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What is tourism? Tourism can be defined in more than one way. Conceptually, it refers to the ideas and opinions people hold which shape their decisions about going on trips, about where to go, and what to do (Leiper 1995). Technically, it refers to the activities of the persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, health, business and other purposes (Leiper 1990, Pearce 1989). From the sociological point of view, tourism also refers to commercialized hospitality, democratized travel, a modern variety of the traditional pilgrimage, and an expression of basic cultural themes (Cohen 1984). However, the most significant form of tourism is its relations with the economic development of a country. In many countries, tourism is an economic activity which consumes a large part of its natural resources, generates revenue of billions of dollars every year and involving thousands of stakeholders and the general public. As a result, it is one of the most important responsibilities of the government as to the planning, facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and protecting of tourism of that country.

The World Tourism Organization (WTO) has conducted an examination on the involvement of the governments in tourism. According to Richardson & Fluker (2004), a government has the responsibilities of establishing the framework of tourism, constructing infrastructure and communications; promoting the tourist destinations to the visitors, providing legislations, regulations and controls for tourism and the protecting the interests of the stakeholders.

As Accrcnza (1985) pointed out there are basic stages in tourism planning which required the involvement of the government. They are analysis of previous tourism development, evaluation of the present position of tourism, formulation of tourism policy, definition of development strategy and elaboration of an action programme. All these require large amount of manpower and resources which are impossible for private sectors to manage. For instance, in establishing the framework of tourism, a functioning tourism system is identified which might affect government’s decision on tourist’s destinations. Two major major force, demand (marketers) and supply (development), are to be considered in this respect. While the demand side is tourists who are going to the destinations, the supply side is related to the land and the geographic characteristics of the destinations (Gunn 1993). In addition, the supply side also made up of five major components, the attraction; transportation; services; information and promotion.

The attraction is the most powerful element as it helps to encourage and increase the desire of the tourists to visit the area. However, to develop the attraction, it may also involve the considerations of such external factors as the natural resources and the cultural resources. The natural resources provide the foundation for tourism development which preferred by tourist, such as water life; vegetative cover; wildlife; topography, soils, geology and climate, atmosphere. The Cultural resources are important for attractions developed as historic; ethnic national, craft and related economic development. As a result it may require the government to win the support of the community regarding the development of these destinations as the community is a significant factor on the functioning of tourism. Its acceptance and willingness to support tourism industries would greatly facilitate the long term development of the sites.

Transportation which enable tourist to travel to different destinations; and services and information such as shops, banks and restaurants; are two other components of the supply side. As Gunn (1993) pointed out it was the responsibility of the government to create new and improve physical plants such as superstructure and infrastructure. Superstructure refers to the land and building developments used directly by travelers, such as hotels, restaurants and attractions. Infrastructure is applied to necessary support developments, such as roads, airports, water supply and fire protection. These public facilities have to be provided by the government so as to promote the growth of tourism.

In addition, (Gee, Dexrer & James 1984) physical development of tourism is made up a great diversity for business, government, and nonprofit components, such as direct provider, include transportation, travel agencies and restaurant; the support services which are tour organizers, management; and the developmental organization include planners and government agencies.

Regarding the promotion of the tourist industry which helps to increase tourist to visit that area, government agencies have an important role as the promoter in this industry. Advertising in mass media and internet is very important in promoting and stimulating travel to the destinations. Familiarization tours and travel shows can provide information and attract tourist to visit that destination. Moreover, if they are organized by the government, they will become promises with reputation and will increase the numbers of the visitors significantly.

Tourism product such as parks, historic sites or convention centers can increase the tourist flow, but these attraction products must be aware as a promised. If tourists discover the destination is not the same as its promise, it may affect the number of tourist who willing to come to the destination (Gunn 1993, Pearce 1989). Therefore, management of these tourism products has to be carefully supervised and monitored. Management is to make institutions capable of producing result (Drucker 1998). According to Richardson & Fluker (2004), the management method which adopted by the WTO are the consulting with various stakeholders through meetings with industry, advisory groups and the general public The aim of these meetings is to discuss specific subjects such as strategic planning; issues on tourism industry such as promotions and regulations; setting up and funding of specialized tourism agencies which help to develop the tourism industry, and providing facilities and operations in order to provide money or facilities for national or communities interest. Moreover the meetings are also about creating the appropriate fiscal, regulatory and social environment within private business; and adjudicating between conflicting interest on society which are concerned with the environment, recreation and wildlife recourses.

As we can see, management is also related to the protection on destination’s interest. It is very important in tourism industry. Decision-making through managerial perceptions and the objective dimensions of tourism industry structure influence the natural environmental resources. The tourism resorts and its environment are necessary for survival and growth. The strategic managers have the most responsibility to that environment. As a result, the planning process in tactical (short-term) and strategic (long term) has to be carefully considered and monitored as it can improve the tourism industry performance and allow an effective response to a continually changing environment (Knowles, Dianmantis & El-Mourhabi 2004).

All in all, the development of tourism of one country is closely related to the policies of that government. According to Richardson & Fluker (2004), policy is a course of action adopted and pursued by a government, expressed as a broad statement of general intent which guides the actions of public servants and others in carrying out the government’s wishes. In other words, only the government has the power to command (including by legislature) such an enormous resources to develop strategy which matches the demand and supply factors such as an evaluation of tourist and market resources; the visitor satisfaction; environmental protection and adequate rewards for developers and investors.

In conclusion, the government plays an important role in the tourism industry. Government agencies have to provide legislations, regulations and controls for tourism in order to ensure its tourism industry can sustain its level and compete with other tourist destination. They have to establish a framework which ensures its tactical and strategic in the attractiveness within the tourist destination in order to increase the amount of tourist visitation. The protection of interest is another important factor of the destination area needed to be considered too. If the attractiveness of its destination decline, it will affect the numbers of tourists who are willing to visit. As a result, to maintain a stable attractive in tourist destination, a new destination may have to be explored or artificial attract resources may be needed. Government agencies have to be concerned with the acceptance in the society whether they welcome or in conflict with the tourist interests.

Government agencies need to make a good balance between two important factors. The promotion on tourist destinations helps its national economic and attraction competitiveness around the world. Tourists who are attracted by the promotion will come to visit instead of other places, so that the national economics will increase. However, if the destination doesn’t match with what the government agencies promote, the national reputation may decline.

As a matter of fact, government agencies play an important role in the tourism industry as the planner, coordinator, legislator and regulator, stimulator, promoter and protector of the destination interest.

In the current, the appearance of two integrated resorts acted the changing the economic structure in Singapore. It is a form of the government to make a growth of tourism receipts will be achieving to SG$30 billion, compared to the year 2009 that was SG$12.8 billion and twofold the amount of tourists to 17 million by 2015 (Montesano and Onn 2011a). According to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the total amount of receipts tourisms reached to SG$18.8 billion in 2010, and confirmed the highest number in ten years. For the expanse of the economy in front, there is a requirement by creating 60,000 jobs in IRs, and contributed 1 to 11/2 per cent of Singapore’s GDP (The Straits Times February 27 2012). According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MIT), by 2015, Resort World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sand would generate about 0.8% (about SG$2.7 billion) for Singapore’s GDP. Some examples, such as RWS’s investment in IR in 2009, it invested SG$826 million on construction task and other properties, plants, and equipment. It showed that the extra value to Singapore’s GDP. Besides, IRs were awaited to lift tourist arrivals and the service industry. In 2010, within the first six months, the tourist arrivals have been increasing (Appendix 1). Especially, the highest amount of tourists was presented in July. The hotel occupancy rate was higher at 85% compared to 2009 was 72%. These figures were affected by a remarkable role of the two IRs. In the fourth quarter of the year 2012, Singapore’s economy avoided recession at 1.8% rise, and overall GDP the year’s growth at 1.2% (The Straits Times January 3 2013a). Additionally, the IRs generate economic spin-off what interest hotel, food and beverage industry, retail, and conventions and exhibitions as well (Montesano and Onn 2011b). For example, in 2009, MICE tourists receipts plunged to SG$2.7 million and SG$4.2 million in revenue, respectively. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the MICE receipts can contribute 35% of the total tourism receipts by 2015 (Yeoman 2012).

Society is impacted caused the development of IRs. The development of tourism in Singapore is a reason to emerge labour issues for the hotel, mostly migrant workers (Hitchcock 2009). However, Marina Bay Sand happening in Singapore has some plans to engage local people. There are about 10,000 job vacancies for elderly unemployed citizens, women and housewives. There are no migrant workers (Conrady 2010). In a research from BBC News (2012), the number of foreign workers was more than 30% of Singapore worker force of about 3 million people. In addition, citizens complain about many problems that are crowded public transportation, high cost of living, high cost of having a car, stressful life, poor customer services, and so on (Butcher and Velayutham 2009). Public transportation is overcrowding passengers on MRT is a serious concern for the Singapore government. The MRT has been extended and added more lines to resolve the current problem. The extension of the East West line is 57.2 km will begin by 2016 and will serve a large amount of the workplace is about 100,000 commuters. There are also two MRT lines are the Thomson Line and Eastern Region Line will begin by 2020 for commuters outside the city. These proposals will meet the leap from 1.4 million commuters to 4.6 million commuters a day in 2020 (Libguides 2011). Furthermore, Singaporeans have met with high housing purchases caused income replacement ratio (IRR). The IRR ratio fell between 17% and 18% for middle earning labours in the individual wage groups, at retirement age of 65. It affects the retirement income when purchasing homes is mortgage payment. Price’s property rises are a $100,000 increase in HDB home price will get IRR by between 3.0% and 12.4% so in order to offset the impact of high housing purchases the earnings growth of 0.4% to 1.2% (Hoong et al. 2012). On the other hand, the prices of private homes in the fourth quarter of the year 2012 grew to 1.8% in Singapore, compared with 0.6% in the previous quarter. In 2012, general costs went up 2.8%, compared to the last year that was 5.8%. HDB resale prices increased to 2.5% in the fourth quarter of the year 2012, compared to the year 2011 (The Straits Times January 3 2013b). Littering issue is the considerable concern with the Singapore’s government. Now, the population has been increasing, and the big inflow of foreign workers in Singapore, what are the main reasons make the city is not so clean. People use the window as a dustbin to throw a lot of stuff so the government has made a limitation of overseas labours, and created more attractive jobs for Singaporeans (Today November 12 2012).

The improvement of technology contributes the development of IRs. Changi International Airport is one of the world’s best airport includes terminal 1, terminal 2 and terminal 3. In 2013, the plan for building terminal 4 to replace budget terminal will start and will complete in 2017 to provide better service to 16 million passengers compared with budget terminal was 7 million passengers (Channelnewsasia 2012). Moreover, internet technology has a vital role to promote the tourism industry around the world by creating good news about tourism of Singapore (Devanish 2011).

Monaco is a small independent country located in Western Europe on the Mediterranean Sea (Shei 2008). Monte-Carlo is the most prominent caused it is a joy as a tourist destination and casinos in Monaco (Singh 2008). There are four casinos in Monte-Carlo: Le Casino de Monte-Carlo, Le Cafe de Paris, Le Sporting Monte-Carlo and Le Sun Casino (Timothey and Teye 2009). Monte-Carlo SBM is a group owns hotels and casinos, including Les Thernes Marins de is one of the best spa of the world (Gershman 2009).

In analytic PESTEL concerns, showing that PESTEL impacts and issues have affected future development of integrated resort development in Monaco. The first is a detailed analysis of political impact. Monaco is a constitutional monarchy which is known as National Council since 2009. National Council has 24 members who are elected by locals every 5 years. The government combined of 5 ministers knows as Conseiller du Gouvernement with different responsibilities such as economy, culture, society, education, housing, environment, transportation, and public service for community, technology, health care and others. Monaco is handled and protected by France (King 2008). It receives many benefits like an EU membership, and the currency is Euro. In 1993, it attended the United Nations and the Council of Europe in 2004 (Rogers and Crimmins 2011). Current political issue is SBM employers feel dissatisfied the rights of workers. They need to have their own party to be elected to become a member of National Council in order to secure for SBM workers in the current and future in Monaco. In the case, if the party can get 12.5% of the vote, it will win. However, they will have a problem with Union Monegasque and Horizon Monaco. On 15 November 2012, there was a preparation for 24 members in trade unions for Renaissance’s election campaign. On 10 January 2012, the official list members will notice (The Riviera Times November 15 2012a).

Secondly, following the Monaco Government Tourist and Convention Authority (2011), GDP reached to a‚¬4.37 billion. It rose by 6.6% compared to 2010. The Singapore economy has recovered since 2010 was 2.1% after there was a decrease by 11.5% in 2009. According to “2011 GDP Report”, GDP per capita (PPP) was a‚¬51,556 that was an increase by 4%. In 2010, tourism industry achieved a significant amount. The act of selling hotel industry climbed to 8.4%, equivalent to a‚¬493,472,800 excluding VAT compared to 2009 was a‚¬455,421,462. These figures showing the tourism industry is going up. In 2010, leisure tourism made up 80% of hotel arrivals compared to business tourism was 20%. Monaco was 30 top of target arrivals. It achieved the figures of travellers from new markets are Mexico (+23%), Brazil (+24%), New Zealand (+24%), Australia (+32 %), India (+41%). The government of Monaco expects the number of Indian tourists will increase to 25% caused from 2010 to 2012 the number of Indian travelled to Monaco grew from 1,200 people to 1,500 people (APN News November 21 2012). Monaco has no income tax on residents and low business taxes. However, casino revenue for the government achieves 75%. Business tax rate is 33.33%. In case, the company’s turnover get more than 25% generates outside of Monaco (OECD 2010). The additional profit tax rates will be reducing for further incorporation within the first 5 years following in the first 2 years, the third year, the fourth year, the fifth year and the sixth year with the tax rate will be payable is 0%; 25%; 50%; 75%; 100%, respectively (Cambell 2008). Tax exile is a common issue of Monaco. An investigation represented more than 2,000 Britons live in Monaco made UK’s economy lost tax revenue ?1 billion. The issue is 533 directors of UK companies registered their business in Monaco. Tax exiles said that UK’s economy receives many benefits from them by creating jobs, paying corporate tax and 19.6% VAT in Monaco (The Times November 20 2012).

