis is to give due importance to the above impacts for its sustainability. It needs a long term planning, continuous development work, avoid the negative impacts and investment timing have to be predetermined (Quader, 2010). The current growth in tourist numbers to Cox’s bazar has led to the recognition that consideration needs to be given to a sustainable tourism development strategy if the site is to be maintained for future generations.

3.0 Aims and objectives

In undertaking this investigation, this dissertation has number of aims and objectives. As sustainable tourism is a very well established term in modern tourism industry due to a heightened environmental awareness, it is important to understand how it functions and whom it targets. The goal of environmentally sustainability is a maximum level of desired outcome such as economic profit, quality of life what will maintain in a steady way, subject to constraints imposed by environment. Basis on this concept it can be said that environmentally sustainable tourism implies a key importance on maintaining a certain level of environmental quality. This is highlighting that, a sustainable environment and a viable tourism industry are essential elements to make an environmentally sustainable tourism (Johnston & Tyrrell, 2007). In order to do understand the term and the function of environmentally sustainable tourism, it will first be necessary to outline the basics of the tourism industry in less developed country like Bangladesh and how it has changed over the years. By doing this it will be possible to better understand how the sustainable tourism industry fits into Cox’s Bazar.

3.1: Aims

The core aim of the social and economic perspectives of tourism is to inspire more international and domestic tourists to promote the growth of tourist value which focus on creating employment, achieving revenue, developing local engagement (Gilmore et al., 2007) and enable some members of the population to move from the informal sector to higher paid jobs in the formal sector (Sinclair, 1998). The environmental aim is often conflict between the economic and social perceptions which is to protect and to conserve both culture and the environment (Gilmore et al., 2007). The host population is itself a part of the tourism product. The rapid growth of tourism in any less developed countries and destinations raises questions of sustainable tourism development, particularly the access and economic benefits to local economies. For this dissertation, it is most important to know the various facets of the relationship between host population and tourism industry of Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh. The locals are subjects to be viewed and interacted with, or settings for tourist activities, and their attitudes and behaviour constitute the ‘hospitality’ resource of a destination (Smith, 1994). According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (1993), tourism is sustainable when it “improves the quality of life of the host community; provides a high quality of experience for the visitor; and maintains the quality of the environment on which both the host community and the visitor depend”. Cox’s Bazar have limited opportunities and resources for agriculture or industrial development and are turning to tourism to create the major source of economy though a huge part of population are still involved in fishing, collecting sea foods and sea products for their livelihood. Traditionally, it is a conservative society and socio-culture, economy and the “quality of life” is still below than national average (Ahammed, 2010). The aim of this project is to critically assess whether Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh can be developed in a sustainable way.

3.2: Objectives

Finally, having completed a thorough investigation and after evaluation of the data collected will leads up to the current prevalence of the sustainable tourism in Cox’s Bazar, it will then be possible to imagine how the industry may develop in future.

Objectives are

?? To evaluate and define sustainable tourism development in term of environment, economic and culture.

?? To investigate and find the specific requirement for sustainable tourism development in Cox’s Bazar.

?? Critically discuss whether the people of tourism industry in Bangladesh really know the meaning of sustainable development?

?? To illustrate useful conclusions and make effective recommendations on sustainable tourism development for Cox’s Bazar that can be implemented by the tourism authority of Bangladesh.

4.0: Methodology and Method

The following section of this dissertation shall outline the methodology and the method that shall be employed for the primary research section of this dissertation.

4.1: Methodology

In tourism research there is an on-going need for statistical insights but qualitative research offers a great deal of understanding at social life from in a different way (Phillimore and Goodson, 2004). Phillimore and Goodson (2004) argue that tourism researchers are not bound to adopt a simple set of methods, and are therefore free to combine a wide range of approaches with a more sophisticated attitude to use qualitative research.

This project used both primary and secondary data resources. In terms of primary data sources, this dissertation relied on the research work that I have carried out on sustainable tourism development in Cox’s Bazar. Priority was given to the semi structured interviews I took in April 2011 which resulted in to develop conclusions and recommendations based on the findings that could be implemented in Cox’s Bazar.

In order to give concrete load to the primary research conducted this research will also contain some secondary research. Collecting data from people who are involved with the tourism industry in Bangladesh will give considerable ideas that will have been formed by looking at secondary literature. It will also provide the dissertation with a personal insight which cannot be gained from conducting qualitative research alone.

4.1.1: Primary Research

From the outset, I decided that my research objectives more easily lend themselves to more qualitative forms of analysis. This study is essentially attempting to determine how a number of complex concepts impact and relate to one another. It requires the subject area to be looked at from a number of different perspectives and for links between these separate perspectives to be determined. Britten et al (1995) suggest that employing qualitative methodology allows for the researcher to, “Address research questions of immediate relevance which are otherwise difficult to investigate” (p. 105). Flick et al (2004) go on to point out that the use of qualitative methodology can aide in, “the understanding of complex relationships rather than explanation by isolation of a single relationship, such as ’cause’ and ‘effect’” (p. 8). Sofaer (1999) further argues that this can result in, “rich descriptions of phenomenaaˆ¦it not only serves the desire to describe; it also helps move the enquiry towards more meaningful explanations” (p. 1102). It is for these reasons that this study will approach the research objectives from a qualitative, rather than giving practical weight to quantitative, approach.

4.1.2: Secondary Research

Secondary analysis has a well-established pedigree. This will provide the useful information in order to understand the background of the subject. Hakim (1982) state that, “secondary data analysis is any further analysis of an existing dataset which presents interpretations, conclusions or knowledge additional to, or different from, those produced in the first report on the inquiry as a whole and its main results”(p 1). Secondary data can embrace a whole range of experimental forms; it can include the data generated through systematic reviews, through documentary analysis as well as the results from government sponsored surveys (Smith, 2008). Secondary literature provides a considerable source for appreciative which is necessary when making decisions regarding any topic and placing advance theories to develop situations.

4.2: Method

The first method that was considered was focus groups. MacNaghten and Myers (2004) suggest that this method is most useful for researchers who perhaps, “are not entirely sure what categories, links and perspectives are relevant” (p. 65). However, this method can yield data that can be difficult to understand and interpret. For an inexperienced researcher this could present a problem and could lead to data that is perhaps not as rich as it could be.

I finally chose semi-structured interviews as my primary research method. Kvale (1983) states that the use of this method presents the researcher with the opportunity to, “gather the life-world of the interviewee with respect to interpretation of the meaning of the described phenomena” (p. 174). It is this real world experience that will give my data real depth and will hopefully help me to understand some of the complex problems faced by my respondents. Another advantage of this method is outlined by Blee and Taylor (1995) who argue that semi-structured interviews places human agency, “at the centre of the movement analysis. Qualitative interviews are a window into the everyday world of activists, and they generate representations that embody the subjects’ voices, minimizing, at least as much as possible, the voice of the researcher” (p. 96).

I had hoped to be able to conduct this research in Cox’s Bazar. However, it became clear to me early in my research that this was not likely to be popular. Instead, I chose to focus my research on travel agencies in the UK who offer holidays to Cox’s Bazar and other parts of Bangladesh. I chose to draw my sample group from agencies located in Bangladeshi communities. Tower Hamlets, Manchester and Oldham have arguably the highest concentration of Bangladeshi’s in the country, so I chose to target travel agents here. As people working in the industry are answering my questionnaires, I assured them that they will remain anonymous to make them feel more confident to give honest answer.

I phoned round several agencies and managed to secure interviews with 5 travel agents. A few days before the interviews, these respondents were sent an outline of my study so that they could perhaps begin to prepare their responses. This would hopefully yield richer data for me to use. These interviews were mostly conducted face to face, although two was conducted over the phone and Skype. I recorded the interviews and took extensive notes during them. I was conscious of the fact that, “in semi-structured interviewing, analysis and interpretation are on-going processes” (Blee and Taylor, 2002: 110). Unlike in quantitative data collection where one waits until all the data is collected before starting the analysis process, with qualitative data collection, the analysis is an on-going process. In the analysis of the data, I employed a fairly liberal interpretation of the grounded theory method. Stern (1994) suggests that this method is most helpful for researchers exploring new subject areas or who simply want to gain a fresh perspective on a familiar situation (p. 30). The use of this method demands that the researcher constantly re-evaluates the data collected and then categorizes and codes it. I decided that my codes would be the objectives set at the start of this dissertation. I re-listened to my interviews to my interviews a number of times to find parts of the data that best met my objectives.

The following section of this dissertation will present the findings from the primary research and discuss these in light of the findings from the literature search. The objectives of the study (see 3.2) were used as markers in the interviews. Although the respondents were allowed to ‘veer off track’, I always tried to bring the discussion back to the four main objectives guiding this research.

Notes: I did not add references cause of the word limits. Once I finalised this work I will go through Gold proofread again.

