toptermpaper.com

Will Stevens

A resort town is a town or city that relies heavily on the tourism as a main driver to its economy. Considered among the oldest resort towns in the United States, Cape May, New Jersey is situated at the southern tip of the state of New Jersey, and has provided beachgoers with a beautiful town since the mid 1700’s. Owing to its rich history as a whaling community, its role in both of the world wars, superior bird watching landscape, its recognition as a National Historic Landmark, and New Jersey’s large tourism industry, Cape May continues to enjoy success as a popular summer destination.

According to The City of Cape May, the history of Cape May can be traced all the way back to the late 17^th Century when the land was first settled. Its status as a beach destination began in the mid 1700’s when horse-drawn carriages arrived from Philadelphia. Over time, hotels were built and the Cape became the major beach destination for cities such as Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Washington. It wasn’t until 1863, however, when the railroad between Philadelphia and Cape May was completed, that families began building summer vacation homes down the shore. Several fires have engulfed Cape May, and have resulted in the towns desire to maintain a “small town” feel and not have to compete with the high rise hotels that other resort towns have. This decision is crucial to the history of Cape May architecture and is the main reason why the city is considered a National Historic Landmark. The Cape May canal, Cape May – Lewis Ferry, and the Cape May Coast Guard Station have also contributed to the history of Cape May. (City of Cape May)

In Philippos J. Loukissas’ journal article about the impact of regional development, he states, “An increase in connections with the outside world also is assumed to have the positive effect of introducing new ideas into the community.” This hints at the importance of the Janelle model used be economic geographers, and can be applied to this history of Cape May as well. When the railroad between Philadelphia and Cape May was finished, this only further deepened the ties between the new places, and began the construction boom of vacation homes down the shore. Alternatively, the completion of the of the Garden State Parkway and the initiation of services on the Cape May – Lewis Ferry have done wonders to connect Cape May and provide greater tourist exposure. The Garden State Parkway allows easier vehicle access with connectivity to the rest of the New Jersey highway network, and the Cape May – Lewis allows Delawarean residents and travellers further south to access the Cape by way of the Delaware Bay.

Tourism is obviously a major component of Cape May’s history, but it is also important to understand its role in New Jersey’s economy as a whole. In 2008, tourism expenditures in New Jersey were $38.8 billion supported by over 70 million visitors. Kenneth McGill even states in his report about New Jersey tourism that, “NJ Tourism is larger than the entire GDP of 120 countries.” And that, “1 in every 9 NJ workers owes his/her job to tourism.” McGill also states that New Jersey’s tourism industry is 2.1 times more concentrated than the US average, meaning that the percentage of workers directly or indirectly employed by the tourism industry is 2.1 times greater than the average US state. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the core tourism industry is the third largest private sector in the state, supporting over 350,000 jobs. Another staggering statistic presented by McGill is that other than investments and business travel, the in-state contribution to the total tourism expenditure is only 20%, while the out-of-state contribution is more than 3 times that, at 64%, while Diane Wieland states that over 75% of visitors to Cape May County come from out-of-state.

When comparing the tourism statistics of Cape May County to those of the entire state of NJ, it is clear that the economy of Cape May is heavily reliant on the activities of the tourism industry. In McGill’s report on the tourism industry in New Jersey, it is stated that 48.1% of the entire economy of Cape May County can be attributed to the travel and tourism industry. This is the largest percentage of all counties in the state, and shows just how important the industry is to southern New Jersey. McGill and Diane Wieland confirm the importance of Cape May as a summer resort town and popular vacation home destination in their statistics. McGill shows that over 50% of rental income of the entire state comes from Cape May County alone. Wieland also shows that nearly half of all rental and 2^nd home properties in all of New Jersey are located in Cape May County. In fact, according to Wieland, 47% of all residences in Cape May County are considered 2^nd homes or vacation homes. (Wieland)

Tourism in Cape May is not limited to just beachgoers looking for a relaxing vacation. The Delaware Bay, especially the New Jersey banks, is world-renowned locations for bird watching. In Joanna Burger’s report on the affects of tourism on the local ecology, she mentions that the Delaware Bay area benefits from its low-lying mud flats and coastal marshes that are conducive to migrating shore birds. It was not until recently, however, that experts have realized that the millions of birds that pass through the Delaware Bay are attracted there by the abundance of horseshoe crab eggs in the springtime. The city of Cape May has taken advantage of this unique characteristic and has encouraged eco tourism to the area. (Burger)

My own experiences have been greatly influenced by the touristic, seasonal nature of Cape May. My grandparents first purchased a property down the shore over 30 years ago, so the beach has been a big part of my family’s lives since before I was born. We have been taking weekend trips down the shore for my entire life, and I have spent the entirety of the summer, from when school gets out until Labor Day, in Cape May for almost 10 years. Our house isn’t big by any means, but it has enough beds that most of our family can be down simultaneously, and we have regularly had about 10 people on any given weekend. I can say with confidence that my family conforms to the typical summer vacationer stereotype. My grandparents will usually head down before Memorial Day to open up the house and get everything set up for the summer. Memorial Day is the first big weekend of the summer, and we are all usually down there. My sister and I are the only two that stay with my grandparents for the entire summer, and we enjoy seeing our parents and aunts and cousins on weekends that they come down and visit. My sister and I also contribute to some of the tourism statistics that I stated earlier. Both of us have seasonal jobs that rely completely on the summer tourism activity in Cape May. My sister is a beach tagger, collecting money for the city of Cape May for people to use the beaches, and I was a lifeguard at a local campground. Both of these jobs are only sustainable during the summer months as the population of Cape May swells.

Much of mine and my family’s experiences can be explained in Reiner Jaakscon’s article called “Second Home Domestic-Tourism”. Many passages from his article relate directly to my life and experiences down the shore. “The second home offers a sense of identity at many levels, approximating in microcosm a concentric-circles model of ethnocentricity.” (Jaakson 378) This is true with many small towns, but especially true with Cape May. It is nice to be able to identify with other people who have shore homes and also spend their summers down the shore; comparing experiences through a shared commonality and lifestyle. “The very idea of a second home that is used primarily, if not exclusively, for leisure and recreation has an element of make believe.” (Jaakson 379) The fact that it is the summer means that I have no other responsibilities other than to relax and enjoy myself. Because I am not in school five days a week means that my time spent in Cape May is used as a sort of escape from the real world where I can go to the beach and swim in the ocean and sleep in as long as I want and enjoy the hot summer weather.

Our summer home provides me with a relaxing retreat from normal life, but it also allows our family to be much closer. “The second home provides for family togetherness of a different kind from that available in the city.” (Jaakson 379) This is especially true for my family. We are a very close family anyway, all living within 15 minutes of each other at home, but the closeness of our beach house allows us to have tighter bonds. “The smaller physical space and the immediate outdoors facilitate a closer family togetherness” (Jaakson 380) These two quotes from Jaakson perfectly encapsulate the dynamics within my family. While we live close together at home, we don’t visit each other often. It is a completely different story in the summertime. My sister and I are excited to spend time with our aunts when they come down and visit, and I enjoy spending time with my cousins when they are down too. Our summer home provides a platform for all of our family to come together and spend time with one another.

Throughout its history, Cape May has evolved from a whaling community into one of the nations oldest beach towns. Its location at the southern tip of New Jersey and its long-standing popularity with Philadelphians and other out-of-state tourists have cemented Cape May’s position as one of the most popular summer beach towns in the country.

Works Cited

Burger, Joanna. “Landscapes, Tourism, and Conservation.” Science of the Total Environment 249.1-3: 39-49. Print.

“Cape May History.” The City of Cape May. Cape May City, 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .

Jaakson, Reiner. “Second-Home Domestic Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research 13.3 (1986): 367-91. Print.

Loukissas, Philippos J. “Tourism’s Regional Development Impacts a Comparative Analysis of the Greek Islands.” Annals of Tourism Research 9.4 (1982): 523-41. Print.

McGill, Kenneth. “NJ Tourism: Holding Its Own During Difficult Times.” VisitNJ.org. State of New Jersey, 2008. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .

Wieland, Diane. “Tourism Impacts in Cape May County.” Cape May County. Cape May County, 2006. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .

Wood, Ida Leigh, Jerry Tirrito, and Mariana Leckner. “New Jersey Coastal Community Resilience Demonstration Project Report.” NJ Sea Grant Consortium. N.p., Dec. 2010. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

CAMERON HIGHLANDS

Cameron Highlands, in bahasa called ”Tanah Tinggi Cameron” is one of Malaysia’s most extensive hill stations. The size of Singapore, it occupies an area of 712 square kilometers (275sqmi). To the north, its boundary touches that of Kelantan; to the west, it shares part of its border with Perak.

Situated at the northwestern tip of Pahang, the “Camerons” is approximately 90 kilometers (56mi) from Ipoh or about 200 kilometers (120mi) from Kuala Lumpur. It is the smallest constituency in Pahang.

Discovered by Sir William Cameron in 1885, the outpost consists of three districts, namely Ringlet (5,165 hectares), Tanah Rata (2,081 hectares) and Ulu Telom (63,981 hectares). Its eight sub-districts are Ringlet, Tanah Rata (the administrative centre), Brinchang, the Bertam Valley, Kea Farm, Tringkap, Kuala Terla and Kampung Raja. All are at different elevations ranging from 1,100 meters (3,600ft) to 1,600 meters (5,200ft) above sea level.

The mean annual temperature of the retreat is about 18°C (64°F). During the day, the temperature seldom rises above 25°C (77°F); at night, it rarely drops to as low as 9°C (48°F) at the higher reaches.[2]

The resort has a diverse population of more than 38,000 people. It comprises Bumiputra (Malay (7,321); others (5,668)), Chinese (13,099), Indians (6,988), non-Malaysian citizens (5,193), and other nationalities (202). Most of the residents here are entrepreneurs, service industry employees, farm workers, retirees or government servants. The languages spoken are Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English. Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity and Sikhism are the main religions of the haven.

Developed in the 1930s, the tableland is one of the oldest tourist spots in Malaysia. Apart from its tea estates, the plateau is also noted for its cool weather, orchards, nurseries, farmlands, waterfalls, rivers, lakes, wildlife, mossy forest, golf course, hotels, places of worship, bungalows, Land Rovers, museum and its aborigines (Orang Asli).

The Cameron Highlands can be accessed by road via Tapah, Simpang Pulai, Gua Musang or Sungai Koyan. Tapah and Simpang Pulai are the two approaches from Perak. Gua Musang and Sungai Koyan are the entryways from Kelantan and Pahang, respectively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Highlands

There are few places which you need to visit or do when you are at Cameron Highlands. The most attractive place is tea plantations. No trip is call complete without a trip to tea plantations. You can visit the factories to learn about the tea making process and you can also sit down and enjoy a cup of tea at the cafe. The view overlooking the plantations is beautiful and perfect for the picture album.

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If you like to eat strawberry, don’t forget visit the strawberry farm. The climate in Cameron Highlands is excellent for year-round strawberry production and this has encouraged many farmers to cultivate this fruit. In fact, strawberry production is such a big business over here. The people of Cameron Highlands have associated themselves very closely with this fruit. Hotels are named after strawberries, clothes come in strawberry prints, and there are strawberry toys, strawberry souvenirs, even pillows, strawberry farm visits, strawberry jam, ice cream and a whole range of Malaysian food fashioned with this berry.

Most strawberry farms are concentrated at Tanah Rata, Brinchang and Kea Farm. During higher production season from May till August, many of these farms offer strawberry picking by hand to attract visitors. Visitors wishing to indulge in this activity are charged between RM50 to RM60 a kg of fruit plucked.

Three of the most popular strawberry farms where visitors can do interactive visits are Big Red Strawberry Farm in Brinchang, Kasimani’s Farm close to the Golf Course and Raju Hill Strawberry Farm near Kea Farm.

Meanwhile, there have another attractive places which you can visit – vegetable farm. It’s located throughout the highlands and most of the farms allow visitors in. Drive up to Tringkap or Kuala Terla to get a roadside view of the larger vegetable farms.

Due to the increasing tourist arrivals, there have been smaller farms cropping up all over the highlands. These farms produce everything from flowers and vegetables to strawberries. These are primarily for walk in tourists. The other bigger farms which produce vegetables for the nation’s consumptions are usually not on the tourist map and are located in the interiors or Kuala Terla and Bertam Valley.

If you want to explore the real Cameron Highlands, then a visit to the Time Tunnel Gallery is a must for you. Take a peek into Cameron Highland’s past through the old photographs and stories that many people do not know about. A lot of the photos depicting the past are from personal collections of the locals who’s been here since the pre-war days.

You can also see some of the familiar items from the yesteryears. For those who grew up in the 40?s to 80?s, this will be a walk back in memory lane. It is a unforgettable and sweet memories for the visitors.

Local produce markets can be found all over the highlands and these are one of the spots tourists flock to get everything under one roof. There are many of these markets sprouting over the past few years and almost all are located along the main road so you can’t miss them. The most popular tourist market is at Kea Farm but you can also find some smaller ones almost everywhere you look.

KEA FARM MARKET

Kea Farm Market is a highly popular among local tourists for its highland vegetable produce. Kea Farm is a bustling open market in Cameron Highlands, located 3km north of Brinchang town. This vegetable and fruit market along the highland’s main road is located close to the Copthorne Hotel (formerly Equatorial Resort). Here, farmers sell the best of their products throughout the day, offering to buyers cabbages, fresh carrots, an assortment of other highland greens, corn, strawberries, flowers, souvenirs, honey and potted plants.

Kea Farm at an altitude of 1610 meters above sea level (5282 feet), is also the highest village in Peninsular Malaysia, and lies close to the popular Sungai Palas Tea Estate and the highest mountain in Cameron Highlands, Gunung Brinchang (2031 m). Some other tourist attractions within its vicinity include Rose Center and the Butterfly Garden.

On Saturday nights, the weekly night market comes to life in Brinchang night market. This is where you can find all the produce of Cameron Highlands sold in one place. You can get everything cheap here if you know how to bargain. This is also a place to get some good “pasar malam” food. The Night Market will be open daily during the school holiday and public holidays.

The mossy forest is an amazing nature Cameron Highlands is bestowed with is indeed the main reason for its touristic appeal and top in its natural attraction list must surely be its Mossy Forest. Depending on its location, this forest may also be called Cloud Forest, Elfin Forest, or Upper Mountain Forest with all displaying similar characteristics and vegetation that can only be found in a constantly cool, windy, wet, and misty environment.

In Malaysia, the Mossy Forest occupies the ridge and valleys at elevations above 1,800 metres where it is constantly shrouded by mist and lower clouds with temperatures ranging between 10 to 18 degrees Celsius. The Mossy Forest of Cameron Highlands is located at the ridge of the 2032 metre-high Mount Brinchang, the highest mountain in Cameron Highlands. Here, the view of the hills and valleys below and the plains at the distance are magnificent and sunrises and sunsets are amazing.

For those who dare venture at night, the sight of the stars and Milky Way above on clear days and the lights of Ipoh city far below, are exhilarating sights. Distance views apart, the forest here is simply enthralling with a thick layer of softspongy moss draping every tree and the ground as well. The trees here are also stunted, rarely above 10 metres tall and mostly of the laurel family with rhododendrons which are showy when in bloom, tiny orchids, pitcher plants and other epiphytes, thriving in this environment.

The Mossy Forest of Brinchang is actually one of the easiest spots in world to access a mossy forest with a tarred road reaching right to the peak of the ridge here. There are daily guided tours to the mossy forest organised by various tour operators in Cameron Highlands who will take tourists through the forests using a 400 metre long wooden walkway which was specially built through the forest for a very up, close and personal view of this natural wonder.