Thirdly, in Monaco, cost of living is so expensive compared to other countries. It is excellent 13 of 198 countries that have a high standard of living. Education is free for students from 6 year-old to 16 year-old. There is no competition in education so it fells the opportunity to finish on quality provision. The crime rate is lower than other countries (King 2008). According to the Economist (2008), real estate costs were at a high number that is a‚¬50,000/m2, compared to London and New York was a‚¬28,000/m2, a‚¬16,500/m2 respectively caused the lack of space and low tax policy. On 26 September 2012, National Council decided to reform retirement in order to minimize Monegasque society despite the protests of Worker’s Trade Union. Monthly, workers will pay more contributions to pension caused the government wants to raise capital by reducing labour cost. An increase of employees is 0.8% and 1.8%for employers (The Riviera Times September 9 2012b).

Fourthly, The Web 2.0 is a valuable tool for the Monaco Convention Bureau. The objective is to reach the target market by combining technology system what is called “email marketing strategy” and economic amenities to organizers of seminars, exhibition, congresses and trade shows. Within 1 month, it designed and sent the first email to about 6,000 receipts, including meeting, corporations (Dinnie 2011). On the other hand, Monaco has the highest broadband usage rate in the world was 47.4% in 2009 caused the Internet users got 75.2% of the population (Siaroff 2009). There is no international airport in Monaco. However, the nearest airport is Nice that is only 22km from Monaco, and direct bus services from the Nice airport to Monaco within 45 minutes. Guests can have their journey by helicopter within 7 minutes (Jha 2011, p.24).

Fifthly, in Monaco, there is sewage treatment for the city water then it is discharged into the sea by submarine outfalls. In addition, solid wastes are recycled but the weight drop at 70 percent before treatment. The most part of Monaco is an urbanized area (Allah et al. 2012). According the Monaco Government Tourist and Convention Authority (2012), it has a policy to protect and keep clean beaches caused cigarette butts of tourists and smokers grew in the sand on the beach. There are about 4000 ashtrays were giving out to locals and tourist from 1 July 2012 to 15 November 2012. It was remarkably successful in June 2012.

Lastly, in Monaco, citizens are not allowed to gamble in casino (Thompson 2012). Gambling is legal that provides government revenue through regulation and taxation between the government and gaming organizations (Strzalko et al. 2009).

The goal of integrated resorts is to make money and provide entertainment for guests (Congrave and Klassen 2009). Are balance between gaming operation and non-gaming operation in integrated resorts businesses? Casinos are in integrated resorts offer accommodation, restaurants, retail, spas, pools, conventions in order to attract customers to casinos. All of them are non-gaming activities. Despite strong investment for non-gaming activities, their revenues are not good, compared with revenues of gaming activities (Selin and Davey 2012). Furthermore, in Monaco, casinos provide their revenues for urban development and to upgrade tourism facilities, infrastructure. Monte-Carlo Casino invests monies for security technology to keep safety for its customers. A Dallmeier video security system is used for monitoring and operating by the Monte Carlo Casino. There are approximately 400 cameras. It also use the Pixim-Powered Dallmeier system caused it provides high-quality pictures, and it is easy to use and fast for searching pictures in the system by using jog-shuttle tool. All movements in positioning and counting at gaming table, and operations within the casino are operated quickly by Pixim’s DPS technology (Pixim 2007).

What are differences between traditional resorts and integrated resorts? Traditional resort knows as a destination including hotel accommodations, restaurant facilities, swimming pools and other recreational amenities for visitors (Mill 2008). Integrated resort is a resort with mixed development of hotels, casinos, spas, sport facilities, attractions, shopping centres and convention centres (Mallin 2009). “Mixed-use” resort is a method for development of the tourism market. It combines the development of hotels, entertainments, leisure and sporting activities, retail outlets and attractions (Robinson 2012). The mixed used is hugely popular for developers to support the building’s cost of traditional resort hotel facilities and gets benefits for owners of properties, control of food and beverage and recreational activities (HVS Global Hospitality Services 2011).

Sustainable development is an important concept for integrated resorts. The idea of all-inclusive means everything includes in one price. Different resorts have different all-inclusive packages offer to guests to increase the sales of products. For instance, some all-inclusive packages include accommodations, breakfasts and return airport transfers for 2 ways or room, lunch and dinner, and spa treatment with limited time and so on. This is a way to offer promotional packages to customers to change the ways to monitor and manage resorts (Luck 2008). Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort applies the all-inclusive strategy for durable development. Some promotional packages are offered by Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort such as Monte-Carlo Experience ‘Festival Printemps Des Arts’ package includes 1 night accommodation in a double room, buffet breakfast per person and 2 tickets to attend ‘Printemps Des Arts Festival 2013, and Monte-Carlo Gourmet Experience package includes 2 night accommodation in a double room, buffet breast for per person per day, 1 Monte-Carlo invitation card valued 200 euros to be spent at 20 restaurants belong to Monte-Carlo SBM group (SBM 2011). In addition, most exciting international events are organized in Monaco. It is a destination for all types of events related to culture, sport and leisure. There is a full calendar of famous events through the year 2013 such as Monte-Carlo International Circus Festival, Monte-Carlo Automobile Rally, International Bouquet Competition, Monaco Grand Prix, Monte-Carlo Summer Sporting Festival, Monaco Red Cross Gala, Monaco Yatch Show, Monaco International Trade Fair (Husain 2011).

Specially, Monaco is a paradise for sport such as Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix draws thousands of travellers around the world. The Master 1000 Tennis Tournament has the attendance of all top stars. The 150th anniversary Monte-Carlo SBM properties will be celebrated by the year 2013. Besides, the 25th anniversary of the Louis XV restaurant is the oldest restaurant in Monaco. The large participation of 200 chefs and 300 Michelin stars from all over the world with a wine cellar has 400,000 bottles. This celebration demonstrated 25 years of excellent service and position of Monaco in hospitality industry (Tourismmandlifestylenews 2012). Prince Albert II Monaco Foundation is a policy to protect “green” environment in order to maintain Monaco, where is an attractive place for tourists and residents. Space is so limited so new development plans for hotels are unable to come to increase competition in Monaco. This is an opportunity for development of SBM. (Thompson 2012).

1. Who am I as a learner?

1.1 Introduction”How can we learn best? How can we learn in the most effective way ?” I believe it is a question that every learner doubt about. ” In the fast-changing world, if you can’t learn,unlearn and relearn, you’re lost(Stoll, Fink & Earl, 2003, P.xv).” Learning is a lifelong process in which using the right way to learn is the pre-requisite. Therefore, to recognize the best learning preference of myself, I had taken three tests to analyze who I am as a learner. The three tests results would be used as implication of my learning preferences and also provided some guidance as to improve myself. In the second part, I had chosen two career which I would also justify the two choices according to the test results and the improvement could make from above in order to fit in the career.1.2 Questionnaires

In order to search out the means that are most suitable for my learning, I have completed three tests, namely VARK, Myers-Briggs and Belbin test. These three tests not only helped to examine the best learning style for myself, they also highlighted some important roles that I have been playing in a team and some roles that I didn’t realized or neglected.

1.2.1 VARK questionnaire

Test resultVARK is referring to visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic respectively. It is used to test people’s learning preference.

According to the result, I am a multimodal learner which means either visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic are suitable for my learning.

Among the four aspects in the VARK test, I had the highest score in read/write aspect. Ever since secondary school, I like to write my own notes instead of only reading text book or revising teacher’s handout. I rather like to take my own notes in a notebook while reading as I found this can enhance my memory of the subject. For instance, I studied history in my certificate examination and there are many dates and events that we need to memorize, just like the second world war, there are numerous dates we must remember. To aid myself to memorize all the dates in a more systematic and easier way, I like to draw a timeline when revising history and it did help me to have a clear picture on the sequence of the events.

Looking back at my 2 years Higher Diploma course, I found I learnt best also by read/write plus aural. Since Higher Diploma had a completely different teaching method when compare to secondary school, as teachers are mainly distributing hangouts which are mainly key points of topic and they will illustrate the key points verbally. Regarding to VARK result, I found I enjoy much to attend lecture and write down what the lecturers said in handouts and turn all the key ideas that I had written down into my own notes during revision. There were module about consumer behavior in higher diploma course which there were many theories included. Usually there were only the framework of the theory in the notes given by lecturer like the decision making process of consumer and consumer motivation and I like to write down the elaborations and examples illustrated by lecturer. According to Felder and Soloman(no date), they stated that “verbal learners get more out of words – written and spoken explanations.” I found by attending lecture, it enabled me to get the idea of the topic and by written down the illustration given by lecturers could stimulate myself during revision and is a good way to recall my memory after long period of time.

I believe my learning style is a multimodal one as stated by VARK test and the combination of read, visual and aural could help me to achieve the best of my learning.

According to Calvert School, “Kinesthetic learners learn best by moving bodies and activating their muscles(2007, P.2).” The VARK result has accurately reflected my current learning style as I didn’t get much body movement when learning and I would prefer more to learn by read,visual and aural. The VARK result suggest that I can work well from doing though this is not the most preferable way. Moreover, Fleming(2009) suggested that kinesthetic type are referred to real experience or real practice and applications.

Family and friends comment

From the opinions of my mother, she thinks that I use quite a lot of “visual” when studying. By her observation, I often use mind maps and graphs as summary when revising. Ms. Angel Lam, my high school teacher who has teach me for over 5 years in geography, commented me as a student who are systematic and learn fast. By her observation, she said that I always written down many notes during lessons like the examples given and I was able to use the examples when doing the home works or examination.Kringle, who are my classmates and group mates in higher diploma course, noted that I am a h3 at read and write as I could read very fast and usually I was the one who finish reading the article given by the lecturers, not only reading the article but I as well can mark down the key points.

1.2.2 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MMDI)

Test result

There are a total of 16 personality types in the Myers-Briggs personality test. It is a combination of Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving. Each of the fourth representing the following dimension : how much they involve in social interaction, how they perceive source of information or insight, how they make decision and how they interact with outer world.(Gonzale & Saner, 2009, P.7)

ISTJ
56%ISFJ
61%INFJ
68%INTJ
63%
ISTP
38%ISFP
50%INFP
54%INTP
42%
ESTP
40%ESFP
45%ENFP
52%ENTP
47%
ESTJ
54%ESFJ
66%ENFJ
70%ENTJ
58%

Appendix B.2

I have the highest score in ENFJ personality type which referring that I have a preference in Extroversion, Intuition, Feeling and Judging. Extraversion is related to social interaction, Fuller (2005, P.1) summarized that “ENFJs are wearing h3 feelings in the outer world and as well proclaim their opinions and convictions.”

According to the Myers-Briggs test report, extrovert feeling is on the first priority for ENFJ personality type. Isachsen and Berens noted that “ENFJs like to lend a helping hand in improving and enhancing the overall environment(1988, P.9).” ENFJ type personality is mainly focusing on the outer world and wish to reach harmony among people.

Team Technology(2009) illustrated that social, expressive, action before thoughts, interactive and outward are the characteristics of Extraversion.

The test result was well reflected about my personality. I am sensitive to the others emotion. I am one of the teacher in the Sunday school and Issac fellowship in The Church of christ in China Cheung Chau Church for over 3 years and I am mainly teaching kids age from kindergarten to grade 3. When holding activities with them, I could easily find out kids who are shy or not enjoy much in games. Usually when I spot out kids who are seem not enjoy in the atmosphere, I would talk to them and give them encouragement. In certain cases, for kids who are really shy, i found that holding their hands and play the game with them is an effective method to make them involve more in the group. On the other hand, I like social activities like gathering, parties as I found myself comfortable in those activities and I enjoy meeting new people in these activities. Therefore, during summer holidays, I usually will enroll different courses like Japanese class or I would enroll the join church activities to meet more new friends. Last year, I had joint a camp named “I Love Hong Kong Macau” in which there are church mates from east asian countries like Taiwan, Cambodia and Singapore. That was a very valuable experience as I could meet people with different cultural backgrounds and nationality.

Rather than hiding all my feelings in bottom of my heart, I tend to express my feelings. No matter what circumstances I am facing, I like to share my feelings with my friends and families as I found I feel better only by speaking out what is in my heart. I share almost everything in my life with my friends no matter it is happy, sad or angry. Whenever I have things that bother me like arguments with family, I will find my friends and talk about that. Then I will feel better after I tell them my feelings. I also like to express my own thinking when with group of people. For instance, during the high school life, we always need to have meetings in sports group. I always like to tell the other committee members of what I think towards the ideas the others suggested and I would voice out my own ideas as well.

The Myers-Briggs personality test report noted that Extraversion and Feeling are the most important trait in ENFJ personality(Appendix). Feeling means that people are more feeling oriented when making decision(Gonzale & Saner, 2009, P.7). Whenever I need to make decision, how I feel towards the matter is always of my top concern instead of thinking what should be the best alternative. Some people may quickly sort out the best alternative when making decision but I would also consider my feeling . If I do not want like the best alternative, I would try another option.

Weakness

Intuition was more preferred when I receive information or insight. Hogan & Champagne described intuitive person “may be a tendency to make error of fact(no date, P.7).” It is true that intuition is not reliable when making important decision. Looking for facts or real evidences are vital before any decision should be drawn. I found I have tendency to trust the feeling instead of the fact. This had lead to a pre-mature decision making and make myself to draw to conclusion easily.

Friends and family comment

Jacqueline, my best friend ever since secondary school, commented me as a very good listener and she loves to share everything with me. She said I am very easy to get along with and she feels very comfortable when being with me. She thought that I am the ‘carer’ in my peer group as I pay a lot of attention to my peers. As well, I always be the one to talk with whoever need someone to talk with.

On the other hand, Jasmine, my elder sister, pointed that I over rely on intuition. It is mainly because by her observation, she could see that when making decision, I usually trust more on my intuition than looking for the facts. One of the examples is that when purchasing for electrical products, I usually trust the brand name and if my intuition think the brand is no good and I would never purchase that brand of product. However, it turned out that the brand suggested by my sister had a better performance than the brand I trust.