Along the Southern Gulf Coast of the United States the business is tourism. Every year, Getting back to business after these disasters depends on how well a business has prepared and planned. Business owners invest a large amount of time, resources and money to make their enterprise successful. For these businesses, being prepared can mean staying in business following a disaster. An estimated 25 percent of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster, according to the Institute for Business and Home Safety.

Disasters can be separated in two categories, natural and man made. The first is natural disasters such as hurricanes, forest fires, floods, or earthquakes. While preventing a natural disaster is nearly impossible, actions such as good planning can help reduce or avoid losses. The second category is man made disasters, such as chemical leaks and oil spills. In these cases mitigation planning efforts are priceless towards avoiding or lessening losses from these events.

In recent years the tourism industry has experienced many serious crises and disasters including terrorist attacks, political instability, economic recession, bio security threats and natural disasters (Boniface & Cooper, 2005). Along Gulf Coast of the United States, there has been both natural and man made disasters. First is when Hurricane Katrina and Rita, in 2005, wiped out much of the area from New Orleans, Louisiana to Mobile, Alabama. Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive natural disasters to occur in the United States. Mississippi’s gambling industry was hard-hit, with the state’s 13 floating casinos either heavily damaged or destroyed. In 2004, tourists spent $5 billion in New Orleans, which represented half of the state of Louisiana’s tourism income. The hurricane caused tourists to visit other destinations, and business conventions to be relocated to other cities that can accommodate the groups. Many companies and governments were not prepared for the loss of all business assets and all financial records. In New Orleans, many people will not return to the area, which means local businesses will have difficulty finding skilled workers.

The second disaster, the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, is still affecting the region. The Gulf oil spill has presented an incredible disaster planning challenge for companies along the coast because it was caused by a mechanical failure and not what insurers a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or flood. Therefore, insurance will not recoup losses. Communities and businesses along the coast have enacted disaster management plans to mitigate the damage and salvage the remainder of the summer tourist season.

Process of Disaster Management

One of the main goals of disaster management is the support of a maintainable income and the protection and recovery during disasters. Disaster management focuses on the attainment of three goals; to reduce or avoid the potential losses from hazards, assure prompt and proper assistance to victims of disaster, and achieve rapid and effective recovery. These goals are achieved through the four steps of the disaster management process: Prevention-Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.

Mitigation

Through the mitigation process, businesses attempt to eliminate or decrease the likelihood of disaster occurrences, or lessen the effects of disasters. Through proper mitigation preparations, those affected by the disaster will be greatly reduced. Mitigation takes many form, such as, building codes; land and zoning management; building regulations and safety codes; and proper education. Mitigation is the most cost-efficient method for reducing the impact of hazards.

During Hurricane Katrina and Rita and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the Gulf States launched media campaign to mitigate oil spill’s damage to tourism industry. There are measures that the tourism industry can take to help mitigate the loss. Travelers tend to be most concerned with their personal safety and their finances related to the trip. Most travelers felt they would be significantly more likely to travel with precautions in place, such as the ability to receive refunds, no change penalties on accommodations, and significantly discounted prices according to a study by Cunningham Research Group.

Preparedness

Disaster preparation is defined as an ongoing process of developing organizational capabilities to prevent, contain and recover from crises, and to learn from experience Kovoor – Misra (1995). That is, the continuous cycle of planning, training and improvement to ensure an effective response and recovery from any disaster. According to R. Wayne Mondy when disaster strikes a business, there are always significant human resource issues to address. Being prepared requires focus on how the company will respond when employees who are crucial to operations processes are unavailable or unable to work. It is critical that employees have proper training to identify what needs to be done, key responsibilities and who performs the tasks. There should be much time allocated for training personnel and staff what to do in case of disaster When disaster strikes, the best protection is understanding what to do.

Response

The response to a disaster is the actions that are taken to save livelihoods and prevent further devastation during disaster situation. The response is the implementation of the preparedness plans. As the disaster is brought under control, the affected businesses and community are able to take on the growing number of activities designed to restore their lives and the infrastructure that supports them. There tend to be many opportunities during the recovery period to improve prevention and increase preparedness, thus reducing vulnerability.

Recovery

The aim of recovery is to restore the affected area to normal following a disaster. This is done by rebuilding the destroyed property, re-employment of citizens and repairing the damaged community infrastructure. According to William Clinton, former UN Secretary General, efforts should be made to “build back better”, with a focus to reduce the pre-disaster risks in the community and infrastructure. The recovery process will continue until the community and business are returned to original condition or better. As recovery starts to take place, the focus will shift to the encouragement of people to continue to travel to the areas that have been rebuilt.

Conclusion

Tourism is the single largest non-government economic segment in the world and the most important economic activity for several local economies across the country. It is also a delicate industry in that demand for travel is highly vulnerable to numerous disasters. Natural and human induced disasters alike are neither entirely predictable nor avoidable. When you also consider that the number of declared major disasters nearly doubled in the 1990’s compared to the previous decade, preparedness becomes an even more critical issue. Tourism organizations can devise means for minimizing the damage of, and accelerating the recovering from, such events through the development of disaster management strategies. By studying past events, the responses of those affected and the recovery measures adopted, and with the benefit of hindsight evaluating the effectiveness of these responses, we can develop strategies for coping with similar events in the future. Though each situation is unique, any organization can be better prepared if it plans carefully, puts emergency procedures in place, and practices for emergencies of all kinds. Every business should have a disaster plan. It can save lives, company assets, and the business as a whole.

Law thinks that Tourism has become one of the largest and most influential industries in the world. It has created inestimable value for the environment, societies and cultures.(as cited in Seldjan and Donald, 2009) But at the same time, tourism as an characteristic industry has its own guilt and damaging effects in socio-cultural and environmental terms(Opperman and Chon, 1997 as cited in Nevenka, 2002). With the global emphasis on sustainable development, a growing proportion of the tourism research has paid attention on the sustainable tourism. Although a detailed discussion of sustainability is difficult, but in order to understand the views are emerging of sustainable tourism now, and can work out useful strategies about the future development of tourism at destination areas.(Hunter,2002)

The aim of this essay is through understanding the definition and discussing different types of sustainable tourism(ST) to find new approach and make new strategy to achieve ST. This paper begins with the interpretations of the concept of sustainable development(SD) and definition of ST. Then will discuss the fundamental information of Tourism, for example the two types of it. Final step is to require recommended strategies and approaches.

Sustainable Development

As the World Commission on Environment and Development’s Report(WCED), the definition of SD is “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. ” It involves within it two key concepts, the first is to meet the needs of the world’s poor priority. The second is strictly limit the status quo of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability in order to meet the needs in present and future. Debate has described such correlative important concepts as: SD needs to seize the opportunity to satisfy their desire to make life better; At least SD must not jeopardize the nature systems that provide resources for life on Earth; SD requires that the rate of consumption of non-renewable resources should reduce as few future options as possible; SD must protect the plant and animals species and reduce the adverse impacts on water and the quality of air in order to maintain the overall integrity of the ecosystem. (Geneva, 1987) Turner argued that Interpretation of SD can be divided into the range from “very strong” to “very weak”. (as cited in Hunter, 1997) There are four major SD positions and two key issues of debate are selected for elaboration. Weak sustainability positions highlight the possibility of capital substitution and the strength of the technical process to to alleviate resource consumption and pollution problems. Strong sustainability positions Recognize the main value of the maintenance of ecosystem function and integrity through human resources. (Hunter, 1997)

Sustainable tourism

With the popularization of the concept of sustainable development in the WCED, the same as other industries and fields of academic research, sustainable tourism also responded to the concept of sustainable development. World Tourism Organization expressed sustainable tourism simply as “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.” Sustainability principles related to environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, these three areas is important to constitute a suitable balance in order to assure its long-term sustainability. So ST should :

take full advantage of environmental resources to maintain essential ecological processes and the protection of natural heritage and biodiversity, which is the key factor in sustainable tourism development.

Respect for the authenticity of the socio-cultural and protect their original culture and traditional values while promoting inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.

Ensure economic long-term operation for an equitable distribution of socio-economic benefit to all stakeholders. Benefit include stable employment, opportunities of income earing and social services. At same time contribute to the poor area. (unwto, 2012)

ST as shortened descriptors to two variants-‘light green’ (LG) and ‘dark green’ (DG) by Hunter(2002). Under normal circumstances, these two variants are applicable to different levels, from the individual business up to a national tourism development plan or policy statement. People adhere to the DG just like students are more interested in ecology, geography and the environmental sciences in the school, and are likely to represent views from cautionary or knowledge-based perspectives by Jafari (1989). And advocates of LG just like students who only focus on use which natural resources can get benefit, and are likely to express views from advocate and adaptancy perspectives by Jafari (1989). (Hunter, 2002)

An example of sustainable tourism is around Rimini, Italy and Calvia, Spain. It is a Life Environment project. Its called ‘Strategies and Tools for Sustainable Tourism in Mediterranean Coastal Areas.’ After almost four million tourists descend each year, their beaches and the destinations are search for associate economic and social aspects to respect the environment. This project has three actions include:

A comprehensive strategy for the management of coastal areas in mass tourism destinations.