One of the attractive places are Lavender Garden. Opened in 2013, Lavender Garden which is Cameron Highland’s newest attraction is located just before Tringkap town when travelling from Simpang Pulai. It is a floral themed park with cemented terraced hill slopes where ascending row upon row of flowers are grown, offering a dazzle of colours for visitors to admire and photograph.

The lavender itself isn’t as plentiful as one may expect with artificial lavender scent permeating the air at the entrance but live lavender plants can be seen planted in a large plot at the centre of this park. There are also many types of flowers grown here such as gerberas, camellias, roses, peonies and yellow daisies.

An apiary and a small gift shop selling lavender products are among the other offerings while potted lavender plants are sold for RM15 each. Visitors can also self-pick daisies for RM2 per stalk or 6 for RM10. There is a gift shop selling lavender products and a cafe offering good strawberry milk shake, and Lavender ice cream for RM5.50

The centre opens daily and charges RM5 per adults and RM3 for children.

The star attraction at the Agro Technology Park in MARDI Cameron Highlands must surely be its pergolas of Butterfly Jade Vine and Lady Slipper vine, both displaying spectacular cascading flower trusses.

The Lady Slipper vine or also know as Clock Vine or Doll’s Shoes is a native to India and its spectacular yellow and reddish-brown flowers that hang in pendent racemes are exotic indeed. Even more exotic looking are the turquoise claw-shaped flowers of the Butterfly Jade Vine which resembles a butterfly when two flowers are put together. The pendent-like trusses can carry up to 75 or more individual flowers and can reach up to three metres long.

Other lovely and showy display of blooms enticing visitors for a photo or two are its colourful busy lilies, roses and dahlias. The centre also grows and displays a variety of other exotic sub-tropical flowering plants, herbs, highland fruits and vegetables including strawberries, and potted plants for sale.

MARDI Cameron Highlands was established by the Malayan British administrators in 1925 and was then known as the Federal Experimental Station for agricultural produce. The Agro technology Park is located within the station and was officiated in2003.

The park houses some of the oldest tea bushes in the country which was grown here during experimental stages when the plant was introduced in the country in 1925. It also has experimental greenhouses for temperate fruits such as apples and persimmons.

The Agro technology Park which is about a kilometre from Tanah Rata also boasts an English Garden, strawberry farm and production centre, vegetable and cut flower production, green house research facility and the sales centre. It even offers accommodation in the form of ‘English Cottage’.

Visiting hours are Monday to Thursday from8.00am to 12.45pm / 2.00pm to 5.00pm and Friday 8.00am to 12.30pm / 2.30pm to 5.00pm. Entrance fee to the park is RM3 and can be purchased at its information centre.

As we used questionnaire in our research, and we asked different questions from 39 visitors in Cambridge city centre for observing their opinions. Pie charts are used to display results in visual form. All information gathered from visitors, converted in to pie charts and displayed above. Pie charts are showing opinions obtained from real visitors with the help of questionnaire.

Very first question was about their general information. General information included nationality, age and occupation. Nationality asked from visitors. Among the 39 visitors, our sample, 44 percent were female and 56 percent were male. Age of 41 percent were in between 18 to 30 years and 26 percent were in between 31 to 40 years. 12 percent were in between 41 to 40 and remaining were above 41.

Question about occupation, 36 percent visitors said that they are currently unemployed and 31 percent visitors were students. 10 percent were businessmen and outside the Cambridge and 21 percent are doing job anywhere. 13 visitors out of total 39 said that they are visiting very first time Cambridge and 9 visitors sad they have second trip. 6 visitors said they have third trip and 11 visitors are enjoying their fourth or more trip.

In the question in which type were asked, 33 percent were enjoying their independent trip and just 18 percent said they were with their friends and family. Large portion of visitors, 31 percent, were on their educational trip, trip to Cambridge University, ant 13 percent visitors were on business trip. How long they stay here? 13 percent said just for half day and 26 percent said for full day. 38 percent were living more than 2 days in Cambridge and 8 percent answered, not yet decided. In the question, what they do in Cambridge, 8 percent said enjoying boat tour and 18 percent said they are enjoying weather by walk. 36 percent said they are here for train trip and 31 percent said on road. 2 percent use to spend time by horse carriage trip.

What services they used in Cambridge? All visitors vote for sightseeing tour with 5 percent, local transportation with 20 percent, food and beverages with 31 percent, accommodation with 9 percent and 24 percent they consumed other facilities and services. Unique question, did they enjoy Cambridge? 92 percent, definitely, said yes. 8 percent respond with No, due to some reasons. Quality of services used, good response seen in Cambridge’s favour. 0 percent vote for low quality, 8 percent vote for fair and 39 percent visitors said quality of services was good in Cambridge. 20 percent said quality of service was very good and 8 percent vote for excellent. 25 percent give no answer to this question.

In the last, simple question were asked and that is will they visit Cambridge again? 58 percent, more than half of total visitors said yes of course they will surely visit. 28 percent said it depends on future conditions, they are not sure yet and 21 percent said you way, they are now finding new better place for tour.

With the help of questionnaire and other methods used in our research, Tourists’ motivation and experience towards Cambridge, different opinion collected from real visitors. Results showed that most of visitors are male, under 40 years age, students, employed and businessmen, and visiting Cambridge for more than 2 time and willing to revisit it again. Reasons behind these answers are somehow related to culture and nature of Cambridge. Cambridgeshire is famous for University initially and then city of technology. Students like to visit the university and more than 25,000 students are resident of Cambridge. University of Cambridge is included in world’s top five universities. That’s why major portion of visitors is consist of students in different area.

Cambridge city is also famous for technology. Software and bioscience are core industries operated in Cambridge and that’s the reason of business trips. All technology related organizations have offices and research centres in Cambridge. Meetings and convocations are being held in this city. Other reasons behind these results are games being held in Cambridge city. Cambridge city is famous for cricket, football, rugby, water sports and varsity sports. Varsity sports are sports play under Cambridge University against different universities and have lots of attractiveness for the visitors inside and outside the Cambridge city. Strawberry flavour music and art festival are also reason behind motivations for the visitors coming in Cambridge.

Questions about services used in Cambridge and quality of used services indicate that visitors like the way they enjoy in Cambridge and they liked food, transportation system and accommodations in Cambridge and they selected these services and facilities as a good quality services. This is also reason behind the motivation of being visited Cambridge again and again and some visitors visited Cambridge for more than 4 times due to facilities provided here. Cambridge skyline, Quayside, Silver Street, King’s Parade and Trinity Street, places famous for trips in Cambridge and different festivals and events are also reasons behind the tours and trips in Cambridge.

Conclusion

From the questionnaire, what we collect from the real visitors and tourists is data of our research and. Conclusion can be easily drawn through or finding as reasons are simple and logical behind the motivation for tourism in Cambridge. Visitors are most likely, students, businessmen, sports lovers, independents, willing to stay here for longer period because of verity of services provide and quality of services used. Primarily there are some reasons visitors used for motivation to visit Cambridge. Results shown that visitors from different area have same characteristics and main factor forcing behind motivation is age and occupation of sample visitors. Under 40 years are in large quantity visiting Cambridge and by occupation, students and businessmen are large art of tourist. People who are free also visit more Cambridge. University of Cambridge and industry of technology is main source of motivation for tourists. City of sports, festivals and events are also motivation for visitors and people who like picnic and visiting different places used these motivations for Cambridge.

Question asked from sample visitors, did they like trip in Cambridge, showed the density of likeness Cambridge and question, will they visit again, showed the attractiveness of tourists toward the Cambridge. Overall, research helped to indicate the source of motivations behind the visit to Cambridge. One finding is, friends and family tours are more preferable from the tourist because of nature and culture of Cambridge city. Results indicate that tourists are more willing to use this place again for their trips and visits. Due to technological city, business world compellingly need to have visit this place.

Recommendations

Cambridge city is a great place to visit for family tours, educational tours, sports and music lover. Cambridge is not place where you can find some historical places ad old thing. Cambridge is full of urban tourism and based on new beauty. As Cambridge city is famous for education and technology, government must take more steps to increase efficiency in these areas because people point of view about Cambridge is good and green. Events and festivals are another sources of motivation for tourists. Local authority should promote events in worldwide in order to increase the strength of visitors.

Varsity sports can be used as another main source of motivation for tourists because varsity sports are included large numbers of games and there is need to launch them as a regional festival. From the evaluation of people’s opinion, most of them said that beside the spots, technology and educational motivation, there is also need to motivate children for tourism. Creating attractiveness for children and young generation can be great source of tourism.

Improvement in facilities and supporting services can also help to increase the attractiveness of visitors. There is need to plan for vocations in order to grape more visitor’s time and money. With beginning of 20th century, economy was rapidly growing so managing Cambridge is quite easy in betterment of tourism. Use of different ideas in tourism plan, can influence in future. Entertainment companies can be used for attracting tourists.

The organisation we have chosen to study and write this essay about is Cadburys world and the key performance objectives we agreed together are cost, speed and quality. Cadbury’s world is a leading tourist destination in the U.K and boasts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Due to its high volume Cadbury’s world has to have set implementations to keep customers arriving at their doors each day. For example they have to produce new material to keep customers happy and for them to know that they are trying new things, also they have to regularly update their factory in which they do tours as people will not want to keep on seeing the same things and thus not wanting to return to the venue.

They have to focus on all of their performance objectives to gain maximum sales in tickets and to keep everyone happy whether this is staff or customers. Cost, speed and quality are three of the most important performance objectives, if one or more where not carefully planned or in order then the business will lose out on massive profit margins and could possibly fail as a business.

Quality is probably the most important factor to a tourism destination especially to a company like Cadbury’s world. It is pivotal as if people don’t feel as they have been treated in the way they thought they would be or feel that they did not get value for money then they will not be interested to return to the venue again. Also they will tell others about their bad experience and will try to avoid them to go so that they do not share the bad experience that they did. With quality being at high standards they have to train staff to perform in a certain way to impress the guests, this interlinks with cost as they will have to send staff on courses or hire a trainer in customer service. Both ways will cost more money to the business.

Quality makes customers have high standards, and a quote from Cadbury’s World about high standards says:

‘In a competitive business environment it is the quality of customer service that will enable an organisation to achieve commercial success. Customers expect high standards and it is important that employees are aware of their role in maintaining a high standard of customer care. This therefore supports the image of Cadbury World and enables the business to achieve its’ objectives.’ (Cadbury’s World, 2006 with high standards the business has to perform to its maximum day in day out to reach the level of customer service that they want.

Cost

Cadburys world have to rely on some factors like quality, speed and cost to keep competitive amongst other tourist destinations. Their cost has to be right because if it’s too little people will think it is not going to be much as its cheap where as if its high people will be put off as they might not be able to afford the day out, also the business at the end of the day has to make a profit out of the venue so has to put a price which will cover their costs of such things as employee’s wages, new machinery and updates to the attraction. If they don’t cover their costs of everything then they will have to cut back and the company will not be able to expand in the way it wants to.

Speed

The speed factor is vital as they have to keep up to high standards given by the management team to the company as a whole. If the company does not meet the speed factor set by managers then it will inevitable have a knock on effect to the business as if one objective is not complete then another cannot be started, if this happens it can cost the company a lot of money in the long run. Also speed affects the customers that are in the venue, for example there is not a large amount of room in each part of the factory thus the company needs to keep customers going through at regular intervals to ensure space is filled correctly, this will also ensure customers have a better experience as they will not be overcrowded once in the venue.

In a company like Cadbury’s word they have to set themselves high standards to gain maximum input from employees. A quote from Cadbury world supports this by saying:

Delivering superior business performance. In 2008 and 2009 we are hoping to increase our sales by another 5%’. (Cadbury’s World, 2009). This way people know what they have to do in their job to be successful and have a target that they have to try and reach.

These three topics (quality, speed and cost) all interlink with each other in many different ways and if one is affected then they all will be affected. However it could be argued that the two which interlink the most are cost and quality. This would occur in every business not just in Cadbury’s world. In Cadbury’s World they try to have the highest level of quality and obviously this cost a lot more to achieve this. But I believe it is the best way to be as they need to gain maximum customers to gain money to cover costs of running the factory. Selling their tickets at a reasonable price like they do is also extremely important as customers will feel they have had a really day out at a fantastic price and had great value for money.

There is a basic model that all organisations can use.

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A general model of operations management and operation strategy. Slack, Chambers and Johnston,(2007)

I am now going to discuss the operations strategy part of the model.

Capacity and facilities (size, timing, location)

Cadbury world is in an ideal location; situated in Bournville, Birmingham it has several motorway connections such as the M5 and the M42. Cadbury World is a fifteen minute walk from Bournville train Station and there are several bus stops just outside the main entrance. It’s fully signposted and all you need to do is follow the Cadbury World fingerposts and wall-signs that direct you through the grounds. Because Cadbury world is located just off a canal you can also get to it by barge which you leave just behind the building. The nearest airport is Birmingham international which is about 30 minutes away by taxi. Cadbury aims itself to be an educational attraction so their opening times are vaguely structured around school times. They have different opening and closing times each month. January they are generally closed apart from 4 days at the end of the month. The earliest they open is 9am and the latest they close is 5pm. This could be a problem attracting families in the week as some parents may be at work during the opening times. Cadbury world is home to the biggest Cadbury shop in the world, and a cafe. There are 11 different exhibitions to visit as well as a play area, a tasting area and a ride that tells you a story as you go around. As it is an indoor attraction there is a limit on how many people they can have in there at any one time. In 2011, a record breaking 590,000 people visited Cadbury world. The cost strategy comes into capacity as if they are running the attraction at full capacity they are going to be making a good profit although quality and speed could suffer as there will be more queues and staff may let quality slip as they will try to reduce queues. On the other hand, if Cadbury world is running at a low capacity they will not be making much profit and will paying staff when maybe they are not needed but speed and quality will be improved as there will be less queues and staff won’t be as busy so can take more time to concentrate to improve quality.

Job design

In any organisation there are several different jobs which all need different designs. At Cadbury world there are a lot of different jobs available some are on the production line which means they actually make the products, cafe jobs, jobs in the shop, customer service jobs, meters and greeters, managerial jobs etc. To be able to design a job companies need to look at their performance objectives.

As discussed earlier, the basic performance objectives are;

Quality

Speed

Dependability

Flexibility

Cost

Although all of the performance objectives are important in Job design we thought that there were 3 main performance objectives for Cadbury World.

Quality

Speed

Cost

We chose these as the quality of service and product needs to be the best it can all the time, we chose speed because it is an indoor attraction so if speed wasn’t an issue queues would be too big and people would leave and we chose cost as it is very important to an attraction especially if there primary focus is as a product.

As well as looking at the performance objectives they also need to look at health and safety, the quality of working life and job division.

Quality- The ability of staff to produce high-quality products and services can be affected by job design. This includes avoiding errors in the short term, but also includes designing jobs which encourage staff to improve the job itself in such a way as to make errors less likely.

Speed- Sometimes speed is the dominant objective to be achieved in job design. The job needs to be done at a quick speed but not too quick that it jeopardises quality which in turn could affect cost if chocolate is wasted. If too slow customers could leave the queue once again affecting cost as they would lose money.
Cost- All the elements of job design will have an effect on productivity, and therefore the cost, of the job. Productivity in this context means the ratio of output to labour input: for example, the number of customers served per hour. This is when rate of pay will have to be decided depending how business is doing compared to how many staff are employed.

Health and safety- Job design must not endanger the well-being of the employee, other staff of the operation, the customers who are visiting Cadbury world, or customers that have brought any products made by Cadbury.