Improvement

After the past experiences, I found that sometimes I am rigid and only trust my intuition. Hence, I should learn to think twice before action. Focus think twice before making decision is what I should do to avoid making some avoidable mistakes in the future. It is important for me to learn to be more careful and thoughtful so that I could make a balance between my intuition but at the same time not to neglect the real fact.

1.2.3 Belbin Self Perception Inventory Test

Test resultI was quite surprised with the test result. I had a higher score in Plant(PL), Resource Investigator(RI) and Shaper(SH) yet my least preferred roles are Monitor Evaluator(ME), Teamworker(TW) and Specialist(SP). (Appendix B.3)

”Plant(PL) is the source of creative and original ideas of the team(Belbin, 1981).” As one of the teachers in the Issac fellowship, we will have meetings every two months to set the theme and activities for the coming months. I always give different ideas on the themes of fellowship, in the last December meeting which we need to discuss about the theme about coming year. In view of the popularity of farming games in a social networking website, I had suggested a award program in which the ideas comes from that farming game. The program aim is to award good morality and every time when kids achieve good conduct, we will award them a new type of food stickers to place on their own farm on the blackboard. This program had run successfully in the past few months and are able to let the kids to understand the importance of good moral. I also actively come up with different ideas in high school as we had many different events responsible for. In the last year of high school life, our class wanted to prepare a gift for the class teacher yet the classmates could not think of anything that are meaningful and could get all the classmates to involved in preparation of the gift. I proposed the idea of making a album which we sticked our school life photos with a few thankful words to our teacher , the idea was accepted by the classmates and my teacher was very delighted when received the gift.

Belbin described Shaper(SH) as ” challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure(Appendix B.3).” I had the highest score in role of Shaper and it is not really a surprising result for me. I am capable to work in a dynamic environment. I had a half year internship in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and after the internship I work as a part time guest service officer there. Hotel industry is a dynamic industry which we face people with different backgrounds, nationalities, languages and expectations. As a guest service officer, I needed to handle different guest enquiries, make bookings for spa treatments and sometimes also needed to show the guest around to introduce all the hotel facilities. Different guests have their own expectations to the hotel and therefore it is important to find out their needs and to satisfy them. It is actually quite stressful to work in hotel industry but I could handle it quite well and I got a remarkable appraisal in the internship.

However, I was quite surprised in the role of Teamworker which I had the lowest scores. Belbin(1981) defined teamworkers as “resolves conflicts, promotes spirit, and serves as a sort of peacemaker.” Although the lowest score only represent it is the least preferred role, I actually love to work with people and I am a person who care the others a lot.

I was the class representative in high school and my responsibility is to hold meetings and organize events like annual performance and graduation dinner. Since classmates always had different opinion in meetings, arguments happened all the time. Not only as the representative but also as a friend of them, I tried to bring them together and to let them calm down so that they could really listen to each others suggestions.

Belbin test result only rated Co-ordinator as manageable role for me. It was a bit amazed. It is because I enjoy a lot in organizing events as a co-ordinator. I am the head of committee in my F.5,F.7 and higher diploma graduation dinner, I like the process of organizing the events such as meeting with event sales, delegating work to committee members and distributing jobs. I found being a co-ordinator is a very challenging role and I treasure the experience of being in this role.

Weakness

I had a low score in Monitor Evaluator(ME). A Monitor Evaluator had a clear mind to see all the exist alternatives and can make judgement accurately. Yet, as from the result of the Myers-Briggs test, I rely quick heavily on my intuition, sometimes I couldn’t make judgement accurately and to list all the possible options before making decision. More importantly, sometimes, I will judge people or things from my intuition or the previous image that in my mind. That is another reason I am not a good monitor evaluator as my perceived thinking had affected my judgement.

Improvement

As the same as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I was weak in making judgement as I rely too much on intuition. It is not a wise choice to only trust my own feelings and senses. As if in my future career, I believe in a management level, it is important not to blind with the old feelings or image in mind. Therefore, I believe I should really learn to think of facts before action so that less errors would make. I think I should learn to take away to old perception or intuition when making judgment so that a more fair decision could be make.

Friends and family comment

Iris who are one of the graduation dinner committee members of higher diploma course, agreed that I am a good co-ordinator as I am able to take care of everything well and are able to delegate works to different people. She commented I am a confident leader when holding meetings and leading the committee, all in all, the graduation dinner was a great success. One significant point that she mentioned is that I rely on my intuition again when we chose the venue for the event. As the budget is the great concern, we had to find venue which our classmates are affordable. I would tend not to search for those ‘perceived to be more expensive hotel’, however, it turn out some 5 stars hotel are also in our affordable range. She suggested that I should try not to judge by intuition but facts.

2. Implication for career choice

2.1 Lifelong learning

“Lifelong learning is a beautifully simple idea(Field, 2006, p.1).” ” It has to be an ongoing process – a life long activity that people engage and re-engage in continually in order to improve their understanding and develop new knowledge and skills(Sutherland & Crowther, 2006, P.4).” Foreign languages and technology are important for me to learn lifelong. Not only because of work, I believe all these skills are vital for us to survive in this dynamic society.

Foreign languages like Spanish and Japanese, are getting more popular nowadays. With the effect of globalization, people we meet everyday come from places all over the world. Since I would like to devoted in hospitality and tourism industry, I think language skills are essential. Speaking only our mother language or English is never enough if we work in service industry. Spanish has the second largest speakers in the world(Lewis, 2009). Therefore, I am preparing to enroll language courses to learn Spanish as it’s popularity is just behind Chinese and this reflected it’s importance. I had learnt Japanese for 2 years when I was in middle school. During the time I work in Grand Hyatt, I found there are quite a lot of chances to meet guests from Japan. From my experience, the Japanese guests would be delighted if you could speak Japanese even it is not fluent. Hence, I would also like to further enhance my Japanese so that I could communicate with them better next time when I meet them again. I am going to enroll the hotel communication Japanese course organized by Nikkei Japanese Language School. My aim is to attain the Level 1 (highest) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test which is the most efficient qualification of Japanese around the world. In a long term, I would like to take some counseling courses like the introduction to counseling organized by HKU Space as I believe I would enter the management level later in my career. It is necessary to learn how to handle different emotions and how to give proper counseling to the others.

2.2 Transferrable Skills

Training Agency defined transferrable skills as ” the generic capabilities which allow people to succeed in a wide range of different tasks and jobs(1990, P.5).” Assiter(1995, P.14) summarized the core transferrable skills that suggested by the National Curriculum Council(1990) are problem solving, communication, personal skills, I.T and foreign language competences. To start with, school and workplace had enabled me to develop a set of transferrable skills for me. They are initiative, flexibility, planning and organizing, oral presentation, listening, independence and work in team.

I had work as sales associate in Lane Crawford before and currently work as part time guest service officer in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. This two jobs are both customer-oriented and had given me valuable chances to train up my skills in initiative, oral presentation, independence and work in team. It is very important to take initiative when working customer related jobs. Instead of waiting for customers to ask for help, we should take our initiative to ask the customers if they need any help. A good oral presentation is also essential in serving customer, I always need to give introduction of the hotel to guest and a good oral presentation would give them good impression to the hotel. Meanwhile, I also needed to introduce different kind of spa treatments to the guest, how to persuade them to try the treatments in a short time is crucial as guest were not patient to listen. Therefore, this job also trained me the presentation skills. It is as well a rather independent job as a guest service officer in hotel, we have to face many guests a day and usually the front desk has guests waiting while only 3-4 staffs are around. When facing problems, I have to tackle it myself as my colleagues may not be able to help me every time. It is a very good opportunity to train me how to work independently, be more decisive and be flexible.

In my high school life, I had a lot of occasions that enable me to be an organizer of events. They were precious experience for me to learn how to plan and organize an event effectively and efficiently. Let’s take my graduation dinner in higher diploma as example, we only have less than a month to prepare the whole event. From looking at the venue to the design of the gifts, we had spent only about 2 weeks time to get everything done. After this event, I found planning is very important as effective planning can make the whole event run smoothly. At the same time, as a chairperson, active listening is also plays a prominent part. I had to listen different committee member’s opinions and to make a balance between different ideas to determine which one is the best for us.

2.3 Justify the chosen career choiceI had explored two careers that are suitable for my work preferences. The first one is a entry level career in Four Seasons Hotel as guest relations officer and the second one is a middle level post in Sheraton Hotel as sales manager – corporate.As a fresh graduate in the coming year, I believe it is suitable for me to start with entry level post. As listed in the job advertisement, Four Seasons Hotel is looking for applicants who are willing to work shift, have good communication skills, can work well in team and have service passion. With my experiences as part time in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, I can prove I have the abilities that they are looking for. I have many chances to get in touch with foreigners in Grand Hyatt, this had provided a very good channel for me to practice my oral English. Sometimes I even needed to communicate with guest coming from China which enable me to practice my Putonghua. I planned to take the ITELS in the coming year as to prove my english qualification and make it more persuasive during interview. Moreover, as I am not very proficient in Putonghua, I will take a Putonghua course next year so that I can speak Putonghua more fluently.

Graduated from bachelor degree would not be the end of my learning life. I have planned to take up a part time master degree on Business Administration in the second year of working life. Not only having great interest in customer service, I also interested to work in business field like events management or sales and marketing. I enjoy the process of planning an event and holding a successful event could bring me huge satisfaction. I would like to seek some part time event planning assistant job by the time I study the master degree. This could help me to gain more experience before I actually apply the related job after graduation. The event manager of George P. Johnson Company Hong Kong required degree related field in business; 2 years experience; outgoing, independent and enthusiastic in events; h3 organization and excellent communication skills and h3 problem solving and creative thinking. With the further study on business administration in master degree and the experience gained from job, I believe I would be capable to handle this job.As mentioned in the Belbin test, I have a preferred role as Shaper(SH) and Plant(PL)who are challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure and as well creative and imaginative. The position as event manager would face a lot of uncertainties as there are a very keen competitions, it is as well needed to be creative, I believe this is a job that suitable for my personality.

3.ConclusionThis project had enabled me to discover more about myself. I was very surprised with some of the test results and they are a very good reminder to me to improve myself on my weakness like relying too heavy on intuition. This project also aids me to understand what are my strengths so that I could utilize them more in my future study and my career. I really have a great passion to work in customer service industry which an extraversion personality and works well under pressure are definitely a must. I trust my personality would well suit in customer oriented career. However, when talking about decision making, I still need more training and to be more thoughtful.

Part B – An investigation on the economic impacts of hosting Olympic
Games : case of Sydney 2000 & Athens 2004

Abstract

Events can always bring considerable impacts in terms of economic to the host organizations, mega events like Olympics could even impact the whole host city and the host country. To be an event planner is an interesting and challenging job that the author would like to work in the future, this job is also an ideal career for the author. In which, to be an event planner, budget control is important. Therefore, this project will use Olympics, the most renowned mega event in the world, to assess its economic impact to the host city and country. The commonly used input – output model would be used to investigate how the Olympic Games could impact the host city’s economy in different aspects like tourism and the infrastructure on host city.After the study, it is found that there are possibility that staging the Olympic Games could bring negative economic effect to the host city and country. This is highly depend on whether the host city had a careful assessment before bidding the Game, a detail planning on staging the Games and also how to leverage tourism from the Olympic Games.Keywords : Olympic Games, input – output analysis, economic impact, tourism

Section 1 : Introduction

1.1 Reason for choosing the topicOlympic Games is one of the most well-known sporting event all over the world. Preuss described Olympic as “the biggest, most prestigious and peaceful multi sport event ( 2004, P.1)”, every four years, the city which host the Olympic Games would gain the global interest. Not only gaining global interest, Olympic games could bring millions of currency by tourism, broadcasting, souvenirs and even ticketing (Appendix D.1) to the host country.The importance on economic aspects had been discussed by different scholars, there were many types of models which used to access the impacts on different Olympic Games like the input-output analysis and multiplier effects. Therefore, investigation on how the Olympic Games impacted on the host country had been worthwhile.1.2 State the objectivesThe objectives of this study included the investigation on how staging the Olympic Games had affected a country in economic aspects in different phrase by using input-output model and to analyze of important aspects that contributed to positive economic impacts to host country.

1.3 Outline of sectionFirst, the history of Olympic Games would be introduced briefly and then there would be analysis on three models which were used to examine the economic impacts. After the comparison among the three models, the most suitable one would be chosen and would be applied into the two case : Sydney 2000 Olympics and Athens 2004 Olympics. It would then followed by a discussion on factors that could aid to host successful Olympic Games with positive economic impacts.

Section 2 : History of the Olympic Games

Olympic games was originated from Olympia in Greece in 776BC(Nostos, 2000). It was founded by the son of god Zeus, Hercules, in order to the celebrate his father great skills (Plowden and Jones, 1995). Olympic Games was the oldest Greece festival and it is a competition which only male in Greece were qualified and with a much shorter time (Young, 2004; Golden, 1998). The winner of Ancient Olympic Games would awarded an olive wreath (Appendix D.2) which is a symbol of victory(Plowden and Jones, 1995; Swaddling, 2000).The Ancient Olympic Games was ended in A.D 393 after the Roman Empire conquered Greece. The Olympic Games was first continued since the conquer in 146 BC, not until the emperor Theodosius I. He ended the Ancient Olympic Games due to reason that it was with pagan nature as he was a Christian (Linde, 2007).The modern Olympic Games was restored by a French aristocrat named Baron Pierre de Coubertin (Plowden and Jones, 1995; Pelle, 2004). Coubertin believed that Olympic Games should be a event for people from all over the world and to compete on an equal basis, he believed it is a game to promote world peace (Linde, 2007). He had present his idea to restore the Olympic Games to Athletic Sports Union in 1892 and the idea was accepted. The first modern Olympic Games was then held in Athens, Greece in 1896. In the same year, Coubertin also founded the International Olympic Committee (Plowden and Jones, 1995).The first modern Olympic Games was staged in Athens in 1896 with athletes from 14 nations competing for 43 sporting events. There were only 241 athletes and no volunteers. Noted that only males were allowed to participate in the first modern Olympic, women were first appeared in the second modern Olympic – Paris 1900, there were 22 women participants (Olympics.org, 2009) Until today, the size of Olympic games was getting larger and larger, the most recent Olympic Games which staged in Beijing in 2008, had 204 nations competing for 302 sporting events. There were 10,942 number of athletes and 70,000 volunteers participated (Olympics.org, 2009).