Help private operators improve environment performance.

Enhance tourist and tour operator consciousness on environmental issues. (sustainabletourism, 2012)

Mass tourism and Alternative tourism

There are two key forms in ST that are Mass tourism(MT) and Alternative tourism(AT). Vanhove argue that Mass tourism is a lot of people enjoy traveling in the same place, which is its first feature. The term aa‚¬A“mass tourism” means that the holiday is standardized, rigidly packaged and inflexible (as cited in Julien) Mass tourism has dominated the entire tourism industry for many years, more and more negative impacts of environment, people began to pay attention to a new form of tourism-alternative tourism. Increase interest in alternative tourism is also weaken mass tourism.(Julien) Academic pay more and more attention in alternative tourism, Alternative tourism has been a variety of explanations, such as Weaver & Lawton (2002) argued that is “polarized opposite and substitute for mass tourism” (as cited in Rami.K.I, 2010) and Butler (1992) argued that is “yet others speak of a transformation

in all tourism towards more benign forms” ( as cited in Rami.K.I,2010)

According to comparison between mass tourism and alternative tourism of Butler (1990: cited in Gartner, 1996. P.338-342) General Features : the fast development is MT characteristics, it focus on growth the economic but ignore environment issues and sociol problems. The development will become uncontrollable cause MT, it just focus on develop quickly rather than sustainable development. As focus on environmental and social factors that AT development is slow, but try to find the economic benefits from a long-term perspective. Tourist Behaviour: a large number of tourist would like go to buy the souvenirs, but they did not realize the tradition culture deeply in MT. A small group of tourist who like to have a conversation with local people and truly be effected by culture. Basic Requirements: MT have two extreme results of development, because it has seasonality. AT can exist anytime. The last comparison is Tourism Development Strategies: many scenic are being overdeveloped, lead to reduce the proportion of traditional industries, finally the local people did not get benefit yet in MT. Rely more on the local labor force and the original source of funds to develop itself in AT. (as cited in Narueporn. L, 1999)

Complexity of the tourism system

Simple method can not understand the tourism as stakeholders in a complex system of stakeholders. External and internal can affect all types of stratification, including subsystems, and influenced by related behavior will lead a unpredictable results. For tourism industry it is necessary to understand the relationship, meaning, underlying values and issues of each module of complex system and need ability balance for each parts that can improve sustainable tourism development.(Janine.R.M, 2009) There are some characteristics of complex tourism system. First is a large number of foundations and agents, its impaction is flexibility reciprocity. Second is polystage and decked in nature. Thirdly newness emergence ceaseless and self-organization. Fourthly it has potential that input a little to the system can have distinct change. These characteristics were summarized by Cilliers, 1998; Coveney & Highfield, 1995; Geldof, 1995; Prigogine & Stengers, 1985; Waldrop, 1992. (as cited in Janine.R.M, 2009)

Challenges, new strategic and approach

There is a major challenge to sustainability for now and the future, how to define sustainable tourism, and this definition need blend into the environmental factors used in conjunction. (Randy J.V. & Megha.B, 2011) another is difficult to reach balance of each of stakeholders which base on protect environment. (Nicolae.C and Cristina.P, 2010) So find an appropriate strategic and approach is important. Hall (2000) notes that strategy of sustainable tourism planning and development seeks is to achieve that increase experience of mutual influence between the visitors and resources while protecting the resource value, to maximize protect who is the stakeholders of their country’s economic, social and environmental. (as cited in Lisa,R, 2010)

There is am approaches called community- based approaches. Kirsten and Rogerson(2002) argued It provides greater opportunities of involve the local business by combine with limited environmental and social impacts. (as cited in Gianna, 2007) Hall (2005) thought this approaches are popular for tourism, because local stakeholders tough it can understand that the decisions about the types and locations of proposed tourism development. (as cited in Gianna, 2007)

Conclusion

Tourism is an important industry of the process of achieve sustainable development. It has been help a lot of countries developed, and contribute for economic in whole world. But environmental and social problems also emergent in present time. So it is necessary transfer original form of development, that is sustainable development. For tourism industry is sustainable tourism. In this paper, according to a lot of authors perspective, it help readers realize definition and characteristic of ST and SD easily. SD is the foundation of long-term economic operation that can meet needs and create better life.(Geneva, 1987)

This paper also discuss two key forms of tourism. Both MT and AT affect the environment and economic. Detail about characteristic of each form is in MT and AT part. Also discuss the complex tourism system, it is necessary to balance ability of each module. Finally according to summarize challenge to find new strategic and approaches to achieve ST. The key point of strategic and approaches is develop economic at the same time must not destroy environment. (Geneva, 1987)

Customer service and satisfaction can be difficult to evaluate. One method of evaluating service level is through mystery shopping. Identify at least three types of hospitality business to evaluate for your mystery shopping activity. Create a comprehensive survey for your mystery shopping activity which must include at least ten question relating to a variety of customer service question. After you have finished, review the result and write a report to provide clear information and any pertinent details that further explain the responses.

1.1 Introduction

Three types of different restaurant that I go are Pizza hut, McDonald’s and KFC.

1.2 Report

Three types of different restaurant that observation are Pizza hut, McDonald’s and KFC. The observation are on Friday 5 October 2012, Saturday 6 October 2012 and Tuesday 9 October 2012.

The first mystery shopping that observe are on Friday 5 October 2012, the observation was conduct at Pizza hut. The observe is look at serving time of the food will long time because need to cook. For example, chicken pepperoni need to cook. If many customer we have to wait the pizza around 30 minutes. Next are the observe is look are the staff listening skill very good because they know how to communicate to the customer. Such as, the waiters will reply again the customer order. Beside that the observe is look is the uniform of the staff are neat and beautiful. For example, all the staff wearing neat and beautiful. After that the observe is look at the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Such as, the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Next are the observe that i look are in there the staff very friendship with the customer. For example, the staff friendship with the customer that will give customer will come back they restaurant again.

The second mystery shopping that observe are on Saturday 6 October 2012, the observation was conduct at McDonald’s. The observe is look at the service time of the food are faster because there food is ready early then the customer coming. For example, burger are ready early then the customer buy it. If any food finish ready then the customer have to wait 5-10 minutes only can get there food. Next are the observe is look are they listening skill of the staff are very good because they know how communicate to the customer. Such as, the staff know what the customer order. Beside that the observe is look is the uniform of the staff are neat and beautiful. For example, all the staff wearing neat and beautiful. After that the observe is look at the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Such as, the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Next are the observe that i look are in there the staff very friendship with the customer. For example, the staff friendship with the customer that will give customer will come back they restaurant again.

The third mystery shopping that observe are on Tuesday 9 October 2012, the observation was conduct at KFC. The observe is look at the service time of the food are faster because there food is ready early then the customer coming. For example, original and spicy chicken are ready early then the customer buy it. If any food finish ready then the customer have to wait 5-10 minutes only can get there food. Next are the observe is look are the listening skill of the staff are very good because they know how communicate to the customer. Such as, the staff know what the customer order. Beside that the observe is look is the uniform of the staff are neat and beautiful. For example, all the staff wearing neat and beautiful. After that the observe is look at the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Such as, the place that customer eating are neat and clean. Next are the observe that i look are in there the staff very friendship with the customer. For example, the staff friendship with the customer that will give customer will come back they restaurant again.

Pizza_Hut_Logo.jpg kfc-forecasts-increase-with-new-breakfast-menu.jpg

mcdonalds.jpg

1.3 Conclusion

From this question 1, I have learn three type of different restaurant how their staff serving, listening skill , the place clean or not? and so on. The first restaurant that I go is Pizza hut, the second restaurant that I go is McDonald’s and the last restaurant that I go is KFC.

QUESTION 2

Assume that you have bought a new shop lot and want to open a restaurant. As a service provider what would you need to consider when you want to open the restaurant and how would you do to get your customer? Do you agreed if say that you need to consider demographic factor in identifying your customer? Why?

2.1 Introduction
Yes, I agree to start a restaurant we need to deciding on a restaurant concept, choosing a location for restaurant, finding the perfect restaurant name, writing a business plan, writing the menu, staffing a restaurant, and equipping a restaurant. Demographic information includes characteristics like age, income, marital status, education stage in the family life cycle, home ownership, sex, zip code, occupation, household size, mobility patterns, ethnic background and religion. Demographic information is a straightforward and basic method of identifying customer.
2.1 Starting a restaurant

To start a restaurant we need to deciding on a restaurant concept, choosing a location for restaurant, finding the Perfect restaurant name, writing a business plan, writing the menu, staffing a restaurant, and equipping a restaurant.

