Travel Vibes 360

01/11/2025

Oversee job opportunities

City Seasons Hotels is hiring for the following positions: ▪︎Front Office Supervisor ▪︎GSA ▪︎Housekeeping Coordinator ▪︎F&B Coordinator ▪︎Waitress ▪︎Room Attendant 📩 Interested candidates can send their CVs to [email protected] | 16 comments on LinkedIn

01/11/2025

Housekeeping & Front Office Formulas (for 164 Rooms) 1. Occupancy Percentage Formula: Occupancy % = (Occupied Rooms / Available Rooms) × 100 Example: • Occupied rooms: 140 • Total rooms: 164 • Occupancy % = (140 / 164) × 100 = 85.37% ⸻ 2. ADR (Average Daily Rate) Formula: ADR = Total Room ...

21/04/2021

This page is ideal for anyone who wants to improve their general English skills.

21/12/2020

Tourism Management - Trends and Future

“No matter why and where you travel. There is always something wonderfully new to be found.”
− Anonymous-

Tourism is the bundle of tangible products and intangible services that can help to bring most profound experience one can get. With respect to time, tourism has been changing from the ancient form of religious tourism to a few new forms. Tourism industry contributes to 9% of the global GDP and offers one from every 11 jobs. In addition, the number of tourists have doubled over the past 20 years and a propelling growth is expected in coming few years among all market segments.

Tourism industry has an intense potential to grow and generate revenues. Let us see, the new shaping trends in tourism today.

Digital Technology in Tourism

Today, tour operators and tourists, both are equipped with latest technology. It has empowered the tourism business managers and tourists to explore, discover and reach new places by facilitating online travel and accommodation bookings, and more.

The tourists use various mobile apps as simple as a compass app, online booking apps, currency converter apps, world time apps, language translation apps, weather apps, google maps, and restaurant or accommodation locating services on their mobile device. The tourists can also add their own data to create overlay on the Google Map and explore all possibilities in visiting a location by using Google Maps API. Some apps help to plan the tour, find out cheap flights, local transport hubs, eating joints, and destination attractions.

The apps enhance the tourist experience before, during, and after the tour.

Today, the large tour operators invest finances to create their own mobile apps. They are inclined to use as less papers as they can and prefer to send pdf documents of itinerary to their customers and insurance documents to insurance service providing clients. They also use most of the apps the tourists use; plus, they highly rely on some apps such as Trafalgar app, Passport to Tour app, mTrip app, which can connect them with the tourists on the trip, track the itinerary, and get on-the-fly information of the tour.

Since technology is making tour operators reach their customers and clients at the speed of light, the tour operators use it for promoting their business and various products, increasing their brand awareness, knowing tourists’ preferences, and providing easy access to their products and services.

New Trends in Tourism

Tourism is an ever changing industry. A few previously unknown or unnoted forms of tourism are establishing today. Some of them are −

Polar Tourism

Arctic and Antarctic polar regions have always attracted tourists. Polar tourism is a dynamically growing industry due to the efforts tour operators take to provide various attractions, destinations, and activities for their customers. Adventure tourists and common tourists who long for unique weather experience, solitude, and view of wild life in its natural habitat opt for polar tourism.

Space Tourism

It includes orbital and suborbital rocket flights into the space. Riding into the space for recreation and unique experience was the idea behind this tourism. Till date, only very rich tourists paying very large sum of money could possibly realize the dream to see beyond the blue planet. In coming years, this extravagant tourism can be made available for common people too.

Dark Tourism

Dark tourism is the oldest form of tourism developed recently. Due to the fear and natural attraction to uncover mystery of death human beings always have, some tourists prefer to visit the destinations such as battlefields, places of violent homicides, or any places where large number of people lost their lives naturally or forcefully in the span of last 100 to 125 years.

For example, tourists visit Pompeii to see the corpses of the victims of the volcanic disaster literally turned into plaster casts. The volcano on Mt. Vesuvius had destroyed the ancient town of Pompeii. Though the disaster occurred and claimed thousands of lives long ago, the threat of more such volcanic eruptions still exist today. Hence, Pompeii is an archeological and also a dark tourism site.

Some more places the tourists visit for dark tourism are −

Chernobyl and Prypiat, Ukraine − Tourists visit this place to see the ruins of the nuclear disaster that took place on 26 Apr 1986.

Ground Zero, USA − It is The World Trade Centre site attracting tourists since the 9/11 attacks that took place in 2001.

Auschwitz, Germany − This dark site is famous for N**i concentration camps with various rooms piled with thousands of pairs of glasses, shoes, and human hair. It displays the walls of the corridor exerting the lists of their victims' names and the dates of their death, and the house of the camp commandant.

Costa Concordia − On the coasts of Tuscany, Italy; the site of this wrecked ship attracted tourists for around two years.

Voluntourism

It is taking volunteered vacation and touring for charity. People do not just go touring for recreation and fun but also to serve the community dealing with natural calamities. In case of flash floods or cyclones, the people in the affected areas need support. Some tourists voluntarily visit such places and extend their hands for help in whichever possible way they can.