Section 3 : Literature Review

“One of the main impacts the Olympic Games assumed to have on their host cities is in terms of the short- and long-term economic impact of the event on the flow of tourists into the city (Roche, 2000, P.140).” This section reviews on the literature related to economic impacts on Olympic games.

Since

Hosting Olympic games had long been perceived as a way to boost economy for host city and in general, there are perception that Olympic will always be beneficial, in terms of economically, to the host city. 3.1Define the economic impact studyAccording to Crompton et al (2001), the conceptual rationale for undertaking economic impact of an event was as follow:Figure 1 The concep

When you are planning to visit Louisville, you must know first when is the best time to visit the city in order for you to really enjoy your visit. The Kentucky Derby Festival is just the best time to visit in the city of Louisville. This is a very popular event in the city that is visited by thousands of people.

You will experience these exciting programs during the festival. Your visit in Louisville during Kentucky Derby Festival will be going to be a great and unforgettable getaway. There is no reason for you not to experience this festival because this is held annually.

http://www.eventhomeleasing.com/kentucky_derby_festival.asp

What is the month that will be the best time to visit Louisville?

In visiting a certain place, there is always the best time to visit such. If you are going to go to Louisville, you must make it in September, exactly late part of the month. Why? This is the month where the Adam Matthews Balloon Festival was held, known now as the Bluegrass Balloon Festival.

There are just so many things to experience and to enjoy in this festival. This festival is being held in the Bowman Field where you will see many colorful big hot air balloons going up on the air. You will be surprised that the hot air balloon flights are participated by different countries from around the world. Aside from that, there is also the Kids Fun Center where you and your children can enjoy.

http://www.hotairballoon.com/Bluegrass-Balloon-Festival/

http://www.kyfestivals.com/details.php?id=259

Is it best time to visit Louisville even during ordinary days?

Louisville is just one of the beautiful and perfect cities to visit in Kentucky. Even ordinary days, it is still the best time to visit the city because of the many interesting places to go and wonderful things to do here.

With so many beautiful sights and activities to try, you will have a wonderful experience in Louisville even you go here during ordinary days. Hopping to different attractions, trying different restaurants, and experiencing some activities are very good things to do in the city. You may also go to Louisville Zoo, The Waterfront Park, and The Park at Middletown to see great sceneries. Whenever your time allows, feel free to visit Louisville even during ordinary days and enjoy the experience the city can provide.

http://www.louisville.worldweb.com/SightsAttractions/

Is there a special event in Louisville that can be also the best time to visit Louisville?

If you are looking for a special event to be experienced for your tour then going to Louisville is the best option for that. The city of Louisville has one special event known as Kentucky Shakespeare Festival that can be your best time to visit the city. If you are a fan of Shakespeare, then this is really the best time for you to go to the city.

This festival is held during summer months at the Central Park of the city. Kentucky Shakespeare Festival presents a range of the works of Shakespeare. You will get to see one of his masterpieces and other works that might still be unfamiliar to you. Visiting this festival will also let you learn more about Shakespeare. This will be definitely a great Louisville tour for you.

http://www.louisville.worldweb.com/Events/SpecialEvents/

What are the events in Louisville that are considered the best time to visit the city?

In any place, there are always events that can be your best time to visit. In Louisville, you will have so many events that you can visit and partake in such as:

Saint James Court Art Show

Kentucky State Fair

Worldaa‚¬a„?s Championship Horse Show

Kentucky Shakespeare Festival

Beatles Festival

Kentucky Derby Festival

Each of these events presents wonderful and interesting highlights that you will really enjoy with. It is best to bring your friends with you once you participate in one of the events in Louisville for you to really have an extreme fun. Most of these events are held every year, so you will always have chance to participate in a certain event in Louisville.

http://www.louisville.worldweb.com/Events/AllEvents/

Can it be a best time to visit Louisville during the winter season?

Visiting a certain place during a certain season can be really exciting and fun, especially when you have a family vacation. A family vacation in Louisville during the winter season is definitely the best time to visit the city for the plenty of things your family can have.

A winter camp is just the most exciting to have for a family. Aside from that, you and your kids can also have a wonderful day at the Louisville Zoo and experience seeing many regional animals. There is the Science Center also where all of you will get to experience IMAX Theater. Sledding at the Metro Park is also just the best thing to do to complete your family vacation.

http://www.helium.com/items/1460582-things-to-do-in-louisville-ky-during-the-winter

When is the best time to visit Louisville for the couples?

Planning to have a romantic tour together with your partner? Going to Louisville is the right thing to do for the city has many romantic places where both of you can have the best time ever. Actually, there is no definite month or time for the couples to visit Louisville. Any time you go to this city, you can always have a romantic moment and there are many places where you can find it.

Here are the places in the city where both of you will have romantic moments:

Palace Theater

Louisville Dinner Theater

Petrus Nightclub

The Bistrol Bar & Grill

Zaa‚¬a„?s Fusion

La Quinta Inn & Suites Louisville

The Seelbach Hilton Louisville

http://attractions.uptake.com/kentucky/louisville/romantic/955188465.html

http://hotels.uptake.com/kentucky/louisville/526285907.html

When it comes to adventure travel, when is the best time to visit Louisville?

Are you a thrill seeker and wants to try the wild side of Louisville? Visit the city anytime of the day for you will always find a place where you can have adventurous experience. Thereaa‚¬a„?s no specific time to visit Louisville to have an adventure travel.

The city has many places that will suite your needs for adventure sports such as:

Central Tennessee for hang gliding and wild cave adventures

Central Kentucky and Tennessee for skydiving and hot air ballooning

There are also other places in Louisville where you can perform all your favorite thrilling sports.

http://www.tripcart.com/usa-regions/Central-Kentucky-Tennessee,Adventure-Travel.aspx#Guide||||||Top||||||||

The main objectives of writing the report are to do a case study on how the Universal Studio is able to attract the locals and tourists into investing in the place. The report would cover why universal studio is able to do so with its unique features. How it is better than its competitor (Escape Theme Park) or how it is in a way inferior to this competitor will be analysed using the SWOT analysis. Is there a raise in tourism in Singapore due to the universal studio.

Understanding how universal studio was established and its importance in bringing revenue to Singapore and helping to raise the number of tourism attractions in Singapore.

The report would be based on my first hand observation of how the universal studio works and became success. I made a visit to universal studio trip myself and saw it from the perspective of a tourist and a local. I had to decide why the place was worth going to and I did it by going there. I approached my friends who had been there for their reviews regarding universal studio and how they felt about the place to get a better understanding besides my own view or doing a survey on how people feel about universal studio. I also interviewed my friend who is working there to have a clearer picture of universal studio and what it does, and their daily routine of maintaining the flow of the people.

What is Universal Studio Singapore?

Universal Studio is a theme park built to raise tourism in Singapore. The theme park is located at Sentosa within Resort World Sentosa. Genting Group won the bid to build a second integrated resort in Singapore. On 19 April 2007 the building the Resort World Sentosa (RWS ) commenced. The park was opened to the public on 18 March 2010. The universal studio brings about lots of wonderful attractions including 24 movies – themed rides and attractions, new rides and shows based on blockbuster hits. It is both a locally and tourist enticing place for Singapore to build upon.

The park was also opened for sneak preview during the Chinese New Year period to promote and let people know about the place to spend for special occasion and sightseeing purposes.

History of Universal studio

The successful bid on Genting group in building RWS making Singapore the second Universal Studio Theme Park opened in Asia and first in Southeast Asia.

After the official opening, some of the attractions would be opening later at a different timing due to unfinished construction and safety of the people. The largest roller coaster has been hailed due to the safety and problems the theme park had encountered when the ride was opened.

Achievements of universal studio

Universal Studio has brought some attractions and rides which are available in other countries and brought it to Singapore for the locals and out tourists.. Each ticket would cost about 62 dollars for weekdays and 72 dollars for weekends for adult passes. With such a costly ticket it will certainly bring more income to Singapore. The place consists of 30 restaurants inclusive of food push carts and 20 unique retail stores located all over the park. 7 zones of movie themed worlds and 22 attractions have been designed.

Visitors are not only able to access the Universal Studio, they can venture into Sentosa Island which is also a tourist attraction. It has brought the best movie – themed attractions within the seven zones to life, attracting locals and tourists into a dazzling place packed with fantasy for both children and adults, something they have been wishing for.

Aims of Universal Studio

It has successfully brought Singapore a unique theme park attracting lots of tourist and locals to visit it. Their aims for market are to bring tourism and economical of Singapore to a greater heights. It is to maintain quality service and entertainment to those who visited it for lasting memories. Hoping they would be back to visit the place again on their next trip back to Singapore.

What is so unique about Universal studio?

The unique points about Universal Studio is the 7 zones of movie themed world which has brought movies characters alive giving visitors memorable visit and trip making to money paid worthwhile.

The 7 zones of themed world consist of The Lost World, Far Far Away, Madagascar, Ancient Egypt, Sci – Fi City, Hollywood and New York. All these places are built upon the movies themed and blockbuster hits. The place constructed is based on the movies featuring characters appearances, shopping and dining areas bringing the movie to life.

Firstly, The Lost World is divided into two areas Jurassic Park and Waterworld. Featuring both two movie blockbuster hits which are popular among the people. The Lost World helps people to get to know more about dinosaurs and seeing the movies coming alive before their eyes. There are rides featuring the perspective of dinosaurs and how it is like to be surrounded with dinosaurs. Rides which consist of the bird eye view of the place, and some thrilling river raft ride ensuring us to be soaking wet at the of the ride. Waterworld is a water based attractions where we can get to see stunts, amazing explosion live in the water show.

Far Far Away Land is a movie themed place inspired by dreamwork animations mainly featuring Shrek and the rich fairy tales life. Knowing the characters that living within the fairy tale walls coming to life. Shrek house was being build and there is Shrek 4D featuring a short and realistic movie where we can actually feel the action right from the seat in their short fairy tale adventure. Junior roller coaster is available to for riding too.

Madagascar is also one of the dreamwork animation inspired theme zones where it features the dense tropical filled with wonderful characters of Madagascar in the movies. There is a merry go round where we can ride it to be feel like surrounding the Madagascar character and once again be like a child. Unfortunately not all the rides is opened there which will bring people to goes back next time when it is opened so as not to miss any wonderful attractions there.

Ancient Egypt is a place featuring ancient pyramids and archaeologist site appearing in movies like the mummy similar to it. Roller coaster is the most exciting rides in the universal studio aside from the huge roller coaster which is not functioning till further notice. It allows us to feel the fire and actually knowing more of ancient pyramids.

Sci – Fi City is a place featuring the modern place of people where future place would look like base on our high technology nowadays. It is also where the two major roller coasters situated at. It is just basically for sightseeing purposes since most of the attractions are closed due to safety issues.

Hollywood is a themed place which features the Hollywood boulevard where dynamic architecture, palm trees and walk of the fame. It features shows like where universal monsters in a rock and roll musical performances bring joy to visitors. It is also the place where most of the shopping can be done. Many iconic Hollywood boulevard.

New York is a place where the sidewalks and classic landmarks are being featured. There are facade set of movie scenes for real time movie productions. Where there are attractions that showed us how the movie is being produced and how tedious the actual filming would be bringing a spectacular effect for the movie screen.

There would also be themed hotels available to cater the needs of people and their choice of preference. Thus, with the themed hotels and 7 zones of attractions made up of Universal Studio make it uniquely special and the only theme park found in Singapore.

Difficulties faced

Due to the technical problems, some might feel that the park is not up to expectations. The major rides are not operational till further notice might be turning some visitors down into visiting the place for the time being. Not all attractions are opened which states coming soon. Thus, some might want to wait for awhile when everything is working to make the trip and money worthwhile instead, paying 5 dollars for after hours to go in for some sightseeing. Furthermore, the ticket might not be available on the spot as there is limited admission visitors need to book in advance through internet. Some might not want to go about the fuss booking the ticket and stuffs.

Strategies ( SWOT )
SWOT Analysis

Strengths

USS is located in the City State of Singapore – easily accessible and at the crossroad of major air traffic flow that can direct a huge potential market to the Studio.

It has a very strong appeal to visitors and tourists, as Universal Studio is already a well-known Branding internationally.

The individual attractions, shows and rides within USS are really world-class and offer unparalleled fun and enjoyment to the visitor

USS is an important component within a newly-developed Integrated Resort in the Leisure Island of Sentosa that includes casino, conventions and meetings, hotel and F&B. Each area can draw on each other to generate more business and increases revenue which could eventually contribute to Singapore’s growing economy.

Weaknesses

USS needs to keep improving and creating new attractions, rides, performances etc to bring repeat visitors back and sustain visitorship numbers.

USS is highly dependent on tourists’ visitors to sustain its daily visitors.

The admission charge is relatively high and will be a major set-back to visitors.

Visitor numbers are currently high every day, so there is a need for advanced bookings of up to a week to ensure getting admission tickets for a preferred visit date. However last-minute plan to visit USS may result to tickets being sold out and thus people wanting to go would be disappointed.

USS requires high operating and maintenance costs and will take many years for the investor to recover its total investment.

Opportunities

1. The regional market potential is huge for USS. Strong economic growth in the region will lead to better spending. This will result to more tourists arrivals at Singapore, and USS.

2. The Singapore Tourism Board has set high target for tourism visitorship targeting to hit 15 million visitors by 2015. USS is thus able to capture a huge amount of this number as it is a major tourist destination for these visitors to visit.

Threats

Economic downturns and recession when it happens, will negatively affect USS in a big way, since traveling and spending will drop due to such poor economic condition.

New players and neighbouring countries will try to copy the success of the Integrated Resort concept and develop their casinos, theme-parks, hotels. All these will present a threat to USS as visitors are drawn away from it.