Firstly are deciding on a restaurant. We have to deciding what type of restaurant that want to open will depend of a variety of things. If want to open a restaurant we have to plan what type of food that we like to cook and serve to the customer, in an atmosphere they feel comfortable in.
Secondly are choosing a location for restaurant. Location is vital to the success of any restaurant. There are several factors to consider when searching for that perfect restaurant location, including population base, local employment figures and accessibility. Once you find that perfect location, you will need to make sure you negotiate the best lease possible for your restaurant.
Thirdly are writing a business plan. To prepare for your interview with the bank, we need to do your homework. Creating a business plan that outlines your restaurant and how we plan to make it profitable, will show the loan officer we mean business. Also make sure we arrive at the bank with all the necessary paperwork, including personal income statements, tax returns and anything else the banker ask we for.
Fourthly are finding the perfect restaurant name. Restaurant names may reflect a theme (Mexican, Chinese, Continental), a location, or simply be a play on words. The important thing to consider is the impression it will leave on customers. Select a name that will be easy to customers to remember and spell. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to find a restaurant online or in the Yellow Pages because you aren’t spelling it correctly.
Fifthly are writing the menu. Your menu is a huge part of my restaurant. After all, it is essentially why my customers keep coming back. They love the food. The layout and design is just as important as what’s listed on the menu. Avoid amateur looking menu designs, such as clip art or photocopied handwriting. Finally, knowing how to price the menu will help increase your profit margins, giving me more money to invest into my restaurant.
Sixthly are staffing a restaurant. Hiring the right staff is crucial to any new restaurant. Good food loses much of its appeal if it accompanied by bad service. Knowing the basic employee roles of the back of the house and the front of the house will help you select the best candidate for the job. Experience counts for important positions, such as head cook, dining room manager and bartender.
Seventhly are equipping a restaurant. Outfitting your restaurant kitchen, dining room and bar is the largest part of your start up budget. Shop around for bargain deals of used equipment and leased equipment. Also understanding needs vs. wants is important in avoiding the pitfalls of buying unnecessary furniture and equipment, which can set you way over budget. Begin with the basics, and once you have those you can pick up a few extras.
1.3 Demographic factor
Demographic information includes characteristics like age, income, marital status, education stage in the family life cycle, home ownership, sex, zip code, occupation, household size, mobility patterns, ethnic background and religion. Demographic information is a straightforward and basic method of identifying customer.
1.4 How to get a customer?
To get a customer using five needs of every customer. Five needs of every customer are every customer comes into the customer situation with differing wants while want are frequently hard to identify and may occasionally be unrealistic. The five basic need are service, price, quality, action and appreciation. The firstly are service. Customer expect the service that they think is appropriate for level of purchase that they are making. A small, spontaneous purchase may have a smaller service need than a larger purchase that has been carefully planned and researched.
The secondly are price. The cost of everything we purchase is becoming more and more important. People and business want to use their financial resources as efficiently as possible. Many product previously considered unique are now considered commodities. This mean that while a consumer previously had to travel to the the local hamburger restaurant to purchase a hamburger, now one can be acquired at many other locations. This make the component of price even more important to the customer.
The thirdly are quality. Customer want the product that they purchase to be durable and functional until the customer decides to replace them. The requirement of quality mandates that manufacturers and distributors produce products that live up to the customers’ expectations of durability. Customers are much less likely to question price if they are doing business with a company that has a reputation for producing a high quality product.
Fourthly are action. Customers need action when a problem or question arises. Many companies offer toll-free customer assistance telephone lines, flexible return policies, and customer are human begins and like to think that they are an important priority and that when a need or question arises someone will be ready and waiting to help them.
Lastly are appreciation. Customers need to know that we appreciate their business. Customer service providers can convey this appreciation in many appropriate ways. Saying “thank you” to the customer through our words and actions is a good starting point. Preferred customer mailing lists, informational newsletters, special discounts, courtesy, and name recognition are good beginnings to showing our customers our appreciation. Additionally, letting them know that we are glad that they have chosen to do business with us conveys a positive message. A fast- food restaurant has a sign in its drive-through lane that say’ ” we know that you could eat somewhere else; thank you for allowing us to serve you.”
1.5 Conclusion

From this question 2, i have learn about how to open a restaurant, how to get a customer and the demographic factor. To start a restaurant we need to deciding on a restaurant concept, choosing a location for restaurant, finding the Perfect restaurant name, writing a business plan, writing the menu, staffing a restaurant, and equipping a restaurant. Next are, to get a customer using five needs of every customer. Five needs of every customer are every customer comes into the customer situation with differing wants while want are frequently hard to identify and may occasionally be unrealistic. Beside that are to get a customer using five needs of every customer. Five needs of every customer are every customer comes into the customer situation with differing wants while want are frequently hard to identify and may occasionally be unrealistic

Konrad (2004: 2) stated that interpretation is a tool for communication that helps in coordinating verbal and sign language as the communication takes place. This is usually aimed at facilitating comprehension in people with various disabilities. In addition, interpretation is also used to translate information in a different language from one used by the speaker, whereby the interpreter repeats words in another language after the main speaker has spoken in order to facilitate inclusive comprehension. These forms of interpretation are known as simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpreting respectively. An interpreter is required to make communication easy by converting the register and tone of the chief speaker into a form that is familiar to the audience with a lot of accuracy.

As indicated by Aranda (2007: 35), simultaneous interpretation is whereby the speaker and interpreter talk concurrently. On the other hand, consecutive interpretation involves the interpreter taking notes as the speaker speaks, then reads out the interpreted version after the speaker has completed a sentence, paragraph or entire presentation. However, these breaks are determined by the nature of the message and the agreement between the speaker and interpreter. Consecutive interpretation is therefore only possible in some fields. It gives more accurate information because the interpreter does not need to memorize a lot of content (Aranda 2007: 35).

However, the periodic interruptions affect content delivery and subsequently affect the concentration of the audience. Nevertheless, when done at convenient points, the breaks do not affect the presentation and thus full consecutive interpretation is better than simultaneous interpretation in terms of comprehension of message. Other modes of interpretation include whispered, relay and liaison interpretation. (Soto 2010: 195).

Liaison interpretation involves spread of information from one person to another or a group. Once a speaker delivers message to one person, they relay the information to a multiple number of other third parties. It can also be referred to as bilateral or escort. There are various types of interpretation, such as conference, judicial, escort, public sector, medical, media and sign language interpretations. Different specialists in different areas of specialization venture into different categories of interpreters (Aranda 2007: 35). The aim of this paper is to discuss the ways in which the work of the simultaneous and consecutive conference interpreters differs from a liaison interpreter working in the public service.

Conference interpreting is useful during conference and multi-national meetings. Further, public service interpreting is also called community interpreting mainly targets public services agents. Liaison interpreters are mainly used in police interviews, court interpretation as well as medical consultations. These settings may often involve rare language dialects, posing major challenges to this type of interpretation (Soto 2010: 195).

According to Soto (2010: 195), the environment for conference interpreting can be multi-party conference, one-to-one business meeting or even public services. However, liaison interpretation only occurs in formal public meetings or intervention, such as courts, police or hospitals. The message is in the form of an interview, where the interpreter acts as a middleman between the interviewer and interviewee.

Simultaneous and consecutive interpretations are the only forms of conference interpreting, and require that the interpreters use a boot that is sound proof (Hung 2002: 129).. They use microphones and headphones to interpret messages. Liaison interpreting does not need any technical devices. Since it is one of the many forms of semi-skilled labor requiring one-on-one mediation, there is no need for technical gadgets.

Simultaneous interpreting can either be in the form of a whisper or tour guiding. There are acoustic difficulties that hinder the interpretation process. Public service interpreting can involve simultaneous interpreting, though without the use of technical devices. The chief mode of communication is bilateral exchange (Ward & Wilkinson 2006: 15). The speakers are more than one, and the exchange is in form of question and answer, for instance, between a doctor and a patient in hospital settings, a policeman and a suspect in police settings, or between the accused and accuser in court settings. Liaison interpreters sit behind their clients and communicate messages simultaneously in form of whispers.

There are no time losses during conferencing, since the audiences are able to engage in note taking for clear comprehension. In conference interpretation, corporations are usually aware of the most proficient interpreter and may even capitalize on one professional interpreter for all the meetings held. This makes it easier to save time that would otherwise have been spent trying to locate an interpreter. Furthermore, interpreters are always advertising their services and therefore the best interpreter is always a phone call away. Liaison interpretation may take a shorter or longer time depending on the linguistic dialects involved. Nevertheless, the contractor, usually the government, has to spend a lot of time trying to identify a suitable interpreter. Such interpreters are subcontracted when need arises because they do not need to have any formal training, and this precisely makes public interpretation expensive in terms of time (Hung 2002: 99).

All delegates in conference interpretation are able to participate fully, adding life to the conference meeting. However, this is very difficult in public services interpretation. This is because the interpreters are strict in following bureaucratic rules that do not allow the resolution of arising issues during presentation. Challenges are often ignored and do not get the formal attention required to resolve them. All people involved are accorded equal time to participate in the dialogue, as the interpreter offers the necessary linguistic mediation needed to aid comprehension. However, it is the mediator who speaks more (Ward & Wilkinson 2006: 15-69).

