Essay About Travel Motivators And Different Tourism Markets

Tourism Supply Chain
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With reference to the supply of, and demand for, tourism, identify the different supply sectors as well as the different tourism markets and discuss the interconnections that exist in the tourism supply chain.Aiming to discuss the interconnections in the tourism supply chain, the first part of this essay focuses on the supply and demand side of the tourism industry. The second part is then, based on the points outlined in the previous part, intended to show how the supply and demand sides work together. Particular attention is being paid to the role and significance of intermediaries in developing and providing the tourism product. Before examining the various components of tourism supply and tourism demand, a more general consideration of the industry needs to be made. Although in the past academics have developed several definitions of tourism, its core elements can be described best through theoretical models. A widely accepted model, which uses three basic elements, was developed by Leiper in 1989 (Cooper et al. 2008). According to him, the first element includes tourists, whose characteristics and aspects will be outlined later when covering the different tourism markets. Geographical components form the second element and include the tourist-generation region, the destination and the transit route. The third element comprises the tourism sector, which is made up by the businesses contributing to deliver the tourism product as a whole. Figure 1 shows the geographical elements in more detail: Within this cyclical process, tourists travel from the tourist generating region to the destination and backwards.[pic 1]Figure 1: The geographical elements of a tourism system (Leiper 1989) Regarding the supply and demand of tourism, in Figure 1 the tourist destination region and the transit region represent the supply side of the industry, whereas the tourist as a consumer represents the demand side. In essence, the tourist demands services such as transport and accommodation, which are supplied by the tourism businesses or organisations.Brought down to a common denominator, it can be said that the movement of tourists to a destination is the core characteristic of tourism activity. A distinction can be made in terms of the different types of tourism. The World Tourism Organisation has divided tourism into three groups: domestic tourism, inbound tourism and outbound tourism (Youell 1998). On the one hand, domestics tourism involves people travelling only within their country, e.g. from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye. On the other hand, inbound tourism and outbound tourism, also grouped as international tourism, involve travelling to another country, whereby inbound tourism involves the travelling of non-locals to a country and outbound tourism is defined by locals who travel to another country. For instance, Japanese tourists visiting the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh would be classified as inbound tourists, whereas Scottish people traveling to the Maldives would be classified as outbound tourists.In order that tourism can be delivered as a product, services must be supplied. When examining the supply side of tourism, a very complex interaction of businesses and organisations offering different services to the customer can be ascertained. Key components of the tourism supply include transportation, accommodation and activities or attractions in the destination itself (