Competitor ( Escape Theme Park )

Escape theme park is an outdoor park located at Downtown East, Pasir Ris. It is not a theme park where fairy tales came alive like universal studio. But a normal park consisting of families and thrills rides catering for all ages. But the park is only available on Saturday, Sunday, primary and secondary and public holidays unlike Universal Studio which opens daily. It is catered more for locals as the going to the place is a bit troublesome due to have to change bus going down there. Many tourists might not know how to get there. But Universal Studio is much simpler due to the monorail services. Also, the operation days falls on weekends and public holidays which make lesser tourist visiting it as they are not able to go in the theme park during weekdays as weekends might be packed and there might be a lot of queues for the rides.

Surveys results

Due to the rejection of my email to conduct my interview for universal studio, I decided to conduct a survey on Universal Studio to ask them about their views to have non – bias and a clearer perception of the theme park. Knowing how it actually attract the people there and why Universal Studio is able to bring a greater heights in both tourism and economically. There are a total of 6 questions being asked where. A total of 50 people responded to the survey which I had created, to know more about the views of Universal Studio. Most of the people that took the survey were youths and some working adults with a mixture of gender and ages to make the survey unbiased. The answers were analysed by the replies and feedback found in the survey.

Firstly, do you think that it is worth the money going to Universal Studio? The objective of this question asked is to find out how many people think that a costly admission ticket of Universal Studio is worth taking a trip to visit. Thus, if many agree with it, it means to say that Universal Studio has successfully captured the attention of people thinking of going there and the admission ticket is valued for money, and worth the price for going there to visit.

Through the survey, 73.9% of the respondent said yes and 26.1% said no. With the majority of the respondent voted for yes, I concluded that Universal Studio is worth going.

Secondly, if money is not a factor would you visit Universal Studio for once? The objective of the question is to assume if the admission ticket is affordable for everyone, are they willing to spend their time visiting the place for at least once.

The survey result obtained with votes of 94% of yes, people would certainly go to the place if money is not an issue to them.

Thirdly, what do you think of the service of Universal Studio? The objective of the question is to ask about the service they provided is it was satisfying to bring a good reputation to the tourist and locals to make them visit the place again.

57.1% of respondent voted for average service and 40.5% voted for good service, this means that the service provided is above average. They only require a little more effort for improvements thus, bringing greater income for Singapore. Only 2.4% voted for bad service.

Fourthly, for those who had visited Universal Studio what is your comment about? The objective of the question is to ask those people who had visited there to talk about their view of it and impression of Universal studio have left for them.

Some of the people had great reviews about Universal Studio and said that they would visit the place again. Due to their great ambience and atmosphere it had created, it is worth the trip down the place. There are several different themes all found n one place.

But some said that it was not really up to standards, as not all rides are operational. Thus, it became a disappointment to them as they are not able to ride all when the admission ticket is costly. Thus, they should have the responsible to ensure all rides are operational before opening.

There is also a comparison between Singapore Universal Studio and other countries. Singapore one was small as compared to others hence little rides s available. But the effort is still there for making the only several themed theme park found in Singapore.

Fifth, for those who did not go Universal Studio before what are your views about the place? The objectives of asking the question is asking about what impression does Universal Studio brings them. To test if they would ever wanted to visit it.

Most of them have said that the impression that the Universal Studio brought was expensive and glamorous. It is a fun and exciting place to go but definitely a price to pay. It is a place where cartoons and fairytale came alive, a different theme park found in Singapore. It seems to be made a tourist attraction and point. But the price is still a bit high and has to consider as there might be crowds whereby one could not be able to finish all the rides in one day as the park stops operating at 7. But more choose to go there once after it is fully operational to make the money paid worthwhile.

Lastly, how would rate Universal Studio? The objective of the question is to ask if after all Universal Studio is worth the money and time to go.

52.4% voted for average and depends, 40.5% voted for up to expectations and worth going. Thus with the high vote of average and depends, I think that it is due to the money factor whereby not all the facilities is opened. Due to the next highest vote is up to expectation and worth going, I concluded that when all the facilities the 52.4% of the respondent would most probably make their trip down USS. As when all the facilities are opened, it will make their money and time more worth. I believed a lot is waiting for the major attraction to resume and make their trip to USS. Only 4.8% voted for not up to expectations and consider and total waste each separately.

This survey had served its purpose of surveying the response they thought of Universal Studio. With the survey results being positive, it means that Singapore is success in building Universal Studio. Thus, with a positive response it means that people are attracted to it investing in the place which serves the purpose of tourist attraction point and contributing to economy sector of Singapore is a great success.

Conclusion

Based on my first hand observation of the Universal Studio, USS has been successful in appealing to the general public as well as tourists. It has been contributing a significant amount of revenue towards Singapore’s economy through the tourism sector since its first launch. It basically appeals to a wide market segment and thus that is one of the reasons for its success. I personally find that through such world-renowned tourists’ attractions, Singapore’s economy will be impacted in a positive way for many years to come.

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

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

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

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

What is the Culture in Penang?

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

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

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

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

What is an event?

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

Cultural events that being celebrated by in Penang

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

1.2 The Problem Statement

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

Research Objectives/ Aims

The objective of this proposal is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theoretical/ Conceptual Framework

Theoretical framework

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

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

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

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

Conceptual framework

Cultural Events Tourism For Penang

Events and festivals
Pesta Pulau Pinang
Bon Odori
Chingay
Hungry Ghost Festival
Cultural infrastructure/ spaces
Communities

It should be placed in areas where the people lives

Eg: city of Georgetown or Balik Pulau.

Cultural Hub

where the performances/ festivals, events is going to carried out

eg: museums, restaurants, and many more

Scope and Limitations

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

1.8 Significance of the study

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

Chapter 2
2.1 Literature Review
Definition of cultural events

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

2.2 Statistics Rate Tourists Come to Penang

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

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

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

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

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

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

Economic impacts on cultural events in Penang

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

Socio Cultural Impacts on Cultural Events in Penang

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

Conclusion

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

Chapter 3
Research design and methodology
3.1 Overview

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

References

Administrator III (2009) “boost in Penang tourists arrivals”

http://www.visitpenang.gov.my/portal3/penang-tourism-news/539-boost-in-penang-tourist-arrivals.html

Administrator III (2010) “Speech by The Rt Hon Mr Lim Guan Eng, Chief Minister of Penang- Launch of the Penang Investment Tourism Office (PITO), Singapore”

http://www.visitpenang.gov.my/portal3/penang-tourism-news/1187-speech-by-the-rt-hon-mr-lim-guan-eng-chief-minister-of-penang-launch-of-the-penang-investment-tourism-office-pito-singapore.html

PRISCILLA DIELENBERG (2010) “CM: Penang needs RM50mil for tourism”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tourism facts sheet “gawler visitor tourism centre”

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

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

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

Responsible tourism is – is that creates better places to live in, and better places to visit. For communities living in popular tourist destinations, such as the Pacific, tourism can offer much needed opportunities for social and economic growth. There are, however, a growing number of concerns about the possible and actual negative impact on local people and environment from tourism. Responsible tourism is that : minimises negative economic, environmental and social impacts generates economic benefits for local people and enhances the well being of host communities improves working conditions and access to the industry involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage embracing diversity provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues provides access for physically challenged people is culturally sensitive, encourages respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

Responsible tourism is fast becoming a global trend. Operators, destinations and industry organisations in South Africa, the United Kingdom, United States, the Gambia, India, Sri Lanka, are already practicing Responsible Tourism, and this list is growing. Recognising the global significance of Responsible Tourism World Travel Market, one of the world’s largest travel exhibitions, has created World Responsible Tourism Day, to be celebrated annually during November. World Responsible Tourism Day is endorsed by the World Tourism Organisation and World Travel and Tourism.

THINGS THAT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE TOURISM:

Responsible Tourism is not another form of “niche tourism” – Responsible Tourism is about the legacy and the consequences of tourism – for the environment, local people and local economies.

Responsible Tourism does not only take place in protected natural environments – Any tourism business, whether located in a thriving metropolis, a desert, rural village, sub-tropical island, medieval town – can be a Responsible Tourism operation.

A significant, and growing, number of tourists are looking for a better experience, a better product. They are looking for experiences which makes them able to get closer to the “real” living culture of countries and to experience natural and cultural heritage. This is a global trend in the established markets as consumer expectations of their holidays change, people are taking more, shorter trips, and they expect to get more from them. In commercial market resea rch UK holidaymakers were asked whether or not they would be more likely to book a holiday with a company if they had a written code to guarantee good working conditions, protect the environment and support charities in the tourist destination. In 1999 45% said yes, when the question was asked again in 2001 52% said yes. That means the percent of people is growing.

Now responsible tourism is a market trend that any tourism business can’t ignore. Responsible tourism makes business sense because the proportion of people who looks for better product is growing.This trend implies that Responsible Tourism will have a powerful competitive advantage over other tourism products.

WHAT IS ECOTOURISM?

To simply describe what is ecotourism, we can say that everywhere we go, it`s “green” and :green” that. But according to the Center of Ecotourism, Hector Ceballos-Lascurain created the term ecotourism in 1983. However original term means nature-based travel to relatively undisturbed areas with an emphasis on education”, where E goes for- Environment, C goes for-Culture and O goes for-Orientated travel.

In general ecotourism means an insightful, mindful and participatory travel experience to natural and cultural and environments for future generations. Also ecotourism makes viable more economic opportunities for the host areas.

From the beginning,ecotourism was nature based, without impact tourism had on the villages and local culture.However,it became apparent to try create a new kind of tourism,wich should be focused only on wildlife and the environment.

Moreover we can find some ecotourism attractions in Malaysia,such as Cameron Highlands, Genting Highlands and Mangrove Forest.

For example : Mangrove Forest.

Matang mangrove is located in the Larut Matang District in Perak, Malaysia.

A large expanse of mangrove forest located in huge bay stated from Matang Mangrove forest in the north to Pengkalan Baharu in the south. The reserve includes 34,769 hectares of productive forest 5,942 hectares of unproductive forest. The water is salty and brackish in color and at the low tide is less than 6m deep. There are some small patches of forested dry ground inside the mangroves. Five fishing villages within the forest makes the mangrove become less uninhabited.

Economical dependencies of the community on this site

The economical of Matang Mangrove Forest depence on the fishing activities and the charcoal industries. The area is a major supplier of sea-foods to the local and international markets. It provides employment in forestry, fishery and linked industries for a workforce.

The current management objective of the Forest Reserve is to produce maximum sustained yield of raw materials that is mainly conjugaza and mucronata for fuel, mainly for charcoal and poles. Management consists of a 30 year crop rotation and harvested by clear felling with retention of standards for natural regeneration.Total annual yield of around 990 hectares and 890-900 hectares for charcoal and around 100 hectares for firewood. Management objectives are:

To produce a sustained yield of quality greenwood for charcoal processing to meet local demand as well for export.

To produce quality poles for local consumption and export.

To conserve and protect the coastal zones from erosion by the strong waves and wind.

To produce and preserve the breeding and nursery grounds for high protein sea foods.

The area is of great economic importance, providing an annual revenue of 6-9US$ million from forestry products and at least 30US$ million are from fisheries and the area is a major supplier of sea foods to local and international markets. It provides employment in forestry and fishery and linked to industries for a workforce of about 12,500 people.

Matang Mangrove forest and its adjacent coastline are of major importance as a staging

Are for migratory shorebirds and the major remaining area of suitable habitat in

Malaysia for the Milky Stork Mycetia cineria and lesser Adjutant Leptoptilos

javanicus. The most species are Tringa tetanus, Limosa limosa and calidris

ferruginea. The other common species includes Charadrius, Monglus, Numenius

phaeopus, Tringa stagnatilis and Xerus cinereus. The special floral values are the

largest intact of mangrove forest in Peninsular Malaysia and one of the last

areas. Malaysian population endangered the ecosystems and decreased about 100

birds. Almost 1400 herons and egrets has 12 species that are Egretta garzetta,

Egretta intermedia, and Egretta alba, Butorides striatus are very common. Another

bird that is called Mycteria cineria that is classified in the family Ciconiidae and in

the order of Ciconiiformers. In Matang Mangrove Forest tourists can find red leaf monkeys who are living there. There is very common to see monkeys climbing on the tree. Although they can look extremely cute on the other hand they can be quite aggressive. Tourists should take care approaching these animals.

DIP International Hotel & Tourism Management

School of Hospitality, Tourism & Culinary Arts

Tourism Industry Assignment

Done by Resul Nazarov(55773) Submited to Mr. Foo

Date : 08.11.2009

Travel agency is a confidential seller/ public service that present tourism related services to the public on behalf of dealers like hotel, package tour, railways, rentals car, airlines, sea ways, and airlines. addition to trading with regular tourists the majority agencies have a separate department committed to making travel arrangements for commercial travelers and a number of travel agencies focus in commercial travel only. There are also travel agencies that provide as general sales agents for overseas businesses, allowing them to have branches in regions and nations other than where their head offices are placed.

Operation

Agency’s major role is to perform as a representative. Promoting travel goods and services on behalf of a dealer. Therefore, similar to other retail industries, they don’t have a stock in stores. A holiday pack or a ticket is not obtained from a dealer till a consumer desires that purchase. The holiday or ticket is providing to them at money off offer. The revenue is consequently the variation among the marketing cost which the consumer pays and the discounted cost at which it is offered to the agent. This is known as the commission. In countless countries, all persons or companies that trade tickets are necessary to be licensed as a travel agent.

Many British and American agencies license are based on these associations:-

(IATA) international transport association- for who issue air tickets

(ATOL) air travel organizer’s licensing- for who order tickets

(ABTA) associations of British travel agent or the (ASTA) the American society of travel agent, for who trade package holidays on behalf of a tour company.