Gile (2009: 25) postulated that the process of interpreting in simultaneous interpreting may involve lots of breaks interfering with comprehension. This may also be unsuitable for multi-lingual conference settings. It may also be a barrier for lively discussions. Public service interpreter on the other hand is capable of handling delicate issues. Their work is highly guided by strict guidelines to govern behavior, and therefore their work depicts high level of professionalism (Gile 2009: 25).

Conference interpreters are trained to work with standard languages and therefore this type of interpreting involves the use of both passive and active working languages. The active languages used in simultaneous and consecutive interpreters are A and B languages, while C language is used to refer to the passive language. Public service interpreters do not need to learn the standard forms of languages, as long as they can offer the relevant linguistic mediation needed to intervene a situation. This makes public service interpreters more competent as useful than conference interpreters. While liaison interpreters can speak the informal language varieties of natural languages, conference interpreters cannot. This makes communication difficult especially if the delegates are only familiar with a certain language variety or dialect, which is not the standard form of the language (Gile 2009: 157).

Simultaneous and consecutive interpreters are required to be extremely competent in order to ensure orderly interpretation. Conferences interpreters are used to communicate messages among delegates from different linguistic descend, and therefore professional monitoring is very important in selecting an interpreter. They should be people with high professional records since they are attending to important business or diplomatic personnel. Public service interpretation makes use of linguistic mediators who are either semi-qualified or lack any qualification at all. Professional monitoring is considered not relevant in public service interpretation. Liaison interpreters are therefore exempted from professional qualifications, including linguistic competence (Colin & Morris 1996: 137).

Efficiency in conference interpretation is dependent upon the relevant academic qualifications. More and pleasant academic certificates increase chances of delivering quality service. Such interpreters may help a company decide on related decisions, such as the number required for a conference interpretation. Simultaneous interpreting is useful in seminars, class, congresses, business meetings as well as diplomatic proceedings and therefore there is a high demand for highly skilled personnel (Tennent 2005: 156). Most people serving as public service interpreters, on the other hand, do not have formal professional or vocational training in the field. However, they usually have met the basic requirement, which is the most basic requirement in language requirement. They are commissioned to work within the settings that require the language pair of the speaker and audience (Tennent 2005: 156).

Public service interpreters have a need to join a national interpreters group, whose membership requires some professional training. However, interpreters have the opportunity to subscribe membership as either interim or full time members. Interim members need no prior professional experience to perform any public service linguistic mediation. They nevertheless are required to meet some basic professional requirements through formal training and be able to address the needs of their client. There is a wide gap between these two groups of interpreters, and therefore constant monitoring is carried out to ensure that they adhere to the laid guidelines (Colin & Morris 1996: 137).

Conference interpreters do not discriminate against people from different social standing. Formal education is given to people on equal and favorable terms, and these people can serve anywhere as long as they have a good professional profile. On the other hand, public service interpreting training and professional affiliation charge exorbitant fees that can be viewed as a strategy to lock out people from humble backgrounds. There are many formalities that only favor the rich, and therefore most of public service interpreters are from middle class in the society. However, those without formal qualifications often work as interpreters of community languages, which are still in high demand in most of the public settings (JOSTRANS 2010: 100-108).

Colin & Morris (1996: 15) observed that conference interpreting is demanding and requires a high concentration power. Therefore these interpreters work in pairs especially in simultaneous interpreting. Each interpreter listens for around 30 minutes after which they give interpretation in turns so that no detail is lost. This is not very different from liaison interpreting. However, conference interpreting is most appropriate and can be used to draw a line between conference and public service interpreting. While liaison interpreting involves simultaneous whispers by a pair of interpreters, consecutive interpreting does not delay information since the interpreter is able to interpret directly to ensure that information reaches people from different cultural backgrounds promptly. Further, it is important to note that negotiation is an essential strategy in liaison interpretation. The aim is to bridge cultural gaps by adopting different styles to complement each occasion and match the competence of each audience (Colin & Morris, 1996: 15).

Conclusion

Interpreters are an important element in every day communication. Their effort ensures that people from different ethnical backgrounds can communicate and comprehend all the messages being conveyed. However, different settings call for different practices. Some environments do not require the use of professional interpreters, while others needs the most polished interpreters. However, it is difficult for all delegates in a meeting to be purely speakers of a standard language dialect. The presence of many linguistic varieties makes it important for people to learn various informal languages. This leads to the emergence of public service interpreters and conference interpreters.

Though these two types of interpreters play important roles in the business and private sectors, they have many differences. These differences can be in the form of language used, professional and academic experience required, mode of presentation, language used among others. It is however important for all translators to learn how to handle different clients in order to make maximum positive impact and eventually fulfill the communication needs by facilitating inclusive participation by all communicators.

Horizontal Integration is when two industries merge together; it is where one business which offers a product takes over another business who offers similar products. An example of horizontal integration is the First Choice Group and this is because they own First Choice Hypermarket as well as First Choice Travel Agency. The reason why they are part of the horizontal integration is because looking at the buying chain they are on the exact same level.

Vertical Integration

Vertical Integration is when one company expands its business into a variety of different areas; the company buys another similar organisation however it is on a different level of the chain. An example of vertical integration is Virgin Trains which is owned by Virgin Group and also in partnership with the stagecoach. In the travel industry two companies take over one another in order to find out different ways to sell their products and services to their customers.

A clear description of the trade and regularity body giving an explanation of their role and how they link to a tour operator:

ABTA is the UK travel trade association for tour operators and travel agencies; they have a responsibility which is to help their members grow their business in a sustainable way. ABTA has been around for more than 60 years and it is essential that customers look for the ABTA logo when booking their holidays. The reason for this is because if anything was to go wrong when they are abroad ABTA is there as their security so therefore they will be able to sort out the complaints. Fairness, reliability and expertise is what the ABTA brand stands for and over 1350 companies use ABTA.

FTO stands for the Federation of Tour Operators which ensures that UK outbound tour operators are interested in by people as well as providing about 90% of overseas package holidays which are sold in the UK. FTO has become more aware of sustainable tourism and responsible tourism that brings changes in the environment in all areas which are affecting holidays located overseas looking at the safety, hygiene and health requirements.

AITO stands for the Association of Independent Tour Operators who offers a high level of customer satisfaction; members who are part of AITO are all small companies which are independent. They all specialise in certain destinations and are owner managed. Tour operators have recently be involved with AITO, their role is to organise activities for different types of holidays including; city breaks, culture, luxury, sports and adventure.

CAA stands for the Civil Aviation Authority who is involved with the aviation police keeping charge of all airports; they also make sure that planes are safe before they take off. They ensure that all UK civil aviation standards are achieved and are responsible for four main areas which consists of; economic and airspace policy, consumer protection group, regulation and air safety group.

Explain each legal framework and give examples:

EU package travel regulations is a package holiday which has to be checked over before selling it to customers to see if it is under the EU law. A package holiday includes; transport, accommodation and excursions for example a trip to the museum or a tour guide. The travel regulations are clearly written so people can understand what cannot and be measured as a package holiday.

Trade description act is another law which states that it is wrong to give out false information to customers about a certain product or service. An example of this is a staff working in a travel agency has helped a couple book their honeymoon and has told them that they will be staying at a beach hotel so therefore they walk down the stairs of their room and outside is the path to the beach. The couple get there and does not recognise the area and this is because there is no beach around the area or at the hotel, this is false information about facilities which was given to the customers by a member of staff in a travel agency.

Consumer protection act all relates to safety and price, it protects all consumers from false pricing. This Act has three different rules to remember and they are; information must be basic and clear when it is given to all consumers, suppliers must all confirm any purchases made and if a package is wrong and they are not happy with the purchase consumers therefore need to be given a time in order to think and change their mind if it is needed.

ATOL licence stands for the Air Transport Operations Licence which is a UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) system which protects all people who have bought a package holiday as well as flights from a tour operator. ATOL protects customers from losing out on any money and offers and also covers accommodation and flights being booked as one.

D) A grid showing external influences that could affect Tour Operators with

examples:

Political

An example of this is terrorism, the Bali bombings on 12th October 2002 was a terrorist attack which happened on an Indonesian Island called Kuta. From this attack there were 202 deaths and the number of people that were injured was 240, everyone in Bali from the surrounding areas where the attack occurred shows pictures from the bombings and these have been kept to show others what really happened and how it affected everyone. Tour operators lost out on some money as they had to stop selling package holidays and flights to Bali because of the terrorist attacks, the number of visitors dropped a huge amount. It decreased from 33,000 people to 32,000 and now this year it has increased to 52,000.

Economic

An example of this is fuel prices from the aircrafts, if this increases then when customers book their holiday tickets this will then therefore increase as well. International Air Transport Association (IATA) updates their website now and again on prices of the jet fuel, prices all vary on where the fuel is bought for example the country and how long a flight will take. Tour operators are allowed to increase their prices as well as advertising new fuel supplements, prices can be adjusted now and again according to charges being made. Customers will be able to see a breakdown of their flight ticket when booking a holiday showing the different prices.