Quality of working life- The design of any job should also consider job security as people may not want to work there if it only temporary or seasonal, intrinsic interest, variety, opportunities for development for example do they hire internally for manager positions, how stressful the job is or can be and the attitude of the staff.

Motivation is important in organisations, if people are not happy in their job and no longer feel motivated. Quality will suffer having negative effects on cost and speed. Most companies have job enrichment opportunities , promotion opportunities and reward systems.

Hackman and Oldham designed a job design model to make the design process easier. (see appendix 1.)

Process design

Design must reflect the needs of customers, applies to all of Cadburys products, services and processes and starts with a concept and ends with the final design.

Quality – Cadbury world is a high volume-low variety attraction so quality is exclusively concerned with error-free service so they need to make sure all exhibitions are working correctly. Although on a larger scale, Cadbury is primarily product focused so we can assume on the whole it is a low volume-high variety process.

Speed – As Cadbury world is an indoor attraction with limited capacity some wait is expected in some exhibitions, although an instant delivery in some high volume-low variety operations is expected. But when talking about Cadbury as a product speed would mean an individually negotiated delivery time in low volume-high variety operations.

Cost – The unit cost for Cadbury world will once again differ from Cadbury’s products. The cost varies with both the volume of output of the operation and the variety of products or services it produces. High-volume operations like Cadburys world usually offer the same services. Cost per unit of output is therefore usually quite low like Cadburys world. Furthermore, Cost is relatively constant in high volume- low variety organisations. Whereas, Cadburys have a lot of products which means that running the operation will be expensive because of the flexible and high skill levels employed.

References

Cadbury World (2012) Cadbury World [Online] Available from: http://www.cadbury.co.uk/ [Accessed: 19/12/2012]

Mondelez international (2012) Mondelez international [Online] Available from: http://www.mondelezinternational.com/home/index.aspx [Accessed: 19/12/2012]

Slack, N. Chambers, S. And Johnston, R. (2007) Operations management. 5th edition. New York: Pearson publishing.

IN-FLIGHT MODULE

Cabin crew is primarily aboard an aircraft for the safety and welfare of the passengers and for their comfort. If there were no services of food or drink during a flight, there would still have to be a minimum presence of cabin crew for safety, which is a legal requirement. (essence-learning.com, 2014)

The role can be physically and emotionally demanding. Cabin crew are expected to deal with all passengers diplomatically, even when feeling the effects of travelling through time zones and spending extended periods of time on their feet. (targetjobs, 2014)

Some of these roles include supplying passengers with newspapers, magazines and in-flight amusement, checking the state and provision of emergency equipment and information for passengers, demonstrating emergency equipment and safety procedures administering first aid and dealing with emergencies, greeting passengers as they board and exit the plane, showing passengers to their seats and providing special attention to certain passengers, such as the elderly or disabled and producing written flight reports after completing a journey. (targetjobs, 2014)

As cabin crew, their responsibilities are to greet the passengers as they board the aircraft, direct them to their seats and ensure that the entire luggage is safety stored away in the overhead cabins. Once all the passengers are on board then the cabin crew demonstrate the emergency procedures whilst the plane is preparing for takeoff. During a flight thecrew membersassist passengers, make calls on behalf of the captain, serve food, drinks and sell duty free goods. (essence-learning.com, 2014)

In case of emergencies, cabin crews are there to reassure passengers so that they follow the correct emergency procedures. The crew may have to deal with several emergencies such as cabin fires or first aid situations. At the end of a flight cabincrew membersare there to make sure that passengers disembark the aircraft safely. Thecrew membersare then asked to complete a written report that records all details of the flight. (Essence-Learning.com, 2014)

Cabin crew also make periodic announcements to passengers about flight conditions and arrival times. They also make sure that passengers with special needs are cared for in an appropriate manner. (anon, 2014)

The chain of command on any aircraft is;

Captain
First officer
Cabin Manager
Flight Attendant

The overall responsibility for the safe operation of an aircraft and the safety of its passengers lies with the Captain, but you as operating crew are responsible to the Captain in being capable through your flight attendant training to be able to fulfill your safety responsibilities. (flight-attendant-careers.com, 2014)

Within the cabin crew job market, airlines employ a vast number of people into cabin crew support roles. These support positions provide a great way to gain cabin crew experience, and learn about how the airline industry works. (cabincrew.com, 2014)

Many airport-based ground staff performs these support roles. Jobs in the industry which fall into the category of cabin crew support include crew planning, crew control, human resources and crew training. There is a great deal of planning and scheduling work that goes into flights, so administration staff will be on hand to assist at pre-flight briefings, ensuring air cabin crew are being correctly assigned their working positions, and understand any changes to how the flight will be managed. (cabincrew.com, 2014)

Airlines frequently use codes in the form of abbreviated words or letters. This list covers some of the most frequently used words. The following computer codes are used in messages from airlines:

CHNT – Change Name To

ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival

FLTFO – Flight Info

HTL – Hotel

MCO – Miscellaneous Charge Order

NOSH – No show

OW – One-way

PNR – Passenger Name Record

RCFM – Reconfirm

SPAV – Space Available

SSR – Special Service Request

TKT – Ticket

WCHR – Wheel Chair

FLY – Finley in Australia

EVE – Evenes in Norway

TOY – Toyama in Japan

DAY – Dayton in Ohio, United States

NYC – New York City

AVML – Asian Vegetarian Meal

BBML – Infant/ Baby Food

CHML – Child Meal

DBML – Diabetic Meal

FPML – Fruit Platter Meal

SFML – Seafood Meal

Types of duties cabin crew may have to undertake cabin crew seat and working position; roster duty example stand-by duty.

There are two types of standby, Home reserve and Airport reserve.

Home reserve means that you are on standby at home ready to take a call on your mobile phone or landline from flight scheduling that may assign you a flight or upgrade your status to field reserve.

Field Reserve on the other hand, means that you are on standby but in the flight operations building at the airport with your flight handbag, trolley and suitcase, ready to be assigned any flight that needs to be covered.

Duties before the pre-flight briefing include, checking roster and updates, check health, safety and security notices, check flight details (crew names, crew positions, departure gate, and aircraft registration. Importance of time keeping prior to a pre-flight briefing: to be prepared; consequences of late arrival example cabin crew offloaded from other flights, late departure of aircraft, disciplinary action. (anon, 2014)

Elements of a pre-flight briefing include introduction to the crew, operating positions and responsibilities, uniform standards checked, aircraft information, health, safety and security memos, updates and notices read and understood, order of bar, meal and duty-free service and Safety and Emergency Procedures (SEP) scenario questions. (anon, 2014)

Elements of post-flight briefing include reconciliation paperwork for bars and monies handed in, flight paperwork completed and filed example cabin defects reported and flight evaluation. (anon, 2014)

Receive and relay safety equipment and procedures (SEP) during a pre-flight briefing include respond to Safety and Emergency Procedures (SEP) scenario questions example safety, security, in-flight medical care, location of emergency equipment, respond in a timely manner, with composure and professional attitude. (anon, 2014)

Complete documentation relating to a pre-flight briefing in readiness for the flight include flight detail form (crew names and signatures, rest and duty hour, number of crew bags, equipment and security checks completed), toilet servicing form. (anon, 2014)

The importance of timekeeping includes, being prepared, consequences of late arrival example offloading of crew, late departure of aircraft.

Personal presentation: on and off duty and during stopovers, uniform standards, dress code for training and stopovers, adhering to grooming standards, professionalism, personal appearance, importance example creating a positive organizational image, maintaining organizational standards. (anon, 2014)

Importance of task management and prioritization of tasks include routine and non-routine tasks, prioritize tasks in order of importance, and prioritize tasks in order of legal and regulatory requirements. (anon, 2014)

Customer relationship management: following company procedures and industry standards; providing excellent customer service; ensuring passenger welfare; importance example to keep customers, to reward loyal customers, to attract new customers. (anon, 2014)

References

http://www.flight-attendant-careers.com/flight-attendant-training.html

http://www.essence-learning.com/blog/duties-and-responsibilities-of-a-cabin-crew

http://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/job-descriptions/277171-airline-cabin-crew-job-description

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/airport_code.htm

http://www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/BTEC%20Specialist%20Qualifications/BA025387-BTEC-L2-Introduction-to-Cabin-Crew-spec.pdf

Tourism if often referred as the worlds largest industry and regarded as a means of achieving community development Sharpley, 2002. According to the World Tourism Organisation (2009), tourism is one of the world’s fastest growing industry and one of the global engines of development. One of the most popular topics of tourism is tourism impact studies toward the community. The understanding of community’s perceptions on tourism impacts is important (Ap.1992). A main reason for the rising interest has been the increasing evidence that tourism can both positive and negative impacts on local communities involved (Lankfort & Howard, 1994). Different perception from different residents can provide insight into the nature and degree of tourism impacts towards the respective tourist destination. The community perceptions on tourism impacts are likely to be an important planning for successful community development (Ko & Stewart, 2002).

The social conflict theories see society as providing a setting that generates conflicts and change. In fact, this approach emphasizes on equality and look at the extent to which such factors as race, ethnicity, gender and age are linked to unequal distribution of money, power, education and social prestige. (Macionis,2000). Equation involved a number of cases where communities are engaged in struggles with tourism developments. Social change forced by challenges of tourism can be negative as well as positive. Indeed the positive example described above went through set-backs and conflicts as part of the process. However, in several cases, increased conflict is more than a temporary blip. Conflict has arisen both within and between communities.

2.1 Doxey’s Irridex Model

In 1975, Doxey devised a theoretical model which has come to be considered as one of the most important contribution to tourism literature. In this model, Doxey states that an increase in the numbers of tourists and a more developed tourism industry at the destination results in irritation in the host community. In other words, this can lead to incompatibility of the host and the guest. This irritation can take the form of unfriendly behavior personified as resentment from the local community towards tourism. In this case the perception of the residents varies from ‘euphoria’ (a feeling of happiness or comfort) to ‘apathy’ when locals start losing interest in tourism; to ‘annoyance’ after the numbers of tourist and the unfavourable impacts have increased; and finally ‘antagonism’ (a generation of hostile reaction against tourism) (Cordero 2008).

Moreover there are cases where tourism developments have been initiated by an individual resident, or an outsider has sought to form an alliance with one or two locals, so stimulating internal community conflict. The impact of changes in social capital on sustainable livelihoods is hard to assess. But there is no doubt that particularly in such arid and relatively isolated areas, a household’s membership of the community, and the organization strength of that community, influence their livelihoods. Rural households need effectively functioning community institution to manage and mediate relations between households, and the land, natural resources, social networks and informal markets on which they all depend, and represent the community’s interest to others.

2.2 Butler’s Tourism Destination Lifecycle Model

According to Cordero (2008), although Butler’s Tourism Destination Lifecycle Model (2006) suggests that every tourist destination experience similar stages of development: “exploration involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, decline and/or rejuvenation”.

Figure 1: Butler’s Tourism Destination Lifecycle Model (Source: Butler 1980)

The first stage in the destination lifecycle starts with small numbers of tourists who visit the area gradually due to limitation such as accessibility to the area. The numbers of tourists increase rapidly as development assume several forms depending on such factors as the availability of information, marketing activities in the area and the existence of various services and facilities. The numbers of tourists then start to decline because of the destination reaching its full carrying capacity. Butler’s model has been supported by scholars such as Akis (1996), it has been contradicted by others such as Dyer (2007). Both Butler’s Destination Lifecycle Model and Doxey’s Irridex Model are limited by their unidirectional conceptualizations.

2.3 Ap’s Model For Understanding Residents’ Reactions

According to Eagly (1993), attitude is defined as a “emotional tendency that is articulated by evaluating a particular entity with some degrees of favor or disfavor”. Development stages here are described as “embracement, tolerance, adjustment and finally withdrawal” (Ap 1993). Similar to Doxey’s and Butler’s models, this model describes the way in which tourism development affects local people’s attitudes towards tourism. Embracement takes place when local people, especially those who benefit from tourism, accept it and feel positively about its impacts. In the tolerance stage, local people start feeling more of the impact of tourism. They become divided between being for or against tourism. Depending on the degree of their involvement in tourism, some of them adjust as per the adjustment stage while others do not. Finally, withdrawal takes place when local people can no longer cope with the impact of tourism and so their negative perceptions take over.

2.4 Social Exchange Theory

Social exchange theory (SET), used here, suggests that residents are likely to support tourism as long as the perceived benefits exceed the perceived costs. SET is based on the principle that human beings are reward-seeking and punishment avoiding and that people are motivated to action by the expectation of profits (Skidmore, 1975). SET assumes that social relations involve exchange of resources among groups seeking mutual benefits from exchange relationships.

There are a number of factors influencing resident’s attitudes towards tourism development related to its social, cultural, and environmental implications that have been examined using social exchange theory. SET is concerned with understanding the exchange of resources between parties in an interaction situation where the objects offered for exchange have value, are measurable, and there is mutual dispensation of rewards and costs between actors (Ap, 1992; Madrigal,1995).

From a tourism perspective, SET postulates that an individual’s attitudes towards this industry, and subsequent level of support for its development, will be prejudiced by his or her valuation of resulting outcomes in the community. Exchanges must occur to have tourism in a community. Residents must develop and promote it, and then serve the needs of the tourists. Some community residents reap the benefits, while others may be negatively impacted. Social exchange theory suggests people estimate an exchange based on the expenses and profit incurred as a result of that exchange. An individual that perceives benefits from an exchange is likely to evaluate it positively; one that perceives costs is likely to evaluate it negatively. Thus, residents perceiving their benefiting from tourism are likely to view it positively, and visa versa. Overall, we may conclude that residents are likely to participate in an exchange if they believe that they are likely to gain benefits without incurring unacceptable costs. If locals perceive that the benefits are greater than the costs, they are inclined to be involved in the exchange and, thus endorse future development in their community.

2.5 Aspects of Conflict

Thus, by rejecting the fact that society functions to promote solidarity and social consensus, conflict theorists put forward that society is about competition for scarce resources. This competition is reflected in the social institutions themselves and allows some people and organisations to have more resources and maintain their power and influence in society. Also, residents may experience a sense of elimination and isolation over planning and development concerns of the village and they may even undergo a loss of control over the community future as ‘outsiders’ take over establishment and new development. Hotels built in massive quantity or restaurants with standardized franchise designs might collide with local standards and disrupt the aesthetic appearance of the community, harm the unique community character, and spread equality.

Moreover, as the tourism industry has expanded, there have been an increasing number of incidents whereby local people are denied their traditional rights of use to beaches, land and sea. The locals often claim that they are chased away from their lands and are denied their exclusive rights to use the beach, land and sea. The farmers are forced to move away from their original farms as soon as the area is earmarked for tourism development.

2.6 Tourism and Sustainability

Sustainability, for tourism comprises of three interconnected aspects: Socio Cultural, Economical and Environmental. Sustainability implies permanence, so sustainable tourism include optimum use of resources, including biological diversity; minimization of ecological, cultural and social impacts, and maximization of benefits to conservation and local communities.

However, the promotion of tourism development in many contexts often takes place without balancing short term economic but in fact priorities with longer-term environmental and socio cultural objectives. The tourism development study repeated emphasizes the importance of people’s participation through power sharing, social cohesion and knowledge enhancement (Prentice, 1993; Frumn, 1998; Timothy, 1999; Tosun, 2000; Mitchell and Reid, 2001).

Thus the justification of this study was to probe the different type of conflicts and consequences arising from tourism in the village of Belle Mare. Tourism’s socio cultural, economical and environmental impacts are example, from the perspective of the “host” community, of the problem caused by tourists.