Ticketing

Reserve and distributing tickets is a most important function of the travel agency. It is necessary for travel agency workers to have familiarity or knowledge about Air travel in the worldwide as well as national segment. This knowledge undertakes a range of other features such as booking methods, class of travel, prohibited matter, special customers, passports, visas, travel directories, hotel guide. Supervisor or an worker have to know the variety of procedures linked to these

Management tasks

Similar to any other business if you have it in mind to set up and run a travel agency company efficiently you have to apply the management concepts and functions not only in scheduling but also in processing. The organization tasks in a travel agency are linked to the character of business process and the services provided. The key responsibility of travel agency is to supply the purchase of travel to the client at a suitable place. It is at these places that the travel agencies act as reservation representative for road or water transport, railways, hotels, package tours, airlines. They also offer convinced additional services such as, traveler cheque, procuring of visas, foreign exchange, travel insurance, airport transport, customer clearances, permits, etc. A travel agency also behaves like a travel advisor suggesting consultancy on ideas like:

How to travel?

When to travel and where?

Where to stay or do shopping, etc.?

Information about rules, policy, safety, etc.

Such suggestions are possible only after identifying the client’s requirements and attitudes. This part has to be completed neutrally by the travel agency in order to provide the best to the client.

Travel agencies are divided in a range of ways. The differences can be based on their memberships such as International Air Transport Association (IATA), Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA), American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA), Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), World Association of Travel Agents (WATA), Universal Federation of Travel Agents Association (UFTA) or Travel Agents Association of srilanka (TAASL). These recognitions can also be identified by the kind of trade or services they are providing.

Acquiring Product familiarity or Knowledge

If not a director acquires product knowledge or familiarity with products, it is hard to be successful in travel agency industry. This is exactly true because the majority of the travel agencies are small family businesses with proprietor performing as managers and use little workforce. The managers themselves must have a best product familiarity or knowledge in order to lead and direct their workforce. This is related for mutually, outbound as well as domestic travel. A travel agency workforce should have full familiarity or knowledge of-

Destinations:

Whether conditions,

Political environment,

Special events and community holidays,

Customs, culture and cuisine of destination,

Main attractions,

Physical condition and other hazards,

Money exchange rates,

Travel policy regulations and documents,

Lodging facilities,

Airlines:

Reservation system,

Travel Route operations,

Flight agenda,

Charges,

Types of airplanes,

Services offered on board,

Connecting flights,

Airports:

Timings,

Amenities,

Travel Agencies

Product knowledge can be obtained

From a variety of sources. It is equally

Custom and safety regulations,

Distances from city,

Transportations:

Connections or contacts

Car rentals,

A reservation method and procedures.

Other Aspects:

Package tours,

Excursions,

Principal Suppliers:

Image and financial standing,

Services offered,

Quality of service,

Commissions offered,

Forming or setting up a travel agency

To form a travel agency business has to make sure about following aspects:

Monetary and Infrastructural requirement,

Approval from concerned parties,

Recognitions from major suppliers or dealers,

Infrastructural and Financial or monetary Requirements

Forming a new business in this subject the big capital requirements are less. Most require investment are for the following:

Purchase of Suitable office space,

Office furniture,

Communication system and tools such as, computer, telecommunications

Wages for the employees,

Office equipment such as, document, files, tag, letterheads

Before formulate the travel agency business a significant point to be think is the situated place of the agency or the position of agency. The majority of the travel agents have their offices in busy cities. Travel agents vie for business in the place where they are positioned. At the same time selecting on the position of your office, you should make sure that it is in the marketplace with close access to profitable business.

Approvals from Concerned parties

Travel agencies want some approvals for start and function the business such approvals are:

Recognitions From the (IATA) International Air Transport Association is the global association of Scheduled Airlines. To apply for International Air Transport Association approval an application has to be presented by completing out the essential details, Forms, and sent to Sedentary, Agency Investigation, according to agency investigation below aspects will tartan-

Capability to find and procure air traveler transportation

Professional standing

Financial or economy position

Business building, location, etc

Workforce experience

A final inspection is held and the approval is provided by International Air Transport Association. Mainly it is important state here that all International Air Transport Association approved Agents obtain 9% commission on global air tickets and 6% on domestic air line tickets.

Recognition and Licenses

Travel agencies have to look for recognition or licensed from –

Department of Tourism,

Travel agency association of srilanka(TAASL)

Recognition from the major suppliers such as, the airlines, Banks and recognition by the dealing hotels.

Civil aviation license registration (according to Srilanka)

Manager prefer the status of that company

Manager and two staffs with qualified diploma certificate authorized institute. (Have to face an interview to recognizes and get the permission)

Original business registration certificate (BRC)

True copy from share holders and shares details. If that company based on one person they will need company details and future achievement

Section 51 form that ,the main one share holders original details including share percentage

MEMBERSHIP PROCEDURE

Membership Entrance Fee Rs. 20,000/-

Membership Subscription for the ensuring year Rs. 10,000/-

Total Rs. 30,000/-

Needed Document’s

Registration Certificate issued by the Ceylon Tourist Board

License Certificate to carry on Business as a Travel Agent issued by the Ceylon Tourist Board for the current financial year

License Certificate to carry on Business issued by the Aviation Authority for the current year

Certificate of Company Registration

A letter confirming the authorized and paid up capital form the Auditors

TRAVEL AGENTS ASSOCIATION OF SRI LANK
APPLICATION FORM FOR MEMBERSHIP

The Secretary

Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka

COLOMBO

Name of Company: …………………………..……………………………………..

Address: …………………………..……………………………………..

Business: State Nature of Tourist Activities:

…………………………..……………………………………..
…………………………..……………………………………..

Name / Designation of Contact Person: …………………………..……………………………………..

Tel No: …………………………..……………………………………..

Fax No: …………………………..……………………………………..

Email Address: …………………………..……………………………………..

Signature of Applicant: ………………………………………

Date: ………………………………………

I / We wish to apply for election as a member of the Travel Agents Association of Sri Lanka and I/We hereby agree to be bound by the Rules of the Association from time to time in force and by the decision of the General Committee.

Signature of Applicant: ………………………………………

Date: ………………………………………

Services offered

Tour packages(family travel, group travel, adventure travel, incentive travel )

Domestic and international tour packages

hotel and resort lodging to air transportation

car rental needs

travel insurance security

visa procedures

Immunization procedures and other foreign travel requirements.

Urgency toll-free phone numbers

ticketing

airline seating preference

Smoking and non-smoking designation

It all based on personal interests and budget concerns.

License to carry on business as a travel agent

C:UsersSingheDocumentsSri-Lanka-Tourism-Development-Authority-Licence-to-Carry-on-Business-as-Travel-Agent-2010.jpg

One of the definition of event is that an organized occasion such as a meeting, convention, exhibition, special event, gala dinner, etc. An event is often composed of several different yet related functions. Getz (2005, p.16) Another definition is that an organized occasion such as a social function or sports competition. (Encarta, 2007) Each event must have a theme or purpose and each event has a beginning and an end. So there are different kinds of events such as festival, celebrity appearance, and sporting events. (Watt, 1998) For example, the World Cup is sporting event which is a worldwide event. In China, one of the most important events in Chinese culture is Spring Festival. While in some companies, events are held by managements, they will organize daily work and tasks of the event such as hold meetings and set up a launch. In a conclusion, events are playing a big part of society as a whole in nowadays.

According to the diagram above, there are 4 aspects special events may impact which are known as social and cultural impact, physical & environmental impact, economic impact and political impact.

There are many advantages of social & culture impact, for example, shared building community pride, and shared experience. Events play an important part in encouraging social interaction and the celebrations of happy occasions and its probably more important in society. (Shone & Parry, 2004) For example, the Live 8 concerts which took place in 9 countries coincided with the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, the shows planned to pressure world leaders to drop the debt of the world’s poorest nations, increase and improve aid, and negotiate fair trade rules in the interest of poorer countries. (Wikipedia, 2007)

2. Physical & environmental impact

Some events crate a great deal of advantages to the physical & environment, such as showcase the environment, infrastructure legacy and increased environmental awareness. Infrastructure legacy means thing left behind after the event. For example, the Beijing 2008 Olympics is a good example. The sport venues (Birds Nest) can be used in the future and the new 3 metro lines will improve the transportation. On the other hand, there will be also some negatives including environment traffic congestion, environment damage, pollution and traffic congestion.

3. Economic impact

There are many positive economic impacts, for example, the destination promotion by events will increase tourist visits to the place, many job will created by the events, tourism revenue generated by the event, and increasing tax revenue. For instance, the London Notting Hill Carnival (2002) brought around 93 million pounds into London and supported in the region 3,000 fulltime equivalent jobs, whereas the infrastructure costs are the money spent on infrastructure can reduce spending on other areas such as education and health. Its known as the opportunity costs.

4. Political impact

In fact, governments have played an important part in bidding for hosting and staging major events because of the opportunity for social regeneration, international prestige and job creation. Events have the ability to engender social cohesion, confidence and pride. (Wood, 2002) For example, Beijing Olympics make the society more cohesive than before. Whereas the negatives are the risk of event failure, lack of accountability and propaganda purpose.

?

THE EVENT

There are 4 main areas of planning and staging events: initial planning, detailed planning, implementing the event and post event evaluation.First of all, there are 2 parts of initial planning: creating the event concept and evaluating the event concept. Creating the event concept focuses on the 5 Ws which means Why, Who, When, Where and What. (Goldblatt, 2005). Evaluating the event concept means a feasibility study or a screening process will be undertaken to choose the best concept. (Shone & Parry, 2004)

The Planning of The Event

For any kind of event which is small or big detailed planning and organising is very essential for its success, sometimes there is a lot of time taken to decide everything which should never be underestimated , because it may require some special advice , or may be the permission , the availability of artists and sale of tickets and many other issues. So generally for any event it is advised to begin planning at least three months in advance to get the desired results.

The Event : The True Spirit of Unity In Malaysia with a cultural Diversity in Association With Lexus

Date :

The Venue : Pavilion Kuala Lumpur – Centre Court Level 3

The Pavilion in Kuala Lumpur is the most happening spots in Malaysia , one of the most famous malls , everyday where there are thousands of people gathering around for various reasons such as shopping , entertainment , hangouts , coffee , get together ,and so on.

The centre court is the perfect place for conducting this multicultural event and the reason for the selection of this venue is that it is in the heart of the city and there are numerous people from various parts of the city and from various cultures and even many tourists gather here for various purposes which were mentioned earlier. So the reach of the event will be comparatively more than the any other venue and the other good thing is that the target audiencce you have all the age groups visiting the mall right from youngesters to the old age people and is fully packed with great shops for shopping , cinema halls and restaurants .Apart fromt his since there are great number of shops it becomes easy to get the sponsors as well for conducting big events as they can also help in a way to promote the events. More over it is in the heart of the city so travelling is much easier and even in the past the number of events conducted here have been a success.. To be precise and short the main reason behind the selection of this venue are listed below

Great Reach – Value for Money

To Attract Sponsors

Targeting Audience

Transport

International Exposure

Site Suitability, Layout and Design

There has been a lot of consideration given behind selecting this venue because the number of people the event should reach is a mass and The pavilion Kuala Lumpur is the apt venue for such an event but when there are a lot of people involved many things have to be considered the space availability which is a lot in the Pavilion the ground Layout is it grass or rough , inside pavilion it is fully made of Marble with a fine design of Water fountain at the exterior. Apart form this there will be a number of fun filled activities and the all the aspects about the lighting has to be considered since this event will be in the evening , Apart from this the safety aspects have to be considered the Fire Exit , The entrance and the management of People with in the building with out any Mishap.

The design and layout of pavilion is absolutely convenient for this event which is fully filled with fun filled activities and the launch of the car , so the exhibition of the car and the events space where the activities will go on and the viewing gallery which is a view in pavilion and hardly any other mall in Malaysia can have such a great viewing gallery because this mall ha s four more levels up which are circular and almost people can view the event from all the levels which is a very good aspect.

Site Plan

Pavilion is planned and designed absolutely well and the even manager has to decide what he needs where because the site is absolutely perfect with the entrance from one end which is the main entrance and leads to the centre court at level three where all the events are staged. The mall is well equipped with perfect fire exits at many points , and toilets for the convince of the audience and the traffic .

Crowd/Traffic Management/Parking

It is very important that the management of the crowd has to be done very efficiently and to ensure that this does not end up in any kind of a conflict and to ensure the smooth running of the event. So everything has to be considered such as the crowd profile and so on.In choosing your site consider how easy it will be for people to gain access and what car parking facilities are available. Unplanned and uncontrolled access and egress to a site could result in a serious accident. Will you need to have stewards to direct people to and from car parks? Consider both traffic flows and pedestrian routes. How will you segregate the two? Do you need to provide barriers/ signs or ask for a road closure to help with safe access? (If road closures are required, signs on the highway, traffic diversions and/or the placement of cones are required, an application must be made for a traffic regulation order and/or approval from the highway authority.) How will contractors get their vehicles onto site? How will emergency vehicles get on and off site and how will you ensure that emergency routes are kept clear? Adequate signs and directions should be provided in prominent positions on the approaches to the entrances. Local rail and bus companies should be advised of larger events to establish if existing services are adequate. You will also need to liaise with them if road closures or diversions are intended. A traffic management plan with site maps may help to make the arrangements clear for all people working at your event.

The Concept Of The Event

The Concept is very important behind the success of any event. This event is a cultural Event with a mix of some corporate style which is unique in its own because many events are corporate or either cultural but the concept behind this event is all about the ethnic diversity of people living in Malaysia. Where we speak about the 1 Malaysia and the hospitality given to various tribes of people. This cultural event will focus on making the relations of various countries and the people even more stronger and bringing the feeling of oneness in the human kind. The events include a range of cultural events from various countries especially from India , China and the Middle east , which is sponsored by Lexus who are launching their new model of car of the year which is small segment of car which many people can afford to buy with amazing features.

A Brief About the Company and the Need For a Sponsor

Lexus is one of the world famous companies in the automobile industry with its wide range of Cars and is world Famous and is available for a class of audience , and is running successfully all over the world and has many competitors as well.

Every event needs a sponsor for the smooth running of the event because capital and funds are very essential for any event and more over having sponsors can make the event more interesting and can have many programs and great prizes as well for the audience which can attract them to participate in the event as well.

Since this is a cultural event with a liitle mix of corporate it is a must to understand hwat aare they first .