Social

An example of this is religion which has become really popular in the world today especially holiday trips abroad to religious cities. The most popular religious trip is to Lourdes in France, six million people visit a year to ask for healing either for themselves because they are sick or for family and friends who they love. Lourdes is where miracles can happen, visitors can renew their faith and bathe in the cold water where they go in naked with a towel wrapped around them but come out completely dry. Religious trips to the same country could affect tour operators when they book them because they could get bored after a while booking to the same country for their customers over and over again. However some tour operators may know little about religious trips which can lead to customers being very disappointed and not return back to that travel agent to book their holidays in the future.

Technological

An example of this is online booking using the internet either at home or at work, this saves customers going to the shop and booking their holiday. Checking in on mobile phones is also acceptable as there are apps which people can download and do everything on there. Check-in must be done at least couple of hours before departure as well as printing out your boarding pass if needed. Tour Operators will earn less money than usual; this means there will be less work for travel agents therefore they will get bored easily as no customers are entering the store. Staff working at the travel agencies will feel it is a waste of time learning basic information for the different countries and they will also give up on decorating their store and shop windows if everyone has decided to book their flights and accommodation using technology. Staff may give up after a while and quit their job if they feel they are not doing anything for a whole day.

Environmental

An example of this is the volcanic ash cloud which started off from Iceland and slowly expanded across Europe in 2010. British Airways cancelled all their Long Haul and Short Haul flights, Ryanair which is a budget airline cancelled every single flight of theirs to and from the UK and Thomson Airways also cancelled every single flight. Out of 22,000 flights only 5,000 flights were running when the volcanic ash cloud appeared, in result customers were required to call their airline up before departure time to check if their flight was still going ahead. Flights which could no longer go ahead as normal and part of a package deal, it was then the tour operators task to cover every single cost however only if it is protected by Air Transport Operations Licence ATOL. This role can affect all tour operators because they will be getting a number of complaints and calls from customers every single minute, this gives them a high responsibility within the role and a lot of patience. This is hard work for them to control by themselves because not every customer is patient and nice so the reason it can affect staff from travel agents because they can also get into trouble if they answer back and act really rude and disobedient towards their customers.

E) A factsheet showing the challenges to a tour operator:

RESPONSIBLE TOURISM:

First Choice offers a green brochure which includes hotels that has been given a Travelife Award for their responsibility of the environment. First Choice staffs are all able to download this brochure from the website to show customers when they enter the store and book a holiday with them because some people are interested in looking after different environments. There are a variety of choices looking at sustainability for travellers; activities and excursions. Projects from the World Care Fund are also included in order to show their ideas and care of the environment, the brochure allows customers to book their package holidays in a simple way when looking for countries abroad that relate to looking after the environment.

MAINTAINING THE MARKET SHARE:

Thomson Group is one of the popular tour operators which owns a variety of hotels across the world, one of the hotels is called ‘Hotel Annabelle’ in Paphos. The hotel offers a variety of features; meals, swimming pool, entertainment, activities, facilities and special offers. Thomson also has rights towards transport and accommodation, they offer; private transfers which is a taxi straight to the hotel and reserve seats before departure for every single customer. Check-in before departure to avoid queuing up in the airport and customers are allowed every single benefit option however this can only be allowed if customers have booked a package holiday. Thomson also owns over 50 different aircrafts, they update their website now and again to improve their services and to advertise new products.

TRENDS TOWARDS INDEPENDENT TRAVEL:

Dynamic packaging which is very similar to a packaged holiday but the only difference is dynamic packaging has more of a variety of choices as an independent traveller. An example of dynamic packaging is as follows: hotel choice + flight choice + airport transfer choice. It is much cheaper in price and this is because everything needed for a holiday is put altogether. Tour Operators can lose out on earning money given by customers after booking their holiday because now everyone prefers to put their own packaged holiday together. If some customers do not know how to do so they can start charging customers who need the help. The way a company runs its business can be affected only when they lose out on money which means fewer customers are booking their holidays in travel agencies.

Critically analyze the existing trends and devising strategy in Tourism Marketing

Tourism industry in India is on a great boom at the moment India has become a major global tourist destination and Indian tourism industry is exploiting this potential to the hilt. Travel and tourism industry is the second highest foreign exchange earner for India, and the government has given travel & tourism organizations export house status.

Tourism in India has received a major boost in the past decade since the Indian Government realized the great potential of tourism of India during vacations. Tourism of India during vacations has grown by leaps and bounds with a great influx of tourists from throughout the world who have been irresistibly attractive to the travellers.

India has the right tourism potential and attractions to captivate all types of tourists whether it is adventurous tour, cultural exploration, pilgrimages, visit to the beautiful beaches or to the scenic mountain resorts, Tourism of India has it all for you.

Travel through Indian states and cities bring to light, the cultural and the geographical richness of India. We provide you a glimpse to the richness of tourism in India with information on all the major tourist destinations of India and tourism services of India that will take care of all your problems while you are in India.

Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to airlines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange for the exchequer. In the face of such benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry.

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries at present and holds the status of the world’s no. 1 industry.
Spending on tourism amounts to 5%-10% of total consumer, spending in a year worldwide.
The industry creates a job every 2.4 seconds with every one of those direct jobs creating another 11 indirect ones.
The tourism industry as a whole is presently estimated to earn over US$ 3.5 trillion worldwide.
India’s share of the total market is a pittance at 0.51%. The non-tourist countries like Malaysia and Indonesia get much more tourists than India.
The Tourism industry’s foreign exchange earnings in India are around $3.2 billion. Tourism is the highest foreign exchange earner if we consider the fact that net value addition in Gems and jewellery is less than 30 % whereas, in tourism it is more than 90 %.
Tourism statistics:

Recent statistics have revealed that during the first quarter of 2008, the performance of the tourism industry has been very encouraging which has registered a 19% increase in foreign tourist arrivals. India Tourism office at Tokyo won two International Awards in Tour Expo held at Daegu in Korea for excellent tourism promotion. Indian Pavilion won the Best Booth Design Award as well as Best Folklore Performance Award competing with major players in tourism such as China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Canada.

Tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industries at present and holds the status of the world’s no. 1 industry.
The tourism industry as a whole is presently estimated to earn over US$ 3.5 trillion worldwide.
The industry creates a job every 2.4 seconds with every one of those direct jobs creating another 11 indirect ones.
Spending on tourism amounts to 5%-10% of total consumer, spending in a year worldwide.
India’s share of the total market is a pittance at 0.51%. The no tourist countries like Malaysia and Indonesia get much more tourists than India.
However, the average duration of stay of foreign tourist in India is one of the highest in the world. On an average, it exceeds 27 days in the case of non-package tourists and is 14 days in the case of package tourists.
Tourism has the distinction of being the third largest export industry after gems and jewellery and readymade garments in India.
The Tourism industry’s foreign exchange earnings in India are around $3.2 billion. Tourism is the highest foreign exchange earner if we consider the fact that net value addition in Gems and jewellery is less than 30 % whereas, in tourism it is more than 90 %.
The Indian tourism industry can be attributed to several factors:

Firstly, the tremendous growth of Indian economy has resulted in more disposable income in the hands of middle class, thereby prompting increasingly large number of people to spend money on vacations abroad or at home.

Secondly, India is a booming IT hub and more and more people are coming to India on business trips.

Thirdly, aggressive advertising campaign “Incredible India” by Tourism Ministry has played a major role in changing the image of India from that of the land of snake charmers to a hot and happening place and has sparked renewed interest among foreign travellers. Travel & tourism industry’s contribution to Indian industry is immense. Tourism is one of the main foreign exchange earners and contributes to the economy indirectly through its linkages with other sectors like horticulture, agriculture, poultry, handicrafts and construction.

Tourism industry also provides employment to millions of people in India both directly and indirectly through its linkage with other sectors of the economy. According to an estimate total direct employment in the tourism sector is around 20 million. Travel & tourism industry in India is marked by considerable government presence. Each state has a tourism corporation, which runs a chain of hotels/ guest houses and operates package tours, while the central government runs the India Tourism Development Corporation.

Some of the salient features of the Tourism Policy are:
The policy proposes the inclusion of tourism in the concurrent list of the Constitution to enable both the central and state governments to participate in the development of the sector.
No approval required for foreign equity of up to 51 per cent in tourism projects. NRI investment up to 100% allowed.
Automatic approval for Technology agreements in the hotel industry, subject to the fulfilment of certain specified parameters.
Concession rates on customs duty of 25% for goods that are required for initial setting up, or for substantial expansion of hotels.
50% of profits derived by hotels, travel agents and tour operators in foreign exchange are exempt from income tax. The remaining profits are also exempt if reinvested in a tourism related project.
Strengths:

Tourism will expand greatly in future mainly due to the revolution that is taking place on both the demand and supply side. The changing population structure, improvement in living standard, more disposable income, fewer working hours and long leisure time, better educated people, ageing population and more curious youth in the developed as well as developing countries, all will fuel the tourism industry growth. The arrival of a large number of customers, better educated and more sophisticated, will compel the tourist industry to launch new products and brands and re-invents traditional markets. The established traditional destinations founded on sun-sea-sand products will have to re-engineer their products. They must diversify and improve the criteria for destinations and qualities of their traditional offers. Alongside beach tourism, the tourism sector will register a steady development of new products based on natural rural business, leisure and art and culture. Thus the study of new markets and emerging markets and necessity of diversified products are the basis of our strategy, which can enhance and sustain, existing and capture new markets.