2.7 Socio-Cultural Impacts of tourism

Social Impact tends to consist change occurring in the everyday life of the society and the adaptation to the existence and operation of the tourism sector. Socio-cultural transformations engendered by tourism on host communities include changes in traditional lifestyle, value systems, family relationships, individual behaviour and community structure (Ratz 2000). Social Impacts are transitory changes with cultural impact tend to take place in the long term (Teo 1994). Substantiation from numerous assessments of tourism impact reveals that tourism activity and development have both positive and negative impacts on local communities and their cultures. In simple term, Wolf (1977:3) states that Socio Cultural impacts are “People Impacts”; they refer to the positive and negative effects on the Host population of their direct and indirect association with tourist. An extensive interest emerged as early as 1970’s in the mechanism providing significant changes in the human environment leading to either an ameliorations or deteriorations in the quality of life of the local population

Socio-cultural impacts relay to changes in societal value systems, individual behavior, social relationships, lifestyle, mode of expression and community structures. The focus of socio-cultural impacts tends to be on the host community, i.e., the people who reside in tourist destinations, rather than the tourist-generating region. Mathieson and Wall (1982), state that socio-cultural impacts are the effect on the people of host communities, of their direct and indirect associations with tourists.

The socio-cultural impacts of tourism can be both positive and negative (Swarbrooke 1999). He argues that the negative or positive impacts are determined in accordance with factors such as the structure of the local community and its own culture, the facilities subsidized by the public sector to reduce the negative impacts, the nature of tourism at the destination and the degree of socio-economic development. Thus the perception of impacts can differ by factors such as community attachment, dependency on tourism, age, gender and education. With regard to community attachment, most studies have accomplished that the longer, a host has been resident in the area, the less they like tourism that is they are less ‘attached” to tourism (Jurowski 1997, Weaver 2001, McGehee and Andereck 2004)

It has been found that there are many researched conducted in the field of socio-cultural impacts, with conclusion being divides into the following categories: the negative consequences (Dogan 1989), the positive consequences (Brunt 1999) and no real social impacts (Liu 1986). Various studies assert that tourism can make both positive contribution to the sustainability of local communities particularly by increasing levels of economic welfare and well being. But at the same time it can interact with the common activities of the local communities which is potentially harmful. In general, residents appeared to be strong agreement that tourism brings both positive and negative impacts. But at the same time the overall positive attitude towards the social impacts is not surprising and can be explained by social exchange theory which assumes that potential beneficial outcomes will create positive attitudes towards tourism (Jurowski and Gursoy 2004). Similar findings were reported by Lankford et al (2003) who found that residents’ attitudes will be positive if they can use tourism resources or else it would become a trouble for them.

2.7.1 Positive Cultural Impacts of Tourism

Throughout history, culture is a significant motivator in arousing Man’s curiosity to travel from one country to another. Tourists want to appreciate the uniqueness of aspects of culture of various sections of our heterogeneous population. However, in the very broadest sense, culture can be understood as the whole way of life that is vital for the survival of a specific group or people living in a specific society. Thus, culture can be the dominant values that give direction for the day-to-day activities of people in society, comprising of the symbolic values and beliefs, intellectual and artistic achievements, traditions and rituals as well as the dominant patterns of living.

Arts and Handicrafts

From one side of the coin, tourism contributes in the conservation of Archeological and Historical sites, Arts and Handicrafts, Customer and Traditions in our country. Special mention should be made to Arts and Handicrafts for tourism in Mauritius as it has paved the way for the success of this particular sector. Every year the arts and Handicrafts sector produce a variety of ‘souvenirs’, higher-quality carvings, and hand made Artefacts to satisfy the demands of our foreign visitors. In order to attract more tourists, architectural and historical sites are restored and protected (Inskeep, 1991; Liu and Var 1986).

Souvenir is perceived as authentic reminders of a particular place are powerful signifiers of ideological meaning. It can be used as reminder of a particular place, as a symbols of certain cultures and religions and also as a reflex of social processes, interest and power relations. In certain societies the souvenir is important, not only as a cultural artifact but also as an analytic tool for understanding complex social processes.

Culture Expression

Tourism is the edge for cultural exchange, facilitating the communication between residents and visitors (domestic and international). Economic benefits aside, outside contacts draws awareness to the host community. People want to interact with other culture, learn about traditions and even confront themselves with new perspectives on life and society. Tourism has brought villagers into closer contact with the outside world; residents come into contact with ideas of the wider world, partly by talking with tourists. Tourism also helps to encourage interest in, and conserve aspects of, the host’s cultural heritage, which contribute for additional income for the destination as well as for the individuals and local business. Moreover, many people of different cultures come together by means of tourism facilitating the exchange of cultures (Brayley et al, 1990).

Tourism is normally an experience driven industry, and local culture is a sole experience, more so local personality, hospitality and food than “built attractions”. The more one knows and learns about a destination or its culture the more fulfilling the experience will be. Tourism can also help to promote a sense of community pride when they visit a specific location for a reason. However, community pride is generally related to economic prosperity with prosperous community more likely to take pride in their district. Well-presented towns and well-maintained facilities help visitors to feel welcome and can contribute to community pride, as Belle-Mare is one among them.

2.7.2 Negative Cultural Impacts

Negative socio cultural impacts are sometime the result of direct contact and the demonstration effect and these can distort the traditional behavior and customs. Tourism has also been criticized because it creates anxiety and can be a source of inter-generational stress. There are also other instances where cultural tourism has resulted in the commercialization of customs and traditional ceremonies. Tourism may also be related to increased crime, drug, prostitution and aids beyond a certain volume it can be a source of antagonism (Doxey, 1975). As stated by McNaughton (2006), tourism has the potential to create inequality and social tension. Sing-Cheong (2007) state that the tourism industry and globalizations are crossing borders between nations and cultures, resulting in many socio-cultural consequences.

Trivialization

It refers to the conversion of aspects of culture into a commercialized form of entertainment for tourist. A very famous example of trivialization refers to the sega in Mauritius.

The sega is mostly from the African music of the old slave days. It was being sung by the slaves to lament their loss of freedom and removal from their homes or loved one. Today the sega is a commercialized form of entertainment performed in a “polished style” by professional troupes in Hotels and Restaurants. The traditional musical instrument – The Maravanne, The Ravanne, The tambourine, and The Triangle have been replaced by sophisticated contemporary influences and instruments with a view to develop culture. The sega has lost its natural beauty, they turned out to arouse the inner feelings of the tourists.

Religion

The World Tourism Organization recognizes religion as significant motivator in arousing Man’s interest to visit religious sites of country to country. Holy places such as, Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina are famous religious visiting sites of the world. In Mauritius the Grand Bassin sacred lake remains a famous visiting site for tourist. It is essential to organize marketing campaigns so as to raise awareness of other religious sites such as la Cathedrale Saint Louis, Le Temple Kaliamen (Kalaysson), La Jummah Mosquee, Le Marie Reine De La Paix and Le tombeau De Pere Laval in Mauritius. To recall tourists in Mauritius are free to visit any religious shrines – provided they are dressed properly i.e mo shorts, no mini skirts, removal of shoes at the temple and mosques are expected code of behaviour for visitors.

Tourist Behaviour

Tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values, when they take a quick snap shot of the labourer or fisherman without asking their permission. When they do so, they can bring about irritation and stereotyping and can also invade the local peoples’ lives.

Crime, Prostitution and Sex Tourism

The relationship between tourism and crime is hard to ascertain. But crime rates naturally increase with the growth and urbanization of an area, and growth of mass tourism is often accompanied by increased crime. The existence of large number of tourists with lots of money to spend, increases the attraction for criminals and brings with it activities like robbery and drug dealing. The commercial sexual exploitation of children and young women has paralleled the growth of tourism. Belle-Mare has become a victim of this act as apartments are being rent on a timely basis. There are as well sources of contact, prostitutes and pimps are commonly citied as sources of aids in Mauritius. Though tourism is not the cause of sexual exploitation, it provides easy access to it.

The Demonstration

The main impacts of the tourist host relationship are the demonstration effect, when the host behaviour is modified in order to imitate tourists (Duffield and Long 1981; Crandall 1987; Pearce 1989). Youth are particular susceptible to demonstration effect particularly in term of changing dress behaviour, spending extravagantly on consumption and so on. As such tourist host interaction constitutes only one factor for change in attitudes, values or behaviour. There are as well other significant agents of demonstration effects such as radio, internet, print media, increased traveling, television and videos.

Access to Beach

Though Mauritius has a number of potential inland attractions, beach visitation remains a popular leisure activity of Mauritians. The rapid expansion of hotels and campement along the coastline has snatched away the rights of the citizens to walk freely or enjoy the attractiveness of their beaches. These are subtle mechanisms at work to deter locals to access quality of the beach. The residents are as such not against tourist but rather against the restriction. The local people express a feeling of fear and frustration as more hotel and campement construction will impinge further Right of Future Generation.

2.8 Economic Impacts of tourism

Tourism was encouraged first because of its economic impacts. Tourism is an engine for generating a range of new private and public income opportunities. The most immediate and direct benefit of tourism development is the creation of jobs and the opportunity for people to increase their income and standard of living in local communities. Hence local communities turn to tourism as a means of raising income, increase employment and living standards (Akis et al., 1996). These impacts are observable as tourists interact with the local economy, and community. Hence, it is apt to consider the impact of tourism under the heading of economic impacts. The economic impacts of tourism are the most widely researched impacts of tourism community (Mason, 2003). Economic impacts are easier to research in local community because it is small and generally easier to assess. The impact can either be positive, beneficial, or negative and detrimental to local community. Tourism can have positive economic effects on local economies, and are visible impact on national GDP growth. It could also an essential component for both community development and poverty reduction (Ashe, 2005). The economic impacts of tourism are therefore, generally perceived positively by the residents (Tatoglu et al., 2000).

Economic impacts are one of the most researched areas of tourism. As Pearce (1989) put out:

“Studies of the impact of tourist development on a destination or destinations have been the largest single element of tourism research

aˆ¦aˆ¦much of this is predominantly the work of economists and has concentrated on the effects of income and employment.”

Tourism has many linkages with other economic sectors, and if incorporated into national development plans with sufficient provisions for inter sectoral linkages, it can contribute to the growth of all tourism-related activities in all of the major economic sectors – agriculture, including fishing, manufacturing and services, including transportation. Hence economic impacts are associated to and cannot be easily alienated from other types of impacts. All economic developments pertaining to tourism have effects on the society, economy and the environment.

2.8.1 Positive Economic Impacts of Tourism

Tourism has been a landmark in the development of Mauritian economy. Our country has passed through several distinct phases and in the process, has successfully diversified from a Monocrop culture highly dependent on the Export of sugar into Manufacturing, Tourism and Financial sector.

Contribution to GDP

The National income or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the most important measures of the pecuniary consequences of Tourism. As the largest component of tourism industry, hotels and restaurants, inevitably reflects a fair idea of overall tourism contribution on the economy. Data from the Bank of Mauritius indicate that gross tourism receipts for the first nine months of 2010 were Rs 28,167 million, i.e. an increase of 9.7% compared to Rs 25,685 million for the same period of 2009, (Table 1).

Increase Opportunities for Shopping

Another argument for the growth of tourism industry is that it gives local people the opportunity for more shopping. This is so because with the development of tourism, there are more and more shopping centers, supermarket, shops, restaurants and many other business units which are setting up in Belle Mare, as providing them with first class services for both the local as well for the foreigners.

Tourism As An Employer

Tourism as a highly labour intensive service industry offers a wide range of Direct Employment and Indirect Employment. With the setting up of different hotels, restaurants, bungalows, shopping centers, supermarkets and many other businesses in Belle Mare, have help to curb the unemployment problem. According to the survey of Employment and Earnings conducted by the Central Statistics Office, direct employment in hotels, restaurants and travel and tourism establishments employing 10 persons or more stood at 27,161 at the end of March 2010 showing an increase of 0.6% over the figure of 27,002 for March 2009. Of this number, 20,847 or 76.8% were engaged in hotel, (Table 2).

Improve Transport, Infrastructures and Public Utilities

The development or improvement of infrastructure constitutes an essential economic impact of tourism development in Mauritius. Urbanisation caused by rapid development of tourism might improve governmental and local services such as police, fire and security (MIlman and Pizam 1988). In addition the variety of social entertainment and recreational activities may increase in such areas. Usually the gains from infrastructural investment leads to good electricity and water network supply, improvements of roads networks and modernization of Airport are widely shared by other economic sector, tourist and hosts of the country

2.8.2 Negative Economic Impacts

According to Schianetz, Kavanagh and Lockington (2007), while tourism provides financial benefits, it can also generate negative effects in other areas. An impact of tourism is generally evaluated negatively, it is concern for the welfare of the community as a whole and cooperation among its citizens is decreased markedly as tourism increases and incomes rise.

The Land Market

The very expansion of tourism development has increased land values especially in some coastal tourist village. Increasing demand for accommodation, especially in tourism seasons, might push up the rents as well as the land prices for building new houses and hotels (Pizam 1978; Var et al, 1985). For example, lands for residential development in Belle-Mare were sold in 1987 at an average price of hundreds per square meter but in 2010 the land valued is within millions per square meter. Tourism is yet only one factor for escalation of land values-speculative attitudes have been endangered by the increasing influence of the host population and by a realization that land is a scarce resource in small island Mauritius are potential significant factors to take into consideration.

Inflationary Pressures

Tourism is a contributor to inflation by preempting supplies, leading to higher prices of consumer items especially fresh fruits and vegetables, and fresh fish in tourist zone. Even Liu and Var (1986) argue that the price of goods and services might go up with the increased demand from foreign customers. A vivid example of this situation is Belle-Mare where random price checks show that consumer items are up to 30% higher in the coastal region than in other village. Resident argues “Belle-Mare” has become very expensive, with the same price charged to resident and tourist alike. There exist a feeling of frustration among residents of tourist zone who felt deprive of some consumer items. Tourism make upon only one factor of inflationary pressure is the unavailability of items in Mauritius.

Important goods

There are other short-term economic costs that may result from tourism. If tourism development is heavily reliant on imported goods and services, there is a risk that existing local production may be hit adversely. This effect can be particularly significant if demonstration effect results in the local population copying tourists and increasing their consumption of imported goods and services rather than domestically produced ones.

Infrastructure Cost

Tourism development can cost the local government and local taxpayers a great deal of money. Developers may want the government to improve the airport, roads and other infrastructure, and other financial advantage, which are costly activities for the government. Public resources spent on subsidized infrastructure may reduce government investment in other artificial areas such as education and health

2.9 Environment Impact in Tourism

The environment is being increasingly recognized as a key factor in the tourism sector. In the last decade of the twentieth century, it has been noted that tourism depends ultimately upon the environment, as it is a major tourism attraction itself, or in the context in which tourism activity take place (Holden, 2000). Tourism and the environment are directly linked since the idea of tourism is based completely on man’s desire to get out and experience nature.

The term environment is often assumed to be only the physical or natural features of a landscape but according to swarbrooke, 1999, there are five aspect of the environment, namely, the natural environment, wildlife, the farmed environment, the built environment and natural resources. Among these, each component are linked together.

If tourism is not well planned it can result in the following consequences for the environment:

Land Resources

Since there is a rapid development in the tourism sector, there is a high use of land resources to cater for the demand of recreational facilities as well as construction of tourism accommodation and other infrastructure and consequently the natural landscape is threatened through deforestation.

Sewage and Littering

The construction of hotels, recreation and other facilities often leads to increase sewage and littering. Waste water has polluted seas and rivers surrounding tourist attractions, damaging the flora and fauna. There is also wide use of toxic pesticides on the beaches to control sand files and other pests. The chemical ends up in the sea in a very short time, thus sewage and littering can degrade the physical appearance of the water and cause the death of marine animals.