What are Cultural Events

Cultural events tend to be interlinked with major events as due to the media coverage they attract significant numbers of visitors. These types of events stem from traditional routes or festivals. Major musicals such as Phantom of the Opera reap considerable tourism revenue for Londons west end and are classified as cultural events. Festivals within the events industry which involves the arts have a clear specific programme delivered with a clear purpose which can be usefully applied. Cultural events according to Bowdin (1999) can be sub classified. These are as follows:

High profile cultural event, tend to have a multitude of aims in order to be able to reach the highest standards, to gain a high level of media coverage, to reach a broad breath of the population and to generate high levels of income.

Festivals which celebrate a particular location are festivals which aim to bring people together to celebrate their local area. These events often feature a large number of local groups.

Art form festivals, offer unique opportunities for those wishing to see the particular event and the art forms associated with it.

Celebration of work by a community of interest, are festivals which highlight a particular group, an example of this being a fundraising musical concert raising money for the NSPCC. These events often contain a large proportion of participatory workshops.

Calendar events, these are cultural or religious festivals, Christmas for example. Indigenous traditions of large scale assembly have generally died away within the UK. However foreign influences have brought carnivals and melas which enhance the cultural mix of festivals within the UK.

Amateur arts festivals, this is a low profile sector but still fairly large involving thousands of people.

Commercial music festivals are the most commonly known and attended cultural events. Commercial music festivals take place in most major cities and even outside, for example Robbie Williams has performed at Knebworth.

What are cooperate Events

Organisations have to be creative enough these days to compete with their competitors to survive in the globalised market. A corporate event can involve a number of things especially great planning because any mishap can spoil the image of the organisation so they have to plan everything very effectively and try to organise the event and then try to accomplish their goals with this event by reaching their audience or may be it might be a company get together as well.

The Impact of the Event

There are many advantages of social & culture impact, for example, shared building community pride, and shared experience. Events play an important part in encouraging social interaction and the celebrations of happy occasions and its probably more important in society. (Shone & Parry, 2004) For example, the Live 8 concerts which took place in 9 countries coincided with the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, the shows planned to pressure world leaders to drop the debt of the world’s poorest nations, increase and improve aid, and negotiate fair trade rules in the interest

The Timing Of The Event

The Timing of the Event is very essential because everybodys convenience has to bee seen especially the target audience , when they hangout and other things have to be identified.

This traditional cultural event will take place in the Pavilion Kuala Lumpur during the entire weekend starting Friday the 5th June which will be fully filled with great refreshments , games , music , family activities , quizzes , dramas , competitions and huge artist markets dance events like belly dancing , live music and fair. The event which is entirely free of cost will be held from June 5 to June 7, 2010. One can find almost every kind of art, painting, sculpture, jewellery and more. In this great place

The most sensational part of the event is its musical show. The event holds a lot of relevance in the society since such festivals also seem to educate young children This event always brings with it the shades and blossom of various cultures around the world especially in Asia along with exciting entertainment.

The timings of the festival are as follows:

On Friday, the event begins at 1700 hrs and lasts till 2130 hrs at night, while on Saturday, it will fall between 16:00 hrs to 21:30 hrs. The last day of the Dogwood Festival 2010, Sunday, will see the gates open at 16:00 hrs and end at 21:00 hrs.

Marketing The Event

Marketing the Event is the most important for the success of the event. The most important aspect of any event is to achieve its objective here in this event the main focus is on bringing in all the ethnic cultures under one roof which is the pavilion and also show to the world the unity which prevails in Malaysia which can improve the tourism industry as well and then the next focus is the grand launch of Nexus SAHE which is the latest car from the Lexus company.

Since this event is to be held in the Pavilion there will be a walk in crowd for sure but still it would be important that there are come promotional activities to be carried on so the marketing of the event will involve the following methods to achieve the goals and objectives of the event. When ever there is any kind of marketing going there is a big gap between the promises done and the actual expectations , generally what happens is the audience attend the events and spend their money without any results favouring them which is very common , so things have to be considered because the audience have this fear in their mind. , so the campaign designed will be in such a form that if somebody reads the advertisement he should be attracted they should be persuaded towards the event.

The most common methods of marketing would be the following

Inflators

Flyers

Billboards

Posters

Radio Jingles

Email Marketing

Internet banners

Promotional Ads with Gifts.

So all these will create a buzz among the people and in case if there is a teaser ad it can create a sense of suspense what is it , which could also lead many people to walk-in .

The Cost for this Event

The cost factor is very important for any event to be conducted because without the money no event cannot be conducted but at the same time the event should be worth the money . Although there is a sponsor for the event it is important that there are other methods of looking for more money like co sponsors , allocating booths to other advertisers and so on to cover up some cost from the event because this event is mainly from eh sponsors and nothing is covered from the audience , which is totally free for them.

Expenses

All the cost mentioned are approximate to the best of my knowledge which would be suitable for this event

The Site

Publicity

Decorations

Programs

Prizes

Miscellaneous

So the total expenses are

And the estimated expenses

Key components of a successful event

There are 7 key components of a successful event: establish the Mission and Objectives for the event, human resources management effective leadership, satisfying stakeholder needs, do detailed planning, implementing the event and good post evaluation report.

A clear statement of purpose and vision should underpin every statement. (Bowdin, 2006, page 124) A vision or mission statement describes in the broadest terms the task that the event organization has set for itself. (Bowdin, 2006, page 123) Objectives are based on the mission statement and provide more clarity as to what the event is trying to achieve.

Event is a kind of labor intensive goods because there are volunteers. Olympics Games is a good example, there were about 1,700,000 volunteers in 2008 Beijing Olympics. The core of every successful event is planning and management of human resources effectively. (Bowdin, 2006, page 144)

Every successful event must satisfy most of the stakeholders needs such as the community, host organization, co-workers and media. (Bowdin, 2006, page 99)

The personality and leadership style play an important part in how an event turns out. (Watts, 1988, page 31) Moreover, in the event management process the event leadership styles play an important role in it. (Goldblatt, 2005, page 159)

Finally, its the implementing and evaluation. Implementing is to achieve the plan and should have both plan A and plan B. If there are some accidents, you can use the plan B. Evaluation is get feedbacks from customers after event.

The Event Management Process

There are 4 main areas of planning and staging events: initial planning, detailed planning, implementing the event and post event evaluation. First of all, there are 2 parts of initial planning: creating the event concept and evaluating the event concept. Creating the event concept focuses on the 5 Ws which means Why, Who, When, Where and What. (Goldblatt, 2005) Evaluating the event concept means a feasibility study or a screening process will be undertaken to choose the best concept. (Shone & Parry, 2004) There are 5 parts of detailed planning: objectives, situational analysis, financial planning, marketing planning and operational planning.

The financial planning and good financial control are important part of the event management process. (Shone, 2004) Venue selection is the most important decision in event management process in many events such as wedding reception and birthday party. Operational planning includes getting every in place for an event and focuses on staffing, venue selection, equipment and catering. (Shone & Parry)

In the event planning process, the marketing plan is a significant component. It focuses the 4 Ps (product, pricing, places and promoting).

The Important Aspects To Be Considered

There are 6 very important elements that any host of a major international event should consider:

Supplying new and/or redeveloped housing and venues

Identifying and creating opportunities for employment and business growth

Increasing public transport and accessibility without interfering too much with everyday life

Improving the design of the urban environment, by creating new exciting venues, protecting heritage sites, and securing safe, well located public domains

Protect and improve the natural and cultural environments

Encourage efficient planning and encourage investment, job creation and business confidence

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My Role as an Events Organiser

An events organiser has many important roles and duties that need to be accomplished. In a events environment, the typical duties will usually include:-

To research the current market in order to identify if there are any prospect for that type of events;

To communicate with clients to determine their specific requirement for that particular event.

You would also need to create a thorough and comprehensive proposal for the events. This would include: – timelines, venues, suppliers, legal obligations, staffing and budgets.

You would need to set, agree and control a budget;

You would also need to book a suitable venue for the events to be held.

An events organiser would also need to guarantee that the insurance, legal, health and safety requirements are adhere to;

coordinating venue management, caterers, stand designers, contractors and equipment hire;

organising facilities for car parking, traffic control, security, first aid, hospitality and the media;

Some events may need special guest to be at the events, so it is the events organisers role to recognize and also secure the speakers.

They would also need to plan the room layouts and also schedule the workshops.

Manage staffing requirement and staff update;

The final straw of the role of an events organiser is that they would need to supervise the disassemble and removal of the event and also making sure of clearing the venue competently

On the 27th of April 2008, Josef Fritzl was arrested in Amstetten, a small town in Austria. It has shown that Fritzl sexually abused his daughter, Elisabeth, since she was eleven years old. When she was eighteen years old he locked her up in the basement underneath his house. Fritzl forced his daughter Elisabeth to write a letter to her mother where she stated that she had run away from home and joined a sect. The sexual abuse led to the birth of seven children. Three of these children were raised by Elisabeth in the basement and the other three were raised by Fritzl and his wife. One of the children died a few days after it was born. Furthermore, Fritzl convinced his wife that the three children they raised were exposed by Elisabeth. When one of the children that lived in the basement, the at that time nineteen-year-old Kersten, got ill Elisabeth convinced her father that she needed to be hospitalized. Because Kersten was not registered anywhere, one of the doctors informed the authorities. After this, Elisabeth saw a program on the television in her basement that made a call up for the mother of Kersten. Then she convinced her father to bring her to the hospital, which led to the hearings of Fritzl and Elisabeth and the confessions of the cruelties that took place. After twenty-four years Elisabeth was freed from the basement and reunited with all her children (Wikipedia, 2010).

This affair has received tremendous attention in the media and therefore the case is known all over the world. The affaire encompasses a painful and shameful episode on a national and local basis. Furthermore, the house of Fritzl has become a touristic attraction. Amstetten is dealing with an increasing amount of tourists that come to visit the house. When tourists visit the house, they often take photos of the house and of themselves in front of it. The articles on the internet show that the local authorities find this shocking (HLN, 2010). The phenomenon that people visit places that are associated with death, suffering and violence can be described as dark tourism. Thanatourism is a similar concept and also involves the visiting of locations associated with death and suffering, but an emphasis is placed upon symbolically experiencing a painful death. Another related concept is ‘black spots’, which can be described as commercial cemeteries of famous people or locations where death and suffering took place. The house of Fritzl belongs to such places and visiting this location fits the description of dark tourism and thanatourism. The house of Fritzl, where the abuse and cruelties took place, can be seen as a symbolic reflection of this affaire and its tragic events. Furthermore, the house serves as a tangible object that invokes the memory of the Fritzl-affaire (Yull, 2003: 10-13; Logan en Reeves, 2009: 1-3; Rojek, 1993: 136). The phenomenon that people visit the house of Fritzl inspired me to formulate the following research question: “What are the motivations of dark tourists? The case of the house of J. Fritzl in Amstetten.” It is interesting to find out why tourists visit the house, if the media attention has played a role in the decision of people to visit the house and if certain characteristics, such as age and gender, affect the motivation of these visitors. The case of Fritzl offers a fascinating and recent case to go more in-depth into the motivations of dark tourists.

Scientific and Social Relevance

The scientific relevance of this research question lies in the fact that the subject of dark tourism is relatively new within the academic field. Several articles have been published on this topic, but as Stone (2006) argues: ‘despite this increasing attention the dark tourism literature remains both eclectic and theoretical fragile’ (Stone, 2006: 145). Some researchers have already focused on visitor motivations of dark tourist sites. For example, Yull (2003) investigated why people visit the Holocaust Museum in Houston. However, according to Stone (2006) and Sharpley (2009) research first and foremost has focused on describing the different dark tourist sites, rather than on the consumption and experiences of visitors. This research will contribute to the understanding of visitor participation in dark tourism by taking the visitors of the house of Fritzl as the focal point of this research. Furthermore, the existing research has not focused on the motivations of visitors to dark tourist sites, comparable to the house of Fritzl and therefore this research will add to and fill the gap in the existing literature. The social relevance of this research is harder to determine. However, finding out what the motivations of visitors are, might provide useful and relevant information for directly involved parties, other than the scientific community. For example, this information could offer the local community of Amstetten and (in)direct victims of this case a better understanding of what is going on and with what reasons people visit this site of horror. For example visitors might be motivated to visit this place to pay respect to the victims or remember the cruelties that took place, instead of entertainment purposes. Furthermore, the results of this research could even be relevant to society as a whole, since dark sites similar to the house of Fritzl seem to increasingly pop up and attract visitors world-wide. This research seeks to provide insights into why people are motivated to visit these morbid locations.

Theoretical Concepts and Hypothesized Relations

As mentioned previously, several theoretical concepts are related to the phenomenon where people visit places associated with pain, death and suffering. Academic attention to this phenomenon increased in the twentieth century and several theoretical concepts were introduced. These concepts are black spots (Rojek, 1993), dark tourism (Lennon and Foley, 1996: in Yull, 2003) and thanatourism (Seaton, 1996: in Sharpley, 2009). These ‘dark concepts’ will be briefly discussed in a more or less chronicle order, based on introduction in the literature. Another concept of importance for this research is visitor motivations (Sharpley, 2009: 12-15).

Dark Concepts
Black Spots

Rojek (1993) coined the term black spots and argues that these locations involve commercial cemeteries of famous people or sites where death and suffering took place. In his research, Rojek (1993) also mentions that people increasingly visit these dark sites and that entrepreneurs initiate tours around these black spots. Examples of black spots are the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim-Brzezinka, Ground Zero in New York and the location where Princess Diana got killed in a car crash (Rojek, 1993: 136-145).