It is India’s vastness that challenges the imagination: the sub-continent, 3200km (2000 Miles) from the mountainous vastness of the Himalayas in the north to the tropical lushness of Kerala in the south, is home to one sixth of the world’s population, a diverse culture and an intoxicatingly rich history. Desert in Rajasthan, tropical forests in the north eastern states, and arid mountains in the delta region of Maharashtra and Karnataka and vast fertile planes in northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana etc are just some of the geographical diversity that can be observed. We have a wealth of archaeological sites and historical monuments. Manpower costs in the Indian hotel industry are one of the lowest in the world. This provides better margins for any industry which relies on man power.

One of the fascinations of India is the juxtaposition of old and new; centuries of history –

From the pre-historic Indus civilization to the British Raj – rub shoulders with the computer age; and Bangalore’s ‘Silicon Valley’ is as much a part of the world’s largest democracy as the remotest village is.

Weaknesses

Lack of adequate infrastructure is the biggest problem that India faces. The aviation industry in India, for example, is inefficient and does not provide even the basic facilities at airports. The visitors are appalled by the poor sanitation in the public restrooms at the international airports. The road condition in India is very worse. The population has grown exponentially since 1947 but we still use the same rail system constructed by the British.

Even now the government spends next to nothing on proper marketing of India’s tourism abroad. As a result foreigners still think of India as a country ridden by poverty, superstition, and diseases with snake charmers and sashes at every nook and cranny. Case in point Thailand; where in spite of the huge problem of bird flu disease the tourists arrival only dropped by less than 15% where as in India when cases of plague started occurring in Seurat in 1994 the arrival of foreign tourists in India decreased by almost 36%.

Opportunities

More proactive role from the government of India in terms of framing policies. Allowing entry of more multinational companies into the country giving us a global perspective. Growth of domestic tourism. The advantage here is that domestic tourism and international tourism can be segregated easily owing to the different in the period of holidays.

Threats

Political turbulence within India in Kashmir and Gujarat has also reduced tourist traffic. Not only that fear of epidemics such as for malaria, cholera, dengue, plague etc are foremost in the mind of European and America patient’s .Aggressive strategies adopted by other countries like Australia, Singapore in promoting tourism are also not helping. Economic conditions and political turmoil in other countries affect tourism.

AYURVEDA:

India has a rich heritage in the areas of traditional and natural medicines. The earliest mention of Indian medical practices can be found in the Vedas and Samhitas of Charaka, Bhela and Shusruta. A systematic and scientific approach was adopted by the sages of the time leading to the development of a system that is relevant even today. India is the land of Ayurveda. It believes in removing the cause of illness and not just curing the disease itself. It is based on herbals and herbal components without having side effects.

Ayurveda considers that the base of life lies in the five primary elements; ether (space), air, fire, water and earth. And the individual is made up of a unique proportion of the five elements in unique combinations to form three doshas (vata, pita and kapha). When any of these doshas become accute, a person falls ill. Ayurveda recommends a special life style and nutritional guidelines supplemented with herbal medicines. If toxins are abundant, then a cleaning process known as Panchkarma is recommended to eliminate those unwanted toxins and revitalize both mind and body. Ayurveda offers treatments for ailments such as arthritis, paralysis, obesity, sinusitis, migraine, premature aging and general health care. Kerala is a world tourist destination and part of the reasons lies with the well- known stress-releasing therapies of famed Ayurvedic research centers. The climate along with the blessing of nature has turned Kerala into the ideal place for ayurvedic, curative and rejuvenating treatments.

YOGA

If Ayurveda is the science of body, yoga is the science of the mind. Practiced together they can go a long way in making an individual fit. The word yoga means to join together. The ultimate aim of yoga is to unite the human soul with the universal spirit. Yoga was developed 5000 years ago and the base of yoga is described in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.

This describes eight stages of yoga. These are Yam (universal moral commands), Niyam (self purification), Asana (posture), Pranayama (breathing control), Prathyahara (withdrawal of mind from external objects), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (state of superconsciousness). To get the benefits of yoga, one has to practice Asana, Pranayama and Yoganidra. With the regular practice of asanas one can 327 control cholesterol level, reduce weight, normalize blood pressure and improve cardiac performance. Pranayama helps to release tensions, develop relaxed state of mind and Yoganidra is a form of meditation that relaxes both physiological and psychological systems. Today, yoga has become popular in India and abroad and in a number of places including urban and rural areas yoga is taught and practiced.

SPA TREATMENT

Most of the other parts of the world have their own therapies and treatment that are no doubt effective in restoring wellness and beauty. New kinds of health tours that are gaining popularity in India are spa tours. Spas offer the unique advantages of taking the best from the west and the east combining them with the indigenous system and offering best of the two worlds. In hydropathy, Swedish massages work with the Javanese Mandy, lulur, aromatherapy, reflexology and traditional ayurveda procedures to help keep the tourist healthy and enhance beauty. Combining these therapies with meditation, yoga and pranayama make the spa experience in India a new destination for medical tourism. The spas are very useful for controlling blood pressure, insomnia, cure tension, depression, paralysis and number of other deadly diseases.

Ananda Resort in Rishikesh, Angsana Resort, Golden Palm Spa and Ayurgram in Bangalore offer ayurveda, naturopathy, yoga and meditation packages. (Gaur Kanchilal) Allopathy India has made rapid strides in advanced health care systems, which provides worldclass allopathic treatment. This has become possible because of the emergence of the private sector in a big way in this field. More and more foreign tourists are realizing that India is an ideal place for stopover treatment. Indian Multi-specialty hospitals are providing worldclass treatment at an amazingly economical cost as compared to the west. Quality services and low price factor primarily go in favour of India. The cardio care, bone marrow transplantation, dialysis, kidney transplant, neuron-surgery, joint replacement surgery, urology, osteoporosis and numerous diseases are treated at Indian hospitals with full professional expertise. Apollo hospital group, Escorts in Delhi, Jason Hospital, Global Hospital, and Max Health Care are catering to medical care for international patients in the areas of diagnostic, disease management, preventive health care and incisive surgeries.

The tourism department has devised websites in order to provide information. Many Ayurveda health resorts that are owned and rum by traditional Ayurveda Institutes have come up. Ayurgram is a novel concept that not only offers heritage accommodation but also offers a whole range of Ayurvedic treatments and rejuvenating packages. Similarly hotels have also included these types of packages in their holidays. Some of the tour operators have worked out all-inclusive medical treatment package that include treatment, accommodation, food, airport transfers, post operation recuperative holidays, along with a host of other facilities. 328 This in fact shows our product offers true value for money for service. Many world-class state-of-the-art furnishing and equipment are being added to our Ayurveda Resorts to welcome international guests. Along with these hospitals there are many centers which offer not just physical but emotional and spiritual healing to patients. With all these India is going to be one of the leading medical health care destinations in the near future.

All types of tourism in India have registered phenomenal growth in the last decade ever since the Indian government decided to boost revenues from the tourism sector by projecting India as the ultimate tourist spot. The reason why India has been doing well in all types of tourism in India India has always been known for its hospitality, uniqueness, and charm – attributes that have been attracting foreign travelers to India in hordes

The different types of tourism in India:
Heritage Tourism

India has always been famous for its rich heritage and ancient culture. India’s glorious past and cultural diversity make a potent blend which attracts millions of tourists each year to its heritage tourist attractions. India’s rich heritage is amply reflected in the various temples, palaces, monuments, and forts that can be found everywhere in the country

The most popular heritage tourism destinations in India are:
Taj Mahal in Agra
Mandawa castle in Rajasthan
Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu
Madurai in Tamil Nadu
Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh
Delhi, the Indian capital
Ecotourism

Ecotourism entails traveling to places that are renowned for their natural beauty and social culture, while making sure not to damage the ecological balance.Eco-tourists have been thronging India in large numbers for it has a rich source of flora and fauna. A great number of endangered and rare species are also to be found in the various national parks in India.

The major national parks in India for ecotourism are:
Corbett National Park in Uttar Pradesh
Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh
Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh
Gir National Park and Sanctuary in Gujarat
Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan
Adventure Tourism

Adventure tourism is recently growing in India. Tourists prefer to go for trekking to places like Leach, Sikkim and Himalaya. Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir are popular for the skiing facilities they offer. Whitewater rafting is also catching on in India and tourists flock to places such as Uttranchal, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh for this adrenalin-packed activity.