Pollution

Infrastructure is a broad concept linked to every facet of the economy and human life. Accordingly, the list of associated issues is long. For any purposeful analysis of issues in infrastructure development to lead to an action-oriented way forward, it is necessary to narrow down the definition of infrastructure and associated issues. The term infrastructure has been used since 1927 to refer collectively to the roads, bridges, rail lines and similar public works that are required for an industrial economy to function. Transportation, communication, sewage, water and electric systems are all a part of infrastructure. These systems tend to be high-cost investments. In general, infrastructure is location-specific and cannot be moved from place to place (www.unescap.org).

Transportation infrastructure cannot operate without transportation and transportation cannot run without transportation infrastructure. Different transportations have their own infrastructure to support each other. For air transportation, their infrastructure will be the airport. Port will be the infrastructure for water transportation while infrastructure for land transportation such as public bus will be the bus terminal or bus stop.

Transport infrastructure development in East and South-East Asia has played a key part in the phenomenal growth of world trade. The infrastructure backbone for international trade has been the container shipping network and increasingly the airfreight network. World container port traffic, which expanded by 9.2 per cent to 266 million TEUs in 2003, is dominated by Asian countries. They accounted for 46 per cent of container ship operations, 62 per cent of container port throughput, and 83 per cent of container ship building. Twelve major South and East Asian exporters together account for half of the world’s containerized exports (www.unescap.org).

Bus terminal or known as bus stationA is one of the most important transportation infrastructure whereA busesA stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It may be intended as aA terminal or stationA for a number of routes or as a transfer station where the routes continue. It is larger than bus stop where bus stop is usually built at the road side for the bus to stop for a while but not to wait for passengers.

Tel Aviv’s new central bus station was officially inaugurated recently, after 26 years of off-and-on construction, legal and financial disputes (Encyclopedia.com). A majority of the Dan and Egged Tel Aviv-area buses are now based at the new station; 5,000 buses pass through the station daily, carrying some 150,000 passengers. The station is the largest bus station in the world, encompassing 197,600 square meters indoors, and 34,400 square meters outdoors (Encyclopedia.com). The largest underground bus station in Europe isA Kamppi CenterA ofA Helsinki,A FinlandA completed in 2006. The terminal cost 100 million Euro to complete and took 3 years to design and build. Today, the bus terminal, which covers 25,000 square meters, is the busiest bus terminal in Finland. Every day, the terminal has around 700 bus departures, transporting some 170,000 passengers (www.webcitation.org).

Since bus station play a vital role in strengthening the volume of traffic as well as in providing better services to the passenger, the bus service undertakings, specially in the public sector, should come up and encourage the emergence of the bus station management as an independent discipline in the field of traffic management. (Kulshrestha, 1993, p.9)

Penang, as most of us may already know, is one of Malaysia’s most popular destinations for travelers coming from the local or the international communities (Talk Malaysia 2010). One of the main reasons for Penang to have so many travelers coming and going out annually is partly because there are a lot of interesting places to visit in Penang. Most of the interesting places in Penang are located at mainly around Georgetown and Seberang Perai (www.talkmalaysia.com).

Therefore, transport infrastructure especially bus terminal or station in Georgetown play an important role in order to pick up and drop off passengers from a destination to another destination. This is because Penang has traffic problem, therefore public transport are used.

Komtar Bus Terminal is the hub of bus services in George Town. All the bus routes of Penang radiates from this terminal. To be exact, Komtar Bus Terminal is not a “terminal” proper, but rather a bus station, because buses do not actually start from here, but rather, from the Weld Quay Bus Terminal. Nevertheless, most people will know it by that name. At the Komtar Bus Terminal, you can catch buses going to the north, central, south and west parts of Penang Island, as well as some buses that go to the mainland. Among the bus companies that use the terminal includes Rapid Penang, Milan, Transit Link and KGN-Hin. The terminal is located along Lebuh Tek Soon, although buses approach it via Jalan Ria and they emerge from the terminal into Jalan Ria once more (www.penang-traveltips.com).

As a bus stop user, not satisfied with bus terminal in Georgetown. Some of the same complaint had been made by locals and tourists too. This is because they have the difficulties in determine which bus to ride in order to reach their destination. Therefore, this study is to find out what are the factors which make the tourists satisfied and not satisfied with the bus terminals in Penang. This study also includes, to identify the present condition of transport infrastructure, the cleanliness in the bus terminals and the safety and security in the bus terminals. From these factors, this study is able to conclude what are their expectations towards bus stop in order to let the government make improvement.

1.2 Statement of Problem

Transport and traffic management have always been a bone of contention for Penang. Many feel that rapid economic development has not been met with an equal amount of attention given to proper traffic management and planning. There are about 1.4 million vehicles (motorcycles, cars and other vehicles) for a population of about 1.4 million people in Penang. This is about double the number of vehicles in 1999 (Sympologic, 2008).

For the above reason, public transportation had played a very important role to reduce the traffic in Penang. But without a good infrastructure, public transportation will not be able to run smoothly. There are 2 main transport infrastructures for bus in Georgetown which are Komtar Bus Terminal and Weld Quay Bus Terminal. But, locals and tourists are not satisfied with the bus terminals in Georgetown. This is because there are no proper route information and bus timetable. It is difficult especially for tourists to identify which bus to ride in order to reach their destination. Tourists always have to ask the bus driver one by one to ask for the destination. This had slow down the traffic also. Besides, from the observation, the bus terminals are not well-maintained in term of cleanliness and safety.

1.3 Goal & Objectives

The goal of this research is to study tourists’ satisfactions and expectations towards bus terminals in Penang.

In order to achieve the above goal, there are some objectives need to be done.

To examine tourists’ satisfactions towards bus terminals
To examine tourists’ expectations towards the bus terminals
To examine the present condition of bus terminals
To identify the cleanliness in the bus terminals
To identify the safety and security in the bus terminals
1.4 Hypothesis

From the objectives above, the below are the hypotheses which had concluded:

Locals and tourists are not satisfied with the bus terminals.
Locals and tourists have high expectations on the bus terminals in term of cleanliness and security.
There is no proper route information or sign board in the bus terminals.
The bus terminals are not clean.
The bus terminals are not secure.
The above hypotheses are made based on my own experiences and observation.
Significance of the Study

This research is able to let the government and private sector to make improvement on the bus terminals in order to let them become truly efficient. From the questionnaires which will be distribute and collected, they able to tell us the satisfaction level and expectation of locals and tourists towards the bus terminals. From their expectation, the improvement can be made. For example by putting up the route information and sign board, locals and tourists able to know which bus to ride to reach their destination. Besides, clean the bus terminals daily so that locals and tourists will feel comfortable and assign more security to secure the bus terminals. When the improvements have made, the locals and tourists will have the chance to use better bus terminals. All these will make the business of the bus increase too.

1.6 Scopes and Limitations of the Study

The scopes for my research are Penangites and tourists in Penang. Penangites and tourists who are the user of bus terminals are targeted. 80% Penangites and 20% tourists are chosen to carry out this research. In order to complete this research, distribution of questionnaires will be made to these 2 groups of people mentioned above. Besides, observation in the bus terminals will be done by my own selves too.

The bus terminals in Georgetown which would like to research on are Komtar Bus Terminal and Weld Quay Bus Terminal. These are the two popular bus terminals in Georgetown which crowded by people every day. This is because these are the two main stops which the bus will pick and drop passenger.

There are also limitations for this research. The first limitation is resources. There is very few information on books, journals or articles about transportation infrastructure. The next limitation will be the time. Only 5 months to complete this research. Last but not least, the limitation is the manpower. I am the only one who doing this research.

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Transport and Tourism

Page (2005) said that transport act as one of the important that contributed to the international development of tourism.

According to Page (2007), the mode of transport can be one of the main motivations for the tourists to travel. He also said that in the growth of domestic and international tourism, transport is the most critical element in the promotion. He continued said that transport links the tourist from the origin area with the destination area. Therefore it enables the holidaymaker, business traveler and other categories of traveler to purchase the products and experience what they have purchased. He added that transport may be an attraction in its own right. Tourists who travel by road may use public transport or private transport to experience a variety of destinations.

2.2 Transport and Tourism in Penang, Malaysia

A combination of East and West, Penang continues to grow in modernity but at the same time holding its traditions and old charm. Recently, because of the harmony of multiracial in Penang and the heritage buildings which are well preserved, these make the Georgetown being accorded a listing as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. Penang, long regarded as the food capital of Malaysia, it also attracts tourists with its beautiful beaches and delicious cuisines (www.tourismpenang.net.my).

Transportation in Penang is convenient. You can travel in or out of Penang by the well-connected of road, rail, sea and air. Not only the air and train service is good in Penang but the seaways also offer good transportation. Ferry and seaports are there to create convenient to the people in Penang and Buttterworth. Penang ferry is provided by the Penang Ferry Service that connects George Town, Penang and Butterworth. There are four terminals, one on Penang Island (Swettenham Pier) and three on the mainland. Next, railway act as one of the transportation in Penang, but they are not popular due to their low speed. Besides, international flights are available in Penang International Airport which situated in the Bayan Lepas area of Penang, Malaysia (www.asiarooms.com).

Goh (2010) said that traffic jams in Penang especially the major roads including Jalan Burma, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Jalan Jelutong and Jalan Mesjid Negeria re common although the population is small. Outside the city, jams are found even in Bayan Lepas and Telok Kimbar. He added that although the Jelutong Express Way had provided some relief to Jalan Jelutong and Jalan Mesjid Negeri, but the costs to Penangnites have yet to be calculated, although the highway is touted to be “free”. He suggested that Penang should follow the example of Crutiba. Crutiba is a city where the people rely on buses to avoid traffic jam. Recently, Rapid Penang buses are introduced for those who do not have car or have chosen not to use their cars.

2.2 Public Transportation

Zegeer (2002) said that good public transportation is an important to the quality of a community as good roads. According Ramanathan and Parikh (1999, cited in Ramanathan, 2001; Banister and Berechman, 2001; Ramanathan and Parikh, 1999; Eisner, 1991), transport is a vital element for the modern society now and key to sustained economic growth.

But, Ortuzar and Willumsen (2001) argued that the world of transport still face many problems of the past such as congestion, pollution, accidents, financial deficits and so on. They continued said that these problems will not get away until the traffic management improved.

They continue said that the transport problems have spread widely in both industrialized and developing countries. According to them, fuel shortages which are temporarily not a problem, but the increase in road traffic and transport demand has resulted in congestion, delays, accidents and environmental problems well beyond what has been considered acceptable so far. These problems have not been controlled to roads and car traffic alone. They added that economic growth seems to have generated levels of demand exceeding the capacity of most transport facilities. They continue argued that these problems are not likely to disappear in the near future. They suggested that it is necessary to ensure that a major effort in improving most forms of transport, in urban and inter-urban contexts.

With respect to the quality of prices and services, transport services have been traditionally been subject to tight economic regulation with respect to entering and exciting the market. In many countries, road and rail networks and airport and port systems are traditionally designed, built, and operated by the public sector itself, which is the ultimate form of regulation. This type of government intervention has resulted in excessive costs that are not matched by prices or quality, therefore creating an outcome that reflects the interests of the sector’s civil servants of contractors, unions, and other interests groups more than preferences of users and taxpayers (Estache and Rus, 2000).

According to UITP (2004), government and public transport share a same goal to make sure the public transport is accessible to all especially the traffic environments have to be well-designed and managed to let the people to reach and use public transport safely and with confidence. UITP suggested that government and the public transport community to work together to reduce not only the physical but also the psychological barriers such as cognitive, information, fear and discrimination to travel safely in cities.

UITP continues said that at any one time, an average of 25% of the population may have a degree of reduced mobility due to a physical or mental disability, impaired sight or hearing, or through having to carry heavy bags or travel with small children. UITP added, physical and sensory disabilities are often related to age and, as is well known, the proportion of the elderly population in western countries is growing and will continue to do so well into the 21st century. These are clear of the importance of improving accessibility to transport systems. According to UITP, benefits from improvements in transport accessibility are accrued not just to the disabled and ageing communities, but to all clients of the transport system.

2.3 Transport infrastructure

Traditionally, building extra capacity has been addressed due to the blockages in transport infrastructure. But the possibility is small for the further expansion of infrastructure in many urban areas where the demand for transport is highest. Furthermore, a number of reports have found that the construction of new roads and airports to relieve congestion is ineffective because it only serves to induce new traffic. On the other hand, a study undertaken by a Norwegian research organization, the SINTEF Group claims that infrastructure capacity increases are directly linked to decreases in polluting emissions from motor vehicles. Using a traffic micro-simulation, it showed, for example, that upgrading narrow, winding roads or adding a lane to a congested motorway can yield decreases of up to 38% in CO2 emissions, 67% in CO emissions and 75% in NOx emissions, without generating substantially more car trips (EurActiv.com, 2008).

According to Carcamo-Diaz and Goddard (2007, cited in IADB, 2000), Infrastructure, defined as the set of engineering structures, equipment and facilities with a long-term, useful life employed by households and the different productive sectors of the economy, is essential for economic growth (cited in Easterly and Serven, 2003) and integration. As pointed out by IADB (2002), there is a positive relationship across countries between income levels and the quality of infrastructure. According to Tanzi (2005), the implicit assumption about the direction of causation goes from infrastructure to growth, although this issue is still debated in the literature.

In many cases, the objective of transport infrastructure investment is to improve the accessibility of a given region by reducing travel time or increasing the potential to travel. Accessibility can be measured as the quantity of economic or social activities that can be reached using the transport labor, leading to increased competition and centralization. On the other hand, the impact for region concerned could be both positive and negative, depending on its initial level competitiveness (OECD, 2002).

According to ITF and OECD (2008), there are some features of surface transport infrastructure that make its provision distinct from many other areas of the economy and which will likely have to be accounted for when different models are being considered. They claimed that transport system does not exist for their own sake but rather to serve other economic and social activity, this is because transport is a ‘derived demand’. This means that the possible wider implications of capacity shortages in, and overall standard of, the transport system, must be taken into consideration in the design if any model for providing transport infrastructure.

2.4 Transport Infrastructure in Different Countries
2.4.1 Luxembourg

The pressure of congestion, excessive strain on transport infrastructure and environmental have led to a challenge due to a large and increasing number of commuters (OECD, 2008c). These pressures stem from both resident and cross-border commutes, which are broadly similar in number. High and increasing number of commutes among residents is reflected in Europe’s highest car ownership rate and one of the highest annual distances covered by automobile per capita. For cross-border commutes, 85% are made in passenger cars without use of public transport. These patterns lead to alarming levels of congestion on the main road transport corridors and there are now severe bottlenecks at the entrance to urban areas, notably in the city of Luxembourg. This results in wasted time, unsafe driving conditions, noise and high levels of emission and local air pollution (OECD, 2010).

2.4.2 France

According to Willis (2010), the transport infrastructure in France is one of the most modernized to be found anywhere in Europe and this makes international freight movements streamlined and effective. In the area of modern tramways, France is a world leader in railway technology. Rail transport is therefore always a best option for shipping companies and freight forwarders operating in France. The transport network is built as a web, with Paris at the center. There is a total of nearly 32,000 kilometers of track in France, most of which is operated by the French railway company, SNCF. Over the last twenty years, a set of high speed LGV (lignes a grande vitesse) have been constructed to connect most parts of France with Paris. There are same gauge rail links to adjacent countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden, as well as the Channel Tunnel link with the UK. The TGV, the French high speed train has broken world speed records is a sign of the way that France is a true global leader in rail transport. For freight transport, rail is a model in France.