Dark Tourism and Thanatourism

Visiting places associated with death, pain and suffering is becoming increasingly popular. However, Sharpley (2009) argues that this is not a new phenomenon. In the Roman Empire, it was a common form of entertainment to attend a gladiators match. Another example are the public executions in the Middle Ages. Traveling to places where death and suffering are central elements can be defined as dark tourism. Furthermore, it involves consuming real or simulated places of death and horror. Visiting these places where actual cruelties took place by relatives or friends of the victims cannot be seen as a form of dark tourism. Thanatourism is a concept which strongly relates to dark tourism and was introduced in the literature in the same year as dark tourism. Thanatourism entails the visiting of locations associated with death and suffering, where visitors want to symbolically experience a painful death. This description points more to the motivations of visitors of dark sites. However, the term dark tourism is usually used in the academic field and no distinction is made between the concepts dark tourism and thanatourism. Therefore, I will use the term dark tourism in this research and make no difference between dark tourism and thanatourism (Lennon en Foley, 2000: 3-5; Yull, 2003: 10, 11; Sharpley, 2009: 3-19). Dark tourism involves the actual visiting of black spots. There are different black spots which are visited daily by tourists and therefore belong to sites of dark tourism. Furthermore, several tours are initiated around dark sites. Commercial motives, in terms of entrance fees, are often involved. Examples are the ‘Jack the Ripper tour’ in London or the tour in Charleroi which shows you, among other dark sites, the house of the famous kidnapper and child molester Marc Dutroux. Visiting morbid museums, old prisons or battle field fall also under the category dark tourism. As discussed previously, the house of Fritzl fits the description of a black spots and increasingly attracts visitors. This research seeks to understand the motivations of these visitors (Stone, 2006: 145, 146, 152; HLN, 2010).

Visitor Motivations

For this research it is necessary to include visitor motivations as a theoretical concept. Motivations of individuals to visit regular tourist places include getting acquainted with other cultures and increase ones knowledge about these locations. Furthermore, motivations often involve entertainment purposes, such as having fun or seeking adventure. Relaxation, revitalization, being active and get close to nature are also common incentives to visit a certain location (Kozak, 2002: 225). However, these motivations of regular touristic locations might differ from motivations of tourists that visit black spots. Unfortunately, few literature is available that focus on visitor motivations of dark tourists. The literature that is accessible, uses similar research questions to the one is used in this research. Yull (2003) studied the motivations of dark tourists and focused more specifically on the motivations of visitors of the Holocaust Museum in Houston. Niemela (2010) focused on visitor motivations of the House of Terror museum in Budapest. This museum is built to remember the tortured and killed people during World War II. In addition, Poria, Reichel and Biran (2006) chose to investigate the motivations of the visitors of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Although the dark tourist locations used in these researches are museums associated with death and suffering and therefore differ from the dark site that is used in this research, similar motivations may be found. If different motivations are found, it could be argued that this difference is dependent on the specific dark tourist site. According to Yull (2003), motivations of dark tourist could involve entertainment purposes, such as providing a thrill, a novel experience or adventure. Furthermore, remembering the victims and the cruelties that took place or curiosity can also be motivations of tourist that visit the house of Fritzl. Although education might be more suitable as a motivation to visit a museum associated with death and suffering, individuals can also visit the house of Fritzl to learn something. For example, visitors might want to enrich their knowledge about the Fritzl-affaire. In addition, Niemela (2010) argues that emotional involvement might also play a role in the motivations of dark tourists. Visitors might identify or have a personal connection with the cruelties that took place. Moreover, Poria, Reichel and Biran (2006) include two more motivations; tourists might visit a dark site, because it is famous or because they feel that the site is historically important (Yull, 2003: 146-159, 191-199; Niemela, 2010: 37; Poria, Reichel and Biran, 2006: 322). The media play an important role within the field of dark tourism. The media can report tragic events that take place all over the world. The attention that the media pay to tragic and horrible events serve as a stimulation for flows of tourism. Furthermore, media has the capacity to ‘bring dark tourism sites to public consciousness’ (Yull, 2003: 125). Additionally, Lennon and Foley (2000) argue that the attention of the media to specific dark sites, might motivate individuals to visit the location in order to experience the reality behind the media representations. Since, the Fritzl-affaire received tremendous attention in the media, it will be likely that this attention has an influence on the motivation of visitors (Stone, 2009: 57; Seaton, 2009: 90; 95, 106; Lennon and Foley, 2000: 152).

Operationalization of Theoretical Concepts

In this section, the operationalization of the theoretical concepts will be discussed. To answer the question “What are the motivations of dark tourists? The case of the house of J. Fritzl in Amstetten”, I will conduct qualitative semi-structured interviews [1] with visitors of the house of Fritzl in Amstetten. This implies that a topic list will be made, consisting of topics that will be addressed in the interview. However, the order in which the topics will be discussed is not fixed and if necessary, the interviewer will probe for more information and adapt to new theme’s that are brought up by the interviewees. Furthermore, the interviewer can adapt to the level of comprehension of the respondents. The questions will be open, which means that no answer categories will be made (‘t Hart, Boeije and Hox, 2007: 274, 275; Gilbert, 2001: 123, 124). Several topics that will be addressed in the interview are outlined. First of all, it is important to include demographic factors of the visitors, such as age, the country the interviewee lives in and the highest obtained level of education (primary school or less, secondary school, intermediate vocational training, higher vocational training, college or post graduate). Furthermore, the gender of the respondent will be noted during the interview. These demographic factors are included, because they are important background variables and might affect the motivations people have to visit the house of Fritzl.

Other topics that will be included will focus upon the motivations of visitors of the house of Fritzl in Amstetten. It will be asked what attracted the visitors to visit Amstetten and what their primary reason is for visiting this town. I will seek to explore whether visitors come specifically for the house or if they have other motives or more than one reason to visit this town. Then, I will focus on the topic of why people visit the house of Fritzl. Although, similar answers to the research on dark tourist motivations described above maybe found, such as entertainment, curiosity, remembrance of the victims and cruelties that took place, emotional involvement, historical importance of the site or its fame, unexpected answers also need to be taken into account. Furthermore, it is essential to go in-depth into the answers and ask for further elaboration if necessary. Additionally, it needs to be explored whether visitors have multiple motivations to visit the house of Fritzl. Seeking to understand motivations of visitors of the house of Fritzl, demands for adapting to possible unexpected answers and the skills to react to this situation adequately. Furthermore, the role of the media will be addressed. Central themes will be, whether visitors are familiar with and interested in the Fritzl-affaire, if they have followed the case in the news, documentaries or on the internet. This will seek to explore whether media attention to the Fritzl-affaire affects the tourists in their motivation to visit the house. Next, I will focus upon if the visitors have previously visited other dark locations, where cruelties have taken place. It will be interesting to find out if there is a relationship between visiting the house of Fritzl and other dark locations and if we are dealing with tourists that have an interest in visiting dark sites in general.

Plan for Data Collection

For this research, the visitors of the house of Fritzl in Amstetten are the objects of study. Hence, it is necessary to come into contact with these visitors. For this research I choose to use qualitative semi-standardized interviews to answer the research question. Qualitative methods are used when a certain research topic is relatively new and unexplored. Furthermore, qualitative methods offer the possibility to go more in-depth into specific aspects of a certain phenomenon. Baarda, de Goede and van der Meer-Middelburg (1996) argue that qualitative interviews are a suitable method when ideas, motivations, opinions and experiences need to be investigated. Since this research seeks to explore the motivations of visitors of the house of Fritzl in Amstetten, it fits this description (‘t Hart et al. 2007: 253; Baarda et al. 1996: 18-20). I choose to use semi-structured, one-to-one interviews. This implies that topics will be formulated and addressed in the interview. Besides demographic questions, specific questions, answer categories or the order of the questions will not be fixed in advance. This gives the interviewer the opportunity to probe for more information if necessary or reflexively respond to new theme’s that might be brought up. This reflexive approach is essential, since motivations of dark tourists is relatively unexplored, especially in regard to locations comparable to the house of Fritzl. This may result in unexpected answers to be brought up. When standardized methods are used, this will not be possible. One-to-one interviews are used, because the interviewees will not be influenced by the opinions of others and may give them the feeling to speak more openly about their motivation(s). Furthermore, confidentiality and anonymity of the data will be guaranteed (Baarda et al., 1996: 18-24, 26-28; ‘t Hart et al. 2007: 254, 261, 262, 267; Gilbert, 2001: 123-129). To interview the research participants of this research it is necessary to go to Amstetten, which is roughly a nine hour drive from Rotterdam. I will spend three days around the house of Fritzl and I will approach the visitors that come by. I will ask them if they are willing to participate in this research. This research requires purposive sampling, because I assume that only a small group of visitors of the house of Fritzl is accessible in these three days and this group will be likely to represent the visitors as a whole. Furthermore, ‘using a probability sample is often unrealistic for small-scale or qualitative research’ (Gilbert, 2001: 62). The duration of the interview will be approximately twenty minutes and the amount of interviewees will depend on the willingness to participate. The aim will be to conduct ten to twenty interviews. Furthermore, the interviews will be recorded. Gilbert (2001) argues that recording is recommendable, especially when conducting non-standardized or semi-structured interviews. This, because this type of carrying out interviews requires an active participation of the interviewer within the conversation. By recording the interview, the data won’t be lost and in contrast to making notes it won’t obstruct or slow down the dialogue. It also signals that the responses of the respondents are taking seriously. Of course, the use of recording will be explained to the interviewees and their approval will be asked. Directly after the interview, notes will be made about the setting, the interview and the interviewee which can be used to recall the context of the particular interview (‘t Hart et al. 2007: 268-270; Gilbert, 2001: 61-63, 135-137).

Plan for Data Analysis

When the data is collected, the analysis of the data will begin. First of all, the recorded interviews will be verbatim transcribed. I choose to write down everything that is said, because then data won’t get lost that might be of significance when the research progresses. Although, transcribing everything is time-consuming and labor-intensive, the low quantity of interviews makes it possible to do so. Furthermore, transcribing the data allows you to get familiar with the data and it helps facilitating thoughts and ideas about possible connections and underlying themes. Before analyzing, the transcripts will be checked by listening to the recordings once more and by carefully reading the written text. The demographic characteristics of the respondents will be shown on the first page of the transcripts. After this, I will offer the transcript to the respondents, so that accuracy can be checked and comments can be made. This improves reliability and validity of the answers (Gilbert, 2001: 134-137). The transcripts will be read repeatedly with the aim to identify underlying themes and connections. By comparing and contrasting fragments within interviews and between interviews, fragments with an underlying connection will be categorized and labeled. Furthermore, it will show whether the earlier described motivations are found in the transcripts, or if new themes will be discovered. Similarities and dissimilarities between different respondents may emerge and might relate to their demographic characteristics. Eventually, the codified themes will be linked and compared to draw a full picture of the motivations of visitors of the house of Fritzl in Amstetten and answer the research question (Gilbert, 2001: 137, 138; ‘t Hart et al. 2007: 176, 277).

Discussion

Gilbert (2008) describes six properties that a research question should have. The research question should be interesting, relevant, concise, answerable, feasible and ethical. For this research it is necessary to address two of these properties more in-depth, which are the feasibility of this research and its ethical dimensions. The research question, “What are the motivations of dark tourists? The case of the house of J. Fritzl in Amstetten”, is feasible to the extent that it can be answered within a relatively short period of time and with relatively low costs. Furthermore, the research participants are accessible. However, the search for visitors of the house of Fritzl might show difficulties. For this research I will spend three days around the house of Fritzl and approach the tourists that will visit the house. However, it is possible that on these particular days there will be no visitors at all. Consequently, finding research participants might be time-consuming and unpleasant (Gilbert, 2008: 48). According to Gilbert (2008), it is of importance to take into account the ethical dimensions of a research question. While no specific approval is needed from institutions to conduct this research, this research involves a certain sensitivity. The reason for this, is that this study focuses upon an affair where people suffered and were mistreated. Therefore, this affair is sensitive to victims or relatives of these victims. Furthermore, this case might be sensitive to the neighboring residents or the whole community of Amstetten. Spending three days in front of the house of Fritzl to gather the research participants might be offensive to the residents. For example, they might be upset or feel that their privacy is violated. Consequently, it is necessary to work with discretion. Eventual publication of this research also involves ethical implications. Publication might cause harm to the different parties involved (Gilbert, 2008: 48, 49; Gilbert, 2001: 49-53). A last brief comment I would like to make is about the weaknesses of

Literature

Baarda, D.B., de Goede, M.P.M. & van der Meer-Middelburg, A.G.E. 1996. Basisboek Open Interviewen. Groningen: Stenfert Kroese.

Gilbert, N. 2001. Researching Social Life (2nd edition). London: Sage Publications.

Gilbert, N. 2008. Researching Social Life (3d edition). London: Sage Publications.

‘t Hart, H., Boeije, H. & Hox, J. 2007. Onderzoeksmethoden. Amsterdam: Boom onderwijs.

Kozak, M. 2003. Comparative analysis of tourist motivations by nationality and destinations. Tourism Management 23, 221-232.

Lennon, J.J. & Foley, M. 2000. Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster. Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Logan, W. & Reeves, K. 2009. Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with “Difficult Heritage”. USA/Canada: Routledge.

Niemela, T. 2010. Motivation Factors in Dark Tourism: Case: House of Terror.

https://publications.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/14984/Niemela_Titta.pdf?sequence=3

6 October 2010

Poria, Y., Reichel, A. & Biran, A. 2006. Heritage Site Perceptions and Motivations to Visit. Journal of Travel Research 44, 318-326.

Rojek, C. 1993. Ways of Escape: Modern Transformations in Leisure and Travel. London: The MacMillian Press.

Sharpley, R. 2009. Shedding Light on Dark Tourism: An Introduction. In: R. Sharpley & P.R. Stone. The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications, 3-22.

Stone, P.R. 2006. A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions. Tourism 54 (2), 145-160.

Stone, P.R. 2009. Dark Tourism: Morality and New Moral Spaces. In: R. Sharpley & P.R. Stone. The Darker Side of Travel: The Theory and Practice of Dark Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications, 56-74.

Yull, S.M. 2003. Dark Tourism: Understanding Visitor Motivation at Sites of Death and Disaster. http://etd.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/89/YUILL-THESIS.pdf?sequence=1.

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Websites

HLN, 2010

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/960/Buitenland/article/detail/314386/2008/06/16/Toeristen-op-de-foto-voor-horrorkelder.dhtml

6 October 2010

HLN, 2010

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/1901/reisnieuws/article/detail/269697/2008/05/08/Ramptoerisme-bij-Oostenrijks-gruwelhuis.dhtml

6 October 2010

Wikipedia, 2010

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl-incestzaak

6 October 2010