Spiritual Tourism

Globally people are increasingly mentally disturbed and looking for solace in spiritual reading, meditation and moments of divine ecstasy. Our country has been known as the seat of spiritualism and India’s cosmopolitan nature is best reflected in its pilgrim centres. Religion is the life-blood for followers of major religion and sects. Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity have lived here for centuries. The visible outpouring of religious fervor is witnessed in the architecturally lavish temples, mosques, monasteries and Churches spreads across the length and breadth of the country. India is not only known as a place rich in its culture with varied attractions but also for many places of worship, present itself as embodiments of compassion where one get peace of mind. Thus India has been respected as a destination for spiritual tourism for domestic and international tourists. Spiritual tourism is also termed as religious heritage tourism. It includes all the religions mentioned above; religious places associated with, emotional attachment to these centers and infrastructure facilities for the tourists. This can also be referred to as pilgrimage tourism, as clients are not looking for luxury but arduous journeys to meet the divine goal or simple life.

The essence of spiritual tourism is inner feeling through love. Love should not be rationed on the basis of caste, creed and economic status or intellectual attainment of the recipient. Religions come into existence for the purpose of regulating human life; what are common to all of them are the principles of love. Thus through religious tourism there is a sincere effort to bring better understanding among various communities, nations and thus foster global unity.

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions of India. Over 5000 years of religious history created wonderful temples and survived through ages all over India. The most popular spiritual tours are those that are centered on holy Ganges River. Badrinath, Kedarnath, Haridwar, Gangotri, Yamunotri, Allahabad, Varanasi. Jaganath temple at Puri, Bhubaneshwar, Konark in Orissa, Mata Vaishnodevi of Jammu and Kashmir, are some of the important pilgrim centers in north India. There are many spiritual sites in South India as well which dates back beyond the 10th centaury. Rameshwaram, Mahabalipuram, Madurai Meenakshi temple in Tamilnadu and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh are some pilgrim centers. Every year millions of tourists, both domestic and international, visit these places. India is special to Buddhists all over the world and India is the destination for pilgrimage because Buddhism emerged in India. The country is dotted with places that are associated with the life and times of Gutham Buddha; Lumbini-the birthplace of Buddha, Saranath where Buddha delivered his first sermon, Buddha Gaya where lord Buddha attained enlightenment and Vaishali where he delivered his last sermon and announced his nirvana. Sikhism also emerged in India.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Hemkund Sahib, and Gurunanak Devji Gurudwara at Manikaran, which is also known for its hot water springs with healing properties, the holy city of Patna Sahib and Anandpur Sahib are important for Sikhs. The Jain temples of Dilwara and Mount Abu in Rajasthan, the Gomateswara temple at Karnataka, draw thousands of Jain followers. Even small communities like the Bahais have their own Lotus Temple at Delhi. The Sultanate and Moghul empires built many historical monuments and mosques during their reign, all over the country. Red Fort, Fatehapur Sikri, Jama Masjid, TajMahal, Charminar etc., bear testimony to the blend of the Indian and Islam traditions of architecture. The followers of Islam have many mosques and shrines of Sufi Saints, like Moin-Uddin Chisti and Nizamuddin Aulia. For Christians, spiritual tours to Goa among other place like Mumbai and Kolkata are must. Among the most popular sites in Goa is the church of Our Lady of Rosary, the Rachel Seminary, and Church of Bom Jesus. In addition to pilgrim centers there are personalities like the Satya Sai Baba, Osho, Shirdhi and others. This shows that spirituality and religion in India is a serious pursuit. The State Governments concerned, charitable trusts, temple trusts have made elaborate arrangements for accommodation, transport and ritual ceremonies. These organizations are also running hospitals, educational institutes, ashrams, meditation centers which benefit local community. More than 500 religious places have been identified and efforts are being made to develop these centers by Central and State Governments with private participation.

Adventure Tourism

Youth tourism has been identified as one of the largest segments of global and domestic tourism. The young travellers are primarily experience seekers, collecting, enquiring unique experiences. Adventure and risk have a special role to play in the behaviour and attitudes of young travellers. The growing number of young travellers is being fuelled by a number of factors such as increased participation in higher education, falling level of youth unemployment, increased travel budget through parental contribution, search for an even more exciting and unique experience and cheaper long distance travel. Youth and adventure tourism appears to have considerable growth potential. The rising income in some major potential source markets such as the Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, combined with the lower travel cost, growing student populations around the world particularly in developing countries, has fuelled the demand. India: a heaven for adventure tourism India has been an attraction for travellers from all over the world. Though in the field of international tourism, the segment of adventure tourism in India is getting only a fraction of such traffic. The trend has been showing an increased movement year after year with the development of facilities and greater awareness about adventure tourism options.

Indian tourism offers both international and domestic adventurers a wide choice of adventures. Water sports, elephant safari, skiing, yachting, hail-skiing, gliding, sailing, tribal tours, orchid tours, scaling the high peaks of Himalayas, trekking to the valley of flowers, riding the waves in rapids, and camel safari in the deserts are breath taking opportunities for nature enthusias. Ladakh, the Garwal hills, the Himachal hills, Darjeeling, Goa, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar, Jaisalmer and wildlife sanctuaries and reserves are some of the places that offer adventure tourism.

Rural tourism:

Rural tourism has been identified as one of the priority areas for development of Indian tourism. Rural tourism experience should be attractive to the tourists and sustainable for the host community. The Ninth Plan identified basic objectives of rural tourism as: –

aˆ? Improve the quality of life of rural people

aˆ? Provide good experience to the tourist

aˆ? Maintain the quality of environment.

Indian villages have the potential for tourism development. With attractive and unique traditional way of life, rich culture, nature, crafts, folk-lore and livelihood of Indian villages are a promising destination for the tourist. It also provides tourism facilities in terms of accessibility, accommodation, sanitation and security. Rural tourism can be used as a means to:-

aˆ? Improve the well being of the rural poor

aˆ? Empower the rural people

aˆ? Empower the women

aˆ? Enhance the rural infrastructure

aˆ? Participate in decision-making and implementing tourism policies

aˆ? Interaction with the outside world

aˆ? Improve the social condition of lower sections of the society.

aˆ? Protection of culture, heritage, and nature.

To tap the immense opportunities, coordinated actives of all agencies involved in the development are required. A carefully planned and properly implemented development will definitely benefit the community economically and improve the quality of life in the villages. The success of such development depends upon the people’s participation at grass root level for the development of tourist facilities and for creating a tourist friendly atmosphere. Development of rural tourism is fast and trade in hotels and restaurants is growing rapidly. Increase in the share of earnings through rural tourism will no doubt; provide an attractive means of livelihood to the poor rural community. It increases the purchasing power at all levels of community and strengthens the rural economy. Development of infrastructure facilities such as rail, electricity, water, health and sanitation will definitely improve the quality of life.

Wildlife Tourism

India has a rich forest cover which has some beautiful and exotic species of wildlife; the places where a foreign tourist can go for wildlife tourism in India are the Sariska Wildlife Sanctuary, Keoladeo Ghana National Park, and Corbett National Park.

Pilgrimage Tourism

India is probably the ultimate destination of all kinds of pilgrims following any faith around the world. The great religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism are the integral part of Indian culture and heritage whose values and faiths are mingled with the air, soil and the sky of India

Famous Pilgrimage & places in India
Ajmer
Pushkar
Haridwar
Amarnath
Badrinath
Gangotri
Kedarnath
Yamunotri
Chardham Yatra
Rishikesh
Manikaran
Paonta Sahib
Rewalsar
Omkareshwar
Ajmer Sharief
Rameswaram
Mathura Vrindavan
Puri
Guruvayur
Shirdi Saibaba
Amarnath Cave
Vaishno Devi
Jagannath Temple
Konark Sun Temple
Tirupati Temple
Pilgrimage Places
Himachal Pradesh
Rajasthan
Uttranchal
Kerala
Maharashtra
Tamil Nadu
Jammu And Kashmir
Madhya Pradesh
Karnataka
Andhra Pradesh
Temples
Mosques
Types of Tourists

One such way of classifying the users is by dividing them into categories such as General, Sex, Region, Education, etc.

General: Domestic, Foreign Kids, Teens, Youths, Seniors Students, Executives, Artists Politicians, Movie stars
Sex: Men, Women
Region: Rural, Urban
Education: Literate, Illiterate
Status: Rich, Poor
Profession: Executives, Academics, Sportsmen, Artists
Occupation: White collar, Blue collar.

Another method of classifying users of tourism services is on the basis of the frequency of usage of services:

Non-users: They lack the willingness, desire and ability (income & leisure time).
Potential Users: They have the willingness but the marketing resources have not been used optimally to influence their impulse.
Actual Users: They are already using the services generated by the tourist organizations
Occasional Users: They have not formed the habit of traveling
Habitual Travelers: They have formed a habit and avail of the services regularly.
Demand in Tourism Sector
Qualitative Aspects
Motivation
Composition
Typologies
Life styles