2.4.3 Germany

According to Willis (2009), Germany has a transport infrastructure that is the envy of the world and this has helped enable the development of a highly effective freight services industry. The phrase ‘Germanic’ is often used as a byword for efficiency and with good reason, if the freight services industry in Germany is seen as a measure. He continued said that when consider that it is less than twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany started its process of integration within Germany, the efficiency of the transport network throughout the country is all the more remarkable. There is a very efficient network of waterways, railways and motorways that make internal connections fast and straightforward and also connect Germany with other countries throughout the world.

2.4.4 Middle East

Timon Singh (2010) claimed that the Middle East and North Africa region has invested heavily in its transport infrastructure and for the likes of the UAE in particular over the past few years. He continued claimed that the money has gone into planes and trains in order to better improve between states, but to turn the region into both a business and tourist hub. Air traffic in the Middle East is the fastest growing in the world, and in order to cater for the increasing number of passengers at their various airports and thus improving their general transport infrastructure, the UAE has been implementing various aviation projects.

According to him, rail is another part of the region’s transport infrastructure that has gathered support in the Middle East from Dubai’s Metro System to plans for an expansive network connecting the GCC states. Qatar and Bahrain have one of the most ambitious projects, combining both rail and metro lines, which is set to transform the emirate into a major transport hub. The project, which is rumored to be costing over US$36.6 billion (QR133.5 billion) and estimated to take six years, is expected to be finished in phases over the next six years, with three major sections being the focus of the scheme – the metro network within Greater Doha, the over-ground railways covering the whole of Qatar and then, linking it to the rest of the GCC region and cargo trains.

2.4.5 London, United Kingdom

McDougall (2010) asked how do cities meet the needs of a growing population, promote diverse and healthy communities, improve the environment and tackle climate change. The answer is it’s a tall order and one that London is tackling head on with their aptly named “London Plan”. He said that the London Plan sets out to ensure that London’s transport is easy, safe and convenient and encourages cycling, walking and electric vehicles. The ambitious plan sets out the overall strategic direction for an integrated economic, environmental, transport and social framework for the development of London over the next 20-25 years.

He continues said that the London Plan identifies what are termed “Opportunity Areas” in and around London’s major reservoirs of brown-field land. These areas are characterized by their potential to accommodate new housing, commercial and other development linked to existing or potential improvements to public transport accessibility. It is important to make sure that they can be developed without undue additional pressure on London’s already-crowded public transport, or on the limited funds available for anything beyond committed transport improvements.

2.4.6 India

According to Pradhan (2010), transport is a key infrastructure in the present study, as causes energy consumption as well as economic growth in India. Therefore, he suggested that increasing transport facility along with energy consumption will lead to more economic growth in India. The achievement of higher economic growth through transport infrastructure and energy consumption could be due to its various direct and indirect benefits in the economy. But he claimed that the level of transport infrastructure is not so good, both in quantity and quality, in contrast to developed countries in the world. He suggested that if there is sufficient transport infrastructure in the economy, the result would be much better. He continued suggested that a suitable transport policy should be required urgently to boost economic growth and to maintain sustainable economic development in the country since transport infrastructure is a big deal to economic growth.

2.4.7 Malaysia

The greatest advantage to manufacturers in Malaysia has been the nation’s persistent drive to develop and upgrade its infrastructure. Over the years, these investments have paid off and serious bottlenecks have been avoided. Today, Malaysia can boast of having one of the well-developed infrastructures among the newly industrializing countries of Asia (www.mida.gov.my).

The latest development of Kuala Lumpur Sentral has become a futuristic self-contained city, providing the perfect live, work and play environment. A modern transportation hub integrating all major rail transport networks, including the Express Rail Link to the KLIA and Putrajaya, the government’s new administrative center. Besides, the Peninsular Malaysia’s network of well-maintained highways is a gain to industries. These highways link major growth centers to seaports and airports throughout the peninsula and provide an efficient means of transportation for goods. (www.mida.gov.my).

Malaysia’s central location in the Asia Pacific region makes her an ideal gateway to Asia. Air cargo facilities are well-developed in the five international airports – the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Penang International Airport and Langkawi International Airport in Peninsular Malaysia, Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Sabah, and Kuching International Airport in Sarawak. Malaysia’s biggest airport, the KLIA, surrounded by four main cities of Kuala Lumpur, Shah Alam, Seremban and Melaka has a capacity of handling 25 million passengers and up to 8 million tons of cargo per year. Cargo import and export procedures are fully automated at the KLIA to cut down delivery time (www.mida.gov.my).

Recently, Rapid Penang has introduced a state-of-the-art Intelligent Commuter Information System (ICIS), which provides real-time information on the arrival times of buses at terminals in Penang. The ICIS system, the first of its kind used by stage bus companies in the country, would enable some 75,000 commuters who use Rapid Penang buses daily to plan their journey more efficiently. It proved to be a success and has since been expanded for usage at the Komtar bus terminal, which sees the highest number of people boarding buses daily. A total of 200 buses operate from the Komtar bus terminal on a daily basis. The ICIS display system uses global positioning system (GPS) to map out the movement of all Rapid Penang buses and calculate the exact time of arrival of each bus at the Komtar bus terminal. The ICIS display system will later be extended to other strategic areas throughout the state including the possibility of having it installed in shopping complexes (newstraitstimes, 2010).

2.5 Bus Stop and Bus Terminal

There are bus stops all over the Penang and there are three main bus terminals for buses in Penang, Malaysia. They are Weld Quay Terminal, Komtar Bus Terminal and Sungai Nibong Terminal. According to Zegeer (2002), a well-designed transit routes a reachable stops are essential to usable system. He continues said that bus stops should be located at intervals that are convenient for passengers for safety purpose and should be comfortable places for people to wait.

UITP (2004 cited in Grenoble, 2004) argued that if the related infrastructure is inaccessible or inappropriately designed, much of the accessible vehicles will lost. Grenoble has carried out extensive research and development work to design tram and bus stops, starting some 20 years ago. The principle adopted by Grenoble was that the bus services should be made as accessible as the tram. According to Grenoble, the design standards found to be most effective for accessible bus stops were 14m(standard bus) and 20m(articulated bus) for overall length of bus boarding platform, 2.1m(minimum) and 2.6m(if a shelter is provided) for overall breadth of boarding platform, 3% for gradient of access ramp at end of platform, 21cm for height of boarding area, 60cm back from front edge of boarding area for safety line and 1.1m(minimum) and 1.3m(preferred) for clear space between front end of bus shelter and front edge of boarding area.

Zegeer (2002) said that besides the bus stop signing, a bus shelter with seating, trash receptacles, and bicycle parking are also desirable features. He suggested that bus stops should be highly visible locations where pedestrian can reach them easily by means of accessible travel routes. Therefore, a complete sidewalks system is essential to support a public transportation system. Convenient crossings are also important.

He continued suggested that proper placement of bus stops is key to user safety. For example, placing the bus stops on the near side of intersections or crosswalk may block pedestrians’ view of approaching traffic, and approaching drivers’ view of pedestrians. Approaching motorists may be unable to stop in time when a pedestrian steps from in front of a stopped bus into the traffic lanes at the intersection. Far-side bus stops generally encourage pedestrians to cross behind the bus. Reallocating the bus stop to the far side of the intersection can improve pedestrian safely since it climates the sight-distance restriction caused by the bus. Placing bus stops at the far aside of intersections can also improve motored vehicle operation.

Besides, he also suggested that the bus stops should be fully accessible to pedestrians in wheelchairs, should have paved connections to sidewalks where landscape buffers exist, and should not block pedestrian travel on the sidewalk. Adequate room should exist to operate wheelchair lift. Yet, it is also useful to install curb ramps at bus stops so that a passenger can board from the street if bus-lift deployment is blocked.

According to Iles (2005), problem may arise at bus stations which are used as intermediate stops for buses passing through the town or city when services are operated to schedule. Iles gave an example on when a full bus with a few passengers drop enter the station, they have the capacity to pick up same number of new passenger, but through services always delayed by having queue while other buses, some of which may be commencing their journeys at the station, load first. For this reason, in some countries, illegally in some cases, long-distance buses do not call at all bus stations on

Abstract: The contribution of tourism sector to the economic development is pretty significant in Malaysia. And budget hotels play important role in tourism industry. Budget hotel is defined as a small hotel that is financed by one individual or a small group of individuals, and it is mangers are the same time its owner. Generally the characteristics of those budget hotels are that the managers do not operate through a formalized management structure. At present budget hotels are relatively few in Malaysia. This study tries to find the reason why there are so few budget hotels in Malaysia. We find that the shortage of budget hotels in Malaysia is due to the reason that positive externalities of budget hotels have not been effectively internalized. Externalities of budget hotels means that the development of budget hotels will attract more tourists and those tourists will bring more value to other sectors. When a positive externality exists in a market, the private marginal benefit curve is less than the society’s marginal benefit curve. With positive externalities, the production and consumption are less than the optimal production to the society. Because the positive externalities of budget hotels have not been effectively internalized, the stimulation for budget hotel owners to supply more budget hotel services is not high enough. Through secondary research, we find that the hotel industry has important influence on the whole tourism industry and the externalities of hotel industry also have significant impacts on the tourism industry. This results means that there is possibility that the budget hotel or other hotels cooperates with firms from other industries and produce more value for customers and for themselves. Furthermore we discuss the needs and wants of budget hotel customers based on Maslow’s theory of human needs, which he named the Hierarchy of Needs. We classify the needs of budget hotel customers into three levels. The first level is safety, the second level is necessary facilities and the third level is the pursuit of happiness. Then we discuss how budget hotels should perform according to the three levels of needs. At last we discuss how a budget hotel is able to control its service quality so as to attract customers and establish customer loyalty. We argue that one characteristic of hotel industry is that the monitoring cost is very high and many behaviors of the servants cannot be easily observed. It indicates that stimulation may be much more important than penalty. Under such a situation, the sense of responsibility is of great importance in the hospitality industry. We argue that the sense of responsibility may arise from good communication between employees.

Keywords: Budget Hotel; Externality; Tourism Industry; Cooperation

Contents 2

1. Introduction 3

2. Objectives of this paper: 5

3. Literature Review 6

3.1 Price Theory 6

3.2 Determinants of tourism demand 8

3.3 Externalities of hospitality industry 9

4. Theoretical Framework 10

4.1 Classical Price Theory and Hotel Price 10

4.2 Externalities of Hotel Price and Cooperation between Industries 11

5. Research Methodology 13

1. Introduction

Tourism is important for the economic development of many countries including Malaysia. The contribution of this sector to the economic development of Malaysia was 37% of GDP in 1970, and increased to 43% in 1980, 47% in 1990 and 53% in 2007 (Abdullah et al. 2011). In addition, the growth rate of this sector has been pretty rapid. The average annual growth rate was 9% during the 1970s, close to 7% in the 1980’s, and 8.5% during the most recently. Figure 1.1 shows this trend with concrete data of arrivals and receipts of tourism industry in Malaysia. The significant importance and the rapid growth rate of tourism industry imply a much greater contribution of tourism to the economic growth of Malaysia. It is expected that the contribution of the services sector to GDP will increase up to 60% by 2020. The Malaysian government has recognized the importance of tourism industry and has placed the development of tourism industry at a very important place. At present, tourism has been designated as a priority sector in the Ninth Malaysia Plan.

Figure 1.1 the Arrivals and Receipts of Malaysian Tourism

The Malaysia government tries to promote the development of this industry. But how could we improve the development of tourism industry? The first attention may be focused on the development of hotels or hospitality industry. The reason is that accommodation fee takes a very important weight in the expenditure of tourists, which implies that the development of hotels will pose great influence of tourism industry. The second consideration is that hospitality industry is related with many other industries. Hospitality industry is a huge industry, including not only hotels but also transportation, restaurants and so on. Without any hesitation, the hospitality industry is related to every aspects of people’s daily life. The correlation between hotels and other tourism sectors indicates that the whole tourism may benefit more if the hospitality industry could cooperate well with other related sectors. Therefore we hold the opinion that to promote the development of hotels and to make innovation in strategies of hospitality industry is fairly important to promoting the development of tourism in Malaysia.

In this study, we focus on issues related to budget hotels, because budget hotels play important role in tourism industry and the budget hotel industry has not developed very well in Malaysia [1] . According to the existing research, small and mediate enterprises, including budget hotels, are very important in tourism industry and all the business industries. For example, Abdullah (2011) find that firms with less than fifteen employees account for around 79% of all Irish tourism businesses, which is a characteristic of the tourism sector in many other countries recently. Sheldon (1993) find that over 90% of tourist accommodation establishments are represented by small firms in the world. And a similar dominance is reflected within Malaysia where owner operators account for the majority of all hotels. Morrison (1996) argues that the tourism industry has been dominated by the small business traditionally and this is still the fact in 1990s. There are several reasons leading to the popularity of small hotels. The first reason is the low benchmark of entering into the budget hotel sector. It is not difficult to start up a small hotel business and the professional requirements related to this sector are relatively low in with regard to other industries (Lerner & Haber, 2001; Szivas, 2001). The second reason is that demand for small accommodation is high, which enables small hotel providers to offer a wide quality range of products, facilities and special services to the market. The third reason is the flexibility of budget hotels. Budget hotels are small and the small size allows an owner-manager to respond quickly to demand shift and market change. In addition, the costs of budget hotels are relatively low because of the advantage of using family labor (Getz & Carlsen, 2000; Lowe, 1988). Because budge hotels are very important in hospitality industry and hospitality industry is pretty significant for tourism industry, it is necessary for us to make clear the influence of budget hotel on tourism.

Before analyzing the influence of budget hotels on truism industry and discussing the management of budget hotels, we need to make clear the definitions of hotel and budget hotel. A hotel is an establishment providing accommodations and usually meals and other services for travelers [2] . Generally there are several categories classifying hotels. Most often we may divide hotels into two subgroups, including star hotels and budget hotels. According to the view of Kim and Mauborgne (1997), there are two market segments in the budget hotel industry and the star hotel industry. Star hotels are generally more expensive than budget hotels while providing more services. Most star hotels have some amenities under certain star rating system, which usually includes private bathroom, color TV, telephone, air conditioner, refrigerator, safety deposit box, daily maid service, 24 hours front desk. The lowest level of star hotels is the one-star hotels, which are the most basic hotels providing all the basic amenities for all star hotels. But the rooms of one star hotel are relatively small. Some one-star hotels even do not provide refrigerators and safety deposit boxes. Budget hotels cannot be classified into those standard star rating systems and they are characterized with low price while providing less facilities. Generally these hotels do not offer ancillary facilities on top of the standard basic accommodation facilities. Maybe they are not clean enough, safe enough and do not supply something that you consider as essential for your stay. But many of the budget hotels have their own characteristics which depend on the operation of its managers.

But the definition shown above is generally used in other countries than Malaysia. In Malaysia, budget hotels may provide better services than one-star hotels. For example, Malaysia Budget Hotel Dot Com (MBHDC), is an organization uniting some budge hotels, and it specializes in providing “high quality and lowest price budget hotels in Malaysia (3 Stars and below)” [3] . In the understanding of this organization, cheap hotels, youth hostels, low cost resorts, motels, guesthouses and rest houses are all in the category of budget hotels. Based on the definition of Morrison (1996) on a small tourism business, we may define a budget hotel as a small hotel that is financed by one individual or a small group of individuals, and it is mangers are the same time its owner. Generally the characteristics of those budget hotels are that the managers do not operate through a formalized management structure. It is not affiliated to an external agency on a continual basis for at least one management function. In addition, it is small in terms of physical facilities, service capacity, and number of employees.

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of hotel industry on the whole tourism industry, and to explore the possibility of making innovations in budget hotel industry, which may improve the development of tourism industry of Malaysia. This study tries to find the reason why there are so few budget hotels in Malaysia. We interpret this phenomenon with theories of price and externalities. It is found that the reason for the lack of budget hotels is that the positive externalities of budget hotels have not been effectively internalized. Externalities of budget hotels means that the development of budget hotels will attract more tourists and those tourists will bring more value to other sectors. Because the positive externalities of budget hotels have not been effectively internalized, the stimulation for budget hotel owners to supply more budget hotel services is not high enough. Through secondary research, we find that the hotel industry has important influence on the whole tourism industry and the externalities of hotel industry also have significant impacts on the tourism industry. This results means that there is possibility that the budget hotel or other hotels cooperates with firms from other industries and produce more value for customers and for themselves. Furthermore we discuss the needs and wants of budget hotel customers based on the theory Maslow’s levels of human needs, which he named the Hierarchy of Needs. Then we discuss how budget hotels should perform according to the three levels of needs. At last we discuss how a budget hotel is able to control its service quality, attract customers and establish customer loyalty.

2. Objectives of this paper:

Defining budget hotel and compare different concepts.

Analyzing the influence of budget hotel price on tourism;

Understanding customer’s wants and needs in relation to budget hotel accommodation;

Investigating quality and methods to retain customer in budget hotels;

Analyzing principles establishing brand loyalty for budget hotels.

3. Literature Review
3.1 Price Theory

This study tries to find reasons why there are so few budget hotels in Malaysia. Because the supply of budget hotels is adjusted by price in a market economy, we need to use a proper price theory to explain this economic phenomenon. Therefore we need to select a best price theory that is able to help us to gain deep understanding about the shortage of budget hotels in Malaysia. Economists have for a long time been aware of the importance of price and try different ways explaining the mechanism of price formation. The existing economic thoughts on price are so rich and colorful that we often feel confused when evaluating different kinds of price theories. The evolution of price theory can be classified roughly as three classes, including Marx’s theory of value, economic price theory and accounting theories of pricing.

In order to understand the evolution of price theory, we need to start thinking from the exchange behavior. The reason of choosing exchange behavior as the starting point is that exchange is the foundation of the market economy. Exchange behavior is the most common phenomenon in a market economy. In fact there is no price if there was no exchange. But why do we exchange with others? Intuitively, we can get more utilities through exchange. In the process of exchange we can get something useful from others, at the same time we must be able to provide something useful for others. Otherwise the deal cannot be done. The great classical economists like Adam Smith and Karl Marx had paid much attention to exchange behavior. In his famous book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” Adam Smith (1776) wrote down the following words, which have been quoted by numerous economists.

Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me what I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is the manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offers which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love.

Smith saw the pretty positive aspect of the market economy of compelling people to cooperate with each other through exchange. Smith recognized that to propose an exchange is intending to show other people that your goods or service is useful to them. When you finished exchange, it means the other person recognizes that your goods or service is of value. Exchange can be considered as the fundamental factor of the market economy.

Karl Marx does provide a special way explaining value and price although Marxism is generally considered a way of engaging and transforming social reality (Tinker, 1999). Marx’s theory of value is based on the analysis of exchange behavior. Karl Marx started his analysis on capitalism from the definition of commodity which was obtained from his analysis of exchange behavior. According to Marx commodities are the fundamental units of capitalism and capitalism can be viewed as a form of economy based on the intense accumulation of such objects (Bourguignon, 2005). He also pointed out “A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside of us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another” (Karl Marx, 1887). After noting that commodity exchange, Marx turned his attention to the question: why we are able to exchange two different products? His answer is that there must be comparable thing between the two different products. Therefore people are able to decide the exchange ratio based on the amount of the “comparable thing” in the two different products. If this is true, then what is the comparable thing? Marx thought it is labor [4] . Although different products have different uses, they are all made through labor. The labor contained in a product is the value of this product. If one product cost more labor, then this product is more valuable. This is a perspective from cost. This analysis is reasonable at that time, but when the productivity becomes so advanced that a lot of different factors besides labor, such as technology and management skill, begin to make greater contribution to production, Marx’s theory of value is hardly able to interpret various complex economic phenomenon.

Then another class of price theory was developed and become more attractive. That is the price theory based on the concept of “utility”. The framework of utility-price theory became well established when Economics went into the 20th century with the development of mathematical analysis (Sandmo, 2010). A lot of economists moved their interest from cost perspective to equilibrium perspective when analyzing the price formation mechanism. In this framework the price of a commodity is decided by the equilibrium of demand and supply. Demand of a product reflects the utility of a certain product to some consumers, while supply reflects the cost of producing this product. If supply superiors demand, then price will go down. The result is a lower supply and more demand, which may lead to equilibrium between supply and demand. If demand superiors supply, then price will go up, which results in more supply and less demand. Equilibrium between supply and demand is also possibly to be realized (Mankiw, 2004). The price at the equilibrium is the equilibrium price. This price theory is widely accepted and applied to explain different kinds of price fluctuations.

The neoclassic equilibrium theory of price is mainly static, which is hard to explain some modern price formation process, for example financial asset pricing. As the development of productivity, mainly the development of financial techniques, some new price theory taking time and future into account is necessary. Therefore a new class of theory, the core of which is the calculation of present value, has been developed to meet this demand. The theory argues that the value of an asset is decided by the future cash flow that this asset is able to bring (Jones, 2006; Thomas and Ward, 2009). And this theory has been applied widely to the pricing of financial or other kinds of asset.

Because the entering benchmark of budget hotels is very low, the supply of budget hotel is mainly decided by demand. And this problem is not a dynamic pricing issue. Therefore, the neoclassical price theory is the best to be used to explain the shortage of budget hotels.

3.2 Determinants of tourism demand

Because the supply of budget hotel is mainly decided by demand, we need to know more about determinants of tourism demand and know how to forecast the demand. It has been widely recognized that accurate forecasts of tourism demand is pretty helpful for managerial decision making. Archer (1987) argues that in the tourism industry “the need to forecast accurately is especially acute because of the perishable nature of the product. Unfilled airline seats and unused hotel rooms cannot be stockpiled”. Some scholars, such as Edwards (1985), publish some predictions for certain countries. There are also some organizations in the tourism industry that publish confidential predictions on tourism demand. There are a lot of review articles on tourism demand up to now, including Crouch (1994),Witt and Witt (1995), Lim (1999), Li et al. (2005), and Li and Song (2008). According to the reviews, the methods applicable to analyzing the influence of the determinants of tourism demand are relatively limited. Multiple regression method is the main methodology in this analysis (Witt and Witt, 1995). Tourist visits may happen for several reasons, including holidays, business travel, visiting friends or something else.

The majority of existing studies of tourism demand analyze either total tourist trips or just holiday travel, with only a few concerning on business travel. In the empirical literature, tourism demand is generally measured by the number of tourist visits from an origin country to a foreign destination country (for example, Turner & Witt, 2001; Kulendran & Wong, 2005; Coshall, 2005; Rossello, 2001). An alternative measure is the tourist nights spent in the destination country. The third measurement is the expenditure of tourists in the destination country (such as Li, Song, & Witt, 2004, 2006; Li, Wong, Song, & Witt, 2006). But up to now there has not been a best method for tourism demand analysis (Li and Song, 2008). With regard to the researched countries, USA, UK, and France are the most popular researched countries while the research on Malaysia is very limited.

The quantitative literature on tourism demand can be divided into two classes, including non-causal time-series models and the causal econometric methods, the difference between which is whether the model identifies any causal relationship between the tourism demand and its influencing variables (Li and Song, 2008). The causal econometric methods are useful for the present study. In the review of Li and Song (2008), there are 121 empirical papers on tourism demand in total. Among those literature, 72 used the time-series techniques to model the demand for tourism, while the others employ econometric techniques analyzing the causal relationship between tourism demands and explaining factors.

3.3 Externalities of hospitality industry

One major hypothesis of this paper is that the shortage of budget hotels in Malaysia is due to the reason that the externalities of budget hotel have not been well internalized. An externality is “a cost or benefit that is not transmitted through prices or is incurred by a party who was not involved as either a buyer or seller of the goods or services causing the cost or benefit” (Bishop, 2012). We can understand externality as a consequence of an economic activity that is experienced by unrelated third parties. We can classify externalities into two categories including positive externalities and negative externalities. An example of the negative externality is pollution. A negative externality happens when an individual or firm does not need to pay the full cost of its production. If a good or service has a negative externality, it implies that the cost to society is larger than the cost paid by consumers. Because consumers make consumption decisions according to their own conditions, meaning they try to make their marginal cost equal to their marginal benefit, without considering the cost of the negative externality, negative externalities will cause market inefficiencies where too many goods or too much service are produced. A positive externality occurs under the situation that an individual/firm makes a decision without receiving the full benefit of production. The benefit to the individual/ firm is less than the total benefit to the society. Therefore when a positive externality exists in a market, the private marginal benefit curve is less than the society’s marginal benefit curve. With positive externalities, the production and consumption are less than the optimal production to the society (Mankiw, 2011).

There has been a lot of literature discussing the impacts of externalities on different industries or economic activities. For example, Katz and Shapiro (1985) provide an analysis on the influence of externalities on the competition in several important markets. They find that if there are externalities, then consumers’ expectations can influence the structure of the market equilibrium in their model. Azariadis and Drazen (1990) find that externalities can influence the accumulation of human capital. Henderson (1997) employs panel data for five capital goods industries and estimates dynamic externalities. He concludes that externalities pose significant influence on capital goods industries. Warziniack et al. (2009) develop a general equilibrium model measuring welfare effects of taxes for correcting environmental externalities and evaluate the impacts of externalities arising through exports. They find that externalities from exports are resulted in a number of sources. They argue that taxes on the sector imposing the environmental externality often presents more negative effects than positive effects. There are many other literature studying the influence of externalities on other aspects of an economy, such as Devereux et al. (2007), Acharya and Volpin (2010) and Foster (2012). But there have been few papers on the externalities of hospitality industry on the development of the whole tourism industry.

Most of the researches on externalities in tourism industry are related to city planning, location setting or taxes. For example, Chang et al. (2011) analyze the congestion externalities caused by tourism expansion and the wealth effect generated by the revenues from overseas tourism taxation. Schubert (2010) studies optimal taxation (subvention) when tourism is associated with multiple externalities. Chao et al. (2004) examine the welfare effect of tourism on the host economy. They identify three channels influencing domestic welfare by tourism, the most important one of which is the social externality accompanied with tourists. Calveras and Vera-Hernandez (2005) place great emphasis on the presence of quality externalities among hotel establishments when they explore the role played by the tour operator in quality investments. These existing researches are helpful for my analysis of the externality effect of hospitality effects on the whole tourism industry and the welfare of local residents in Malaysia.

4. Theoretical Framework
4.1 Classical Price Theory and Hotel Price

Pricing is an art. How to set the price of a good at the best level and achieve the most profits is a hard challenge for any manager in any business field including the hospitality industry. According to the classical price theory of Economics, price is related to two aspects of goods and services: supply and demand. Price has a positive relationship with the supply of goods and services. The reason is that profits would be thick if price if high. As a result of the thick profit, more and more firms will enter this industry and supply more goods and services. At the same time, price has a negative supply with demand of goods and services, because a high price means a high cost of consuming the goods or service for the consumers. The positive relationship between price and supply and the negative relationship between price and demand implies that an equilibrium market state will finally be realized. Market equilibrium means that supply and demand of goods and services are equal to each other. The price at the equilibrium state is named “equilibrium price”. When price is higher than the equilibrium price, it means that demand is larger than supply. At this time, firms will provide more goods or services and price will go down. Similarly, when price is lower than equilibrium price, supply is larger than demand. Then firms will supply less because of the low profits, as a result of which price will go up. This theory fits the normal goods market the best, while remains limited exploratory power for luxury goods market and some other markets. Since hotel is a normal goods instead of luxury goods, the classical price theory in Economics is useful in the studying the price of budget hotel.

In this paper one our main objectives is to analyze the influence of hotel pricing on the whole tourism industry. In order to answer this question we mainly analyze from the demand perspective, which means that hotel price influences the demand of hotels and the demand of tourism. The reason is that accommodation fee is the majority of tourism expenditure for most of the tourists. If hotel price is too high, fewer tourists will come and the demand for hotels becomes lower. And there is a second perspective that hotel price also influences the welfare of local residents. If the hotel price is set to be very low, then the profits of the hotel and the wage of local workers must be low, which implies that the welfare of local residents is low. As a result, there must be a best choice of price which is able to maximizing the welfare of local residents, and a best price that maximizes the profits of hotels.

Price

Quantity

Supply Curve

Demand Curve

Figure 4.1 Classical Price Theory

4.2 Externalities of Hotel Price and Cooperation between Industries

But there is a difference between the best price for local residents and the best price for hotels. The best price for hotels should be the one that is able to maximize the profits of hotels. This price is not necessarily the price maximizing the welfare of local residents. The price maximizing the welfare of local residents is the one that maximizing the gross income instead of profits of hotels.

The difference between hotel’s best price and local residents’ best price exists because of the externalities of hotels. An externality (or transaction spillover) is “a cost or benefit that is not transmitted through prices or is incurred by a party who was not involved as either a buyer or seller of the goods or services causing the cost or benefit”. The externalities of hotels can be understood as the influence of hotel price on other sectors or industries. For example, if the hotel price decreases, then more tourists will come to Malaysia for sightseeing because of the cost becomes lower. More tourists imply more demand for local restaurants, entertainment industries and some other sectors. Similarly, if hotel price increases, fewer tourists will choose to spend their holiday in Malaysia and the local restaurants and entertainment or other industries would benefit less from tourism.

Price

Quantity

Supply of Hotel

Demand of Hotel

Demand of Tourism

Figure 4.2 Externalities of Hotel Price

The logic of externality indicates that if the hotels and other sectors could cooperate well, the whole tourism industry would benefit more from the increase of tourists. Imagine that if the hotel price is set to be lower than the present level, which will attract more tourists and those more tourists may bring more spending on local goods and services. Those incurred spending may compensate the loss of hotel revenue. It means that the total benefits of local tourism increases although at the cost of hotel revenue decrease. A good cooperation between the hotel industry and other industries means that other industries are able to transmit part of the incurred revenue to hotel industry and share the increased revenue with hotel industry.

There are some examples illustrating this good cooperation in tourism industry. In some states of Malaysia, the scenic spots are free and tourists do not need to pay gate tickets. The loss of tickets income leads to higher income of ot

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to present my findings and acquired knowledge about the yield & revenue management through describing its business practices in the travel and tourism industry.

I have decided to produce this essay about yield & revenue management in the hospitality industry, because my placement in a five star business hotel in Budapest provided many insights on this particular area.

During my placement I realised how interesting and challenging the day-to-day job of a yield manager could be.

At first let me start with clearing the mist about the term itself. It is often argued whether yield management and revenue management are separate or identical terms. According to my experiences and my research there is no difference between revenue and yield management apart from different industries using different terms to define the same things.

Yield management in hotels should rather be called revenue management since revenue and not (airline) yield is to be maximized.

What is yield management then?

“A revenue maximization technique which aims to increase net yield through the predicted allocation of available room capacity to predetermined market segments at optimal price” (Donaghy et al., 1997)

Or in layman’s terms we can say, selling the right product to the right customer at the right time at a right price thereby maximizing the overall revenue.

History

The brief history of yield management dates back to the 1970s, when following the deregulation of US airlines a severe competition began where a new and more professional method was needed to increase revenue. Airline companies wanted to fill their planes as optimally as possible to defeat the perishable nature of its services. Because in case a plane departs with only the half of the seats occupied it cannot be filled on the way and it cannot be stocked for later sale. In similar highly competitive circumstances, yield management began to be used in the hotel industry around the middle of the 1980s. At this time the industry was being confronted with excess capacity, severe short-term liquidity problems, and increasing business failure rates. Major hotel chains such as Hyatt, Marriott, Quality Inn, and Radisson decided to solve these difficulties by adopting yield management.

Preconditions of Yield Management

In order to be able to yield a hotel the following preconditions should be met:

Fixed capacity: Hotels usually have a fix number of rooms and venues, although, in some special cases new wings can be built or internal re-constructing can be implemented. Generally it is very unlikely that the capacity will increase. It also involves the fact that the product needs to be perishable to be yielded. “A room on Monday does not equal with that room on Tuesday”

High fix costs: This factor is connected to the fixed capacity because the major characteristic of hotels is that they need huge capital to be built. Furthermore, building and planning new rooms costs a lot and takes a lot of time.

Low variable costs: Selling a room that was not occupied before comes with relatively low service costs.

Time-varied demand: To be able to yield it is necessary to have seasons to be able to distinguish between different rate periods easily.

Similarity of inventory units: The nature of the products needs to be somewhat similar to be able to use the same channels of communication and management.

Market segmentation: The market has to be segmented and clearly fenced to be able to target them with the yield management tools. Business or corporate clients who are usually time-sensitive are willing to pay higher rates whilst leisure travellers who tend to book longer in advance are rather price-sensitive.

Historical demand and booking patterns: To have reliable historical data is crucial to be able to build a picture of the ever changing trends, however, it should not be the sole source of predicting future demand.

Pricing knowledge: Knowledgeable yield managers are needed, not only to understand the nature of services but also to set prices in a professional manner

Overbooking policy: Many hotels still do not allow overbooking and by that they have to face losses in revenue maximization. If overbooking is carefully managed no serious guest complaints will arise.

Information systems: Without the proper systems no hotel can keep up with the current pace of rate changing, and the complex management of the distributional channels.

The Yield Management Control Dimensions

In hotels, yield management is concerned with the market sensitive pricing of fixed room capacity relative to a hotel’s specific market segments. Kimes (1997) states therefore that yield management in hotels consists of two functions: rooms’ inventory management and pricing. However, I experienced that there is rather three major ways how yield management can control the revenue outcome:

Duration control

Room /rate control

Capacity management

From the customers point of view these decision making factors are basically the;

Time

Price

Quality

Duration control could be used by those group travellers that are likely to negotiate on the time of their event and the length of stay of their groups. Whereas, a leisure traveller cannot be asked to come on a different date since they probably took that period off. The situation is however more complex, because leisure travellers for instance will likely to take those time frames where the most cost efficient promotions, packages, offers or discounts are. And by that their timing can be also managed. On the other hand, seasons and high bargaining power of customers can influence the level of duration control as well.

Room/ Rate control is especially important by OTAs, online travel agencies, because according to Mourier (2010) just over 27% of the hotels worldwide have reported that most of their incomes are from OTAs or through online channels. The optimal management of finding the balance between the amounts of rooms sold through OTAs or through the hotels own website and sales team is alone a very challenging exercise. Due to the limits of this essay this time I won’t go into details about pricing strategies.

Capacity management should allocate the available inventory of the various room categories to the potential segments in a way that their demands, cancellations, no-shows are taken into consideration.

Finally, as I experienced the guests usually are in a high bargaining position and therefore they simply let the management decide whether to accept their request or reject it. Therefore, the most common type of control dimension is usually the Room/Rate control.

Measures of Yield Management’s Success

If we would like to get a real picture whether the yielding efforts are fruitful it is important to not only measure the occupancy, the average daily rate (ADR) and the volume, but to calculate the revenue per available room as well. Furthermore, all of these data should be viewed together. If we take for example a high occupancy it is not necessarily positive if it is reached with a very low rate.

Revpar can be calculated as follows:

REVPAR = AVERAGE RATE x OCCUPANCY

REVPAR allows us to measure the success of balancing occupancy and ADR resulting in maximized revenue.

Orkin (1988) defined revenue realized as ‘actual sales receipts’ and potential revenue as ‘the income secured if 100% of available room are sold at full rack rates.’ This indicates the following formula for calculating yield efficiency:

Note: The nearer the percentage to 100 the better the yield.

Limitations of Yield Management

First of all, education or the lack of it results in waste of time with the management heads and the GM if they have deeply rooted perceptions, such as, the more volume, occupancy, ADR the better.

Secondly, if it is over used, for instance, cancelling the booking made by travel agents during high occupancy periods in order to save travel agents commission. This will, however, result in loss to future business.

Thirdly, if the necessary IT infrastructure, or its further development and the reliable performance data is missing than really effective yield management is nearly impossible.

Finally, very often even major hotel chains employ only one yield manager per hotel, which given the complexity and the importance of this job makes hotels very vulnerable. For example, if the yield manager decides to leave or gets seriously sick than for an invaluable time (one or even two month) nobody will be able to effectively monitor the third party rates, set new rate codes for corporate clients and nobody will be there to act if there is a tax change and the whole rate structure needs to be modified.

Yield Management Supporting Tools

Yield management solutions are often a result of the following approaches:

EMRR (Expected Marginal Room Revenue)

Expert systems

Booking curves

Operations research models

Neural networks (in experimental phase only)

Here I would like to go into more detail in the Expert systems I worked with, such as, the Travelclick and the IDeaS. Both are ecommerce and revenue management solution provider companies. To be able to work with them a usually very high annual fee should be paid, and it is very difficult to measure whether how much did they contribute to the revenue of the hotel. Both system collects first the data of the hotel and provides in case of Travelclick market data of other competitors as well. Of course, the rates there are not always true or the rates of the same distributional channel, and this can mean a huge difference in rates. Some of the most important report that Travelclick provides:

Hotelligence : Benchmark of hotel’s historic GDS performance against the competitive set.

FuturePace: Allows seeing the hotel’s estimated future market share against the competitive set.

RateView: Gives an overview on the hotel’s and its competitors’ rate within the GDS and Internet channels.

SearchView: Provides the ranking of the hotel and its competitors on search engines and third-party sites, and monitor consumer review sites.

On the other hand, IDeaS tries to provide a Rate Optimization Services which is collecting all the necessary data of the hotel and gives the best rates for the given segments. However, it is more likely that entirely no company would set its rates just according to an algorithm, but as an advisor it is indeed very useful for yield managers. A great advantage is if the hotel has a developed hotel management system, like Opera, Hostware etc. because the necessary data can then be easily extracted for the reports.

Future of Yield Management

In the forthcoming years, the process for booking hotels will continue to change. The booking window will continue to shrink as today’s consumers not only require more flexibility with their vacation time, but they also tend to wait longer in hopes of finding the best deal. As well, new developments in technology are making it easier for the everyday consumer to book their hotel room, anytime and basically anywhere. With the appearance of the new smart-phones, a new dimension of mobile booking applications is going to be introduced, as well as more and more social media sites expected to add booking widgets that will enable customers to reserve room nights from websites like Facebook, or Iwiw. In fact, Priceline’s research shows that 58% of customers with mobile devices were within 20 miles of their hotel when they made the booking and 35% were within just a mile. Additionally, new booking engines will continue to emerge, as will online travel communities with booking capabilities, online tour operators, and even trip building websites that use algorithms. A very important aspect of the new era for the travel industry is that hoteliers aren’t just dealing with making their property seen among more channels but they are also dealing with more well-informed customers who know what they want, where to look for it and more importantly where to compare rates to get the best deals.

Mourier (2010) says that due to this rapidly changing environment, yield management really becomes less about trying to beat the competitor and more about a personal relationship with consumers.

Conclusion

To sum it up, I strongly believe that yield and revenue management makes a huge difference in today’s hotel management and it is great that it started to shift from the pure operation side to a sophisticated way of optimizing revenue. It might seem discriminating to customers but the way they feel about it is highly dependable on the communication channels they receive it, and since today it is so widely spread without any major concerns I do not think that it will cause problems. Especially, because the economy balances itself with occasional downturns when the bargaining power of customers increase tremendously especially in view of the tourism industry.

Introduction

At the present time, globalisation which just means linking together the localities separated by distance is not an issue in terms of communication, moreover it brings together the world as one (Scheuerman, 2010). The positives of globalisation do not limit itself to just bringing the world together in terms of communication, tourism and hospitality industry has also greatly benefited by this.

India is considered one of the fastest growing countries in the world and becoming an attraction for the foreign tourist. India hosted 6.58 million foreign tourist in the year 2012, which was an increase by 4.3% compared to last year. The foreign exchange earnings were a staggering $17.74 billion which was an increase of 7.15 compared to last year (India Tourism Statistics, 2012). The Indian government un It will not be wrong to assume that India has been successful in catering the basic requirements which a tourist looks for before planning their trip to a foreign country. These statistics make India one of the top tourist destinations. The basic requirements being variety of serviced accommodation to choose from, adequate infrastructure, communication system, museum, art galleries, restaurants, cafes, craft places, gardens, historic places and sports amenities. The tourism ministry of India was quick to recognise the tourism market in India and has taken necessary steps to promote it. The Foreign Tourist Arrivals in India during the eighties and nineties lacked consistency but since then it has seen steady growth. The early 2000 can be considered the best years for tourism industry as they saw double digit growth (India Tourism Statistics, 2012).

This paper specifically focuses on the 5 star luxury hotels section of the hospitality industry of India. It is very important for the individuals involved in the operations of the hotel to know about the factors which might affect the competition. In the competitive setting, Brand Equity is believed to be the most important value generating asset to the organisation and its customers. Customers can benefit through Brand Equity as it would help them get a better understanding of the services provided by the brand which would eventually increase confidence and help them in making the buying decision. The organisation can benefit in terms of increasing profits, attracting new customers and retaining the loyal customers, having a competitive advantage over rivals (Aaker, 1991).

Therefore, the study is carried out to better understand the brand equity of high end luxury hotels in India and the link between brand equity and the post purchase evaluation by the customers. This will provide a better understanding of brand equity of the hotel which is just a small element of brand asset. The post purchase evaluation by the customers for the brand equity in hospitality industry will be directed by analysing the already existing written texts. The suggestions given by the guests who have already visited the hotel are used to analyse as their feedback and opinion would shed light on the major issues faced in terms of brand equity during their stay.

Hence, the conclusion of this paper would provide an insight of the different brand equity elements, their features and the influence these elements can have on the day to day working of the hotel by the top management, the marketing team, operations team and everybody responsible for implementing the strategy. A successful brand strategy would give the hotel a competitive advantage over its existing market rivals.

Problem Statement

A brand can be called an important resource for value addition to the organisation as it is used in the marketing strategy and positioning of the company in the market (Ghauri and Cateora, 2010). Brand equity is a combination of elements namely brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality denoting the improved value of the brand as a whole. In case of hospitality industry, the focus is mainly on how the consumer perceives the hotel brand, this further improves chances of making more profit.

The literature on brand equity have largely focused on the product aspect and not much study has been contributed to the service industry. Thus, literature on brand equity for service industry like hotels is very limited. This has attracted my attention and inspired me to study brand equity primarily focusing on the hospitality industry.

As stated above, India has been successful in improving its tourism and hospitality sector over the years. This has resulted in stiff competition amongst the hotel operators. To increase the rate of growth, the government helps and extends its support in almost all domains of the tourism industry. As an example, the government’s initiative to improve the Indian tourism industry in overseas market is the brochure support. The overseas offices help promote organisations who intend to promote special tours (Ministry of tourism, 2014). There are marketing development assistance schemes to promote Indian tourism abroad which is administered by the ministry of tourism, government of India to help hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators etc. The competition in the hospitality industry is intense in parts like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra which experienced maximum domestic tourist in the year 2012. The foreign tourist preferred Delhi, Mumbai (Maharashtra), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Bangalore (Karnataka) and Kolkata (West Bengal) as their top 5 destinations in India (India Tourism Statistics, 2012).

Furthermore, the intense in business competitions especially for five stars luxury hotels are higher than other hotel with fewer stars rating. Normally, the higher stars rating hotel such as five stars luxury hotel comes with the higher price of the offering. However, the competition is not only based on the price and promotion concern but also the uniqueness of the hotel brand. In addition, the emerging of new comer hotels in Bangkok area can also be the supporting evidence, for example Starwood’ St. Regis, W hotel, Four Points by Sheraton (Starwood, 2010).

As a result, brand equity can play an important role in increasing the overall profit of the hotel and the people responsible for operating the day to day functioning of the hotel need to realize this. The elements of brand equity needs to be studied in terms of the hospitality industry, this would help understand the role of brand equity in hospitality industry. This paper primarily focuses on the five star luxury segment of the hotels in India. This paper is based on the comments and feedback of the guests who have visited the chosen hotels which are then linked with the elements of brand equity.

Purpose of Study

The main motive of this study is to understand brand equity and elements in terms of the hospitality industry in India considering the post purchase evaluation of the customers who have visited the hotel. The research also aims to find the link between the elements of brand equity and the comments and feedback of these customers after their purchase. Moreover, the objective of this study is to find the practical effects of brand equity. By the end of this research, I intend to suggest some articulated hypothesis of brand equity in hospitality industry for future studies.

Research Questions

The research question has been framed on the basis of the background of the topic chosen and the problem statement to accomplish the objective of this research:

What are the features of brand equity of high-end (5 Stars) luxury hotels in India?
Which elements of brand equity do most of the customers perceive for evaluation?
Thesis Outline

The first chapter gives a brief about the research topic on evaluation of post purchase behaviour on brand equity for hospitality industry in India. This is further explained by designing the problem statement and research topic to specify the path of the study with the focus only on five star luxury hotels in India.

Chapter two includes the literature review. This is done by investigating the literature available in physical format and those available on the internet. The literature review explains branding and the various aspects of brand equity to give a basic understanding about brand equity. This will be followed by brand equity in hospitality (service) industry, buying decision of customers, electronic word of mouth and evaluation of customers after using the hotel (post-purchase).Along with this literature, a framework has been designed to give a better understanding of the research which includes the idea of brand equity.

Chapter three begins by explaining in the research methodology, how the topic was chosen. This is followed by a discussion on the methodologies used in the research design. Qualitative and quantitative approach were used for this study. Qualitative approach was done by carrying out content analysis using a specific set of measurements. Quantitative approach was used to present the findings and the results. The process of collecting data, the use of secondary data like the feedback of hotels from customers, text and other articles on brand equity are discussed in this section. This section continuous with further explaining the limitations of this study and the sampling design in context of the total volume considered and the time period observed for the data collection. This is commenced by highlighting the validity and the reliability of the study.

The fourth chapter presents the findings from the collected data from the website tripadvisor.com for feedback from the guests who have visited the hotels. The main aim for this exercise is to analyse and interpret this data and then divide them in terms of the different components of brand equity or the set of measurements. The results are explained by using the quantitative approach by denoting them in terms of percentage of each component and sub component of brand equity.

The fifth chapter analyses the findings and discusses the results and a comparison is made with the earlier studies on brand equity and hospitality industry. This section is concluded by analysing each brand equity category and proposing the hypothesis on brand equity for hotel.

The sixth chapter concludes the research by explaining the results obtained from findings and analysis in the previous chapter. This section also answers the research questions for the study.

The seventh and the final chapter recommends on the real-world effects of the results obtained from this research. This paper is concluded by proposing a path for the future study centred on the hypotheses.