Also, tourists are travelling to care for orphans, for plantation, protecting wildlife, and similar other tasks.

Luxury Tourism

It mainly pertains to the rich business tourists, who strongly believe that time is of prime importance and they must pay to save time at any cost. Wealthy tourists are inclined to undergo unique experience such as staying at a private island, personal attention from the service providers and access to elite class attractions and amenities.

Culinary Tourism

The tourists who like to receive local culinary experience, like to tour for this purpose. They attend food festivals, food competitions, visit local farms, vineries, and cheese manufacturing companies, interact with local community or cooks for special culinary experience.

BRIC Tourism

The four major developing countries namely Brazil, Russia, India, and China have a great potential for driving global economy through hospitality and tourism industry. These countries are important for both inbound and outbound tourism. Global tour operators are adapting their tourism businesses to exploit the huge market these countries provide.

Future of Tourism

It is quite obvious that tomorrow’s tourists and tour operators will tend to rely more on technology. With the introduction of the next generation apps and online services, tourism is going to get further accessible and enjoyable.

According to Ari Steinbuerg, the founder of a travel startup Vamo, the tourists will tend to spend less time planning in advance. Efficient booking services and apps will enable the tourists to create versatile itineraries with reasonable price. Future tourists would not prefer to be confined to packaged tours. With the availability of large number of options, the tourists would prefer to realize every possible wish regarding tourism.

With more flight connectivity, travelling modes and accommodations introducing more comfort, technology helping mankind progressively, the tourism will continue to bring momentum in its sector.

14/12/2020

Tourism Management - Impacts

Tourism is a sector that can contribute to the economic, environmental, and also social growth of a region or country at large. At the same time, it can also adversely affect the growth. If the negative outcomes of tourism are not allowed to outweigh the economic benefits, then it can keep good balance between its beneficial outcomes and investments made towards tourism. Not all impacts of tourism are overt. They are often indirect and assessed by the judgement of the observer.

Let us see how tourism impacts economy, environment, and society.

Economic Impacts of Tourism

Let us see the positive and negative impacts of tourism on economy −

Positive Economic Impacts of Tourism

● Inbound tourism helps to generate revenue from foreign shores.

● Inbound and domestic tourism create job opportunities.

● Inbound and domestic tourism stimulate the development of infrastructure.

● It generates opportunities for small scale local businesses.

Negative Economic Impacts of Tourism

● Outbound tourism creates economic leakage.

● All types of tourism create a sense of dependency on the customer or economic recession.

● It can also promote parallel economies.

● The revenue earned from the tourism business seldom is beneficial to the local population if the destination has accommodation provided by international hotels.

Environmental Impacts of Tourism

Let us see the impacts of tourism on environment

Positive Impacts of Tourism on Environment

● It promotes investment in conservation of natural habitats.

● It thus in turn, contributes to the stability of the ecosystem.

● In developing countries, it discourages deforestation and over-fishing in large water bodies.

● It contributes to creating awareness of the value of environment for humans.

Positive Impacts of Tourism on Environment
● It promotes vandalism and littering.

● It makes way for destruction of wild life and vegetation.

● It invites air, and water pollution.

● It creates a large carbon footprint.

● It creates a sense of dependency on the natural resources.

Social Impacts of Tourism

Let us see the impacts of tourism on society −

Positive Impacts of Tourism on Society

● The infrastructure development also benefits the local population.

● It tends to make people aware of the superfluous customs prevailing in the region.

● It helps eradicate poverty by promoting the arts and crafts made by people who search for a source of income.

● It fosters a sense of pride among locals.

● The bonds among communities are strengthened.

Negative Impacts of Tourism on Society

● It impedes the life of local population because of congestion, noise, and pollution.

● It can bring problems of alcoholism, drug addiction, and prostitution in the local society.

● To make place for new accommodations or recreational facilities, the locals may be displaced by acquiring their lands and violating human rights.

● It may act as a platform for the spread of contagious diseases.

● Tourism can change local community structure, family relationships, collective traditional life styles, ceremonies and morality.

04/12/2020

Tourism management - Phases of Tourism Product Development

The creation of a tourism product is a complex process. The following table shows the steps of creating tourism product −

Primary Inputs (Resources)

The product creation process starts with primary inputs such as resources, raw materials, other materials for construction, energy, and fuel. This could also include the agricultural products required to prepare food for the tourists.

The primary inputs are then processed further through manufacturing or construction into intermediate (or processed) inputs. The intermediate inputs are nothing but the tourism facilities such as gardens, parks, museums, art galleries, shopping centers, convention centers, accommodations, restaurants, and.webpt or souvenir shops. They facilitate and support the tourism.

Intermediate Output

The intermediate inputs are further refined through expert management, workforce, and technical services, and packaging into intermediate outputs. The intermediate outputs are nothing but the services associated with tourism industry.

For example, the intermediate input such as a hotel room remains just as a commodity unless it is occupied by the tourist and turns into a part of a tourism product by incorporating the occupant’s experience. Similarly, the food at restaurants needs to be cooked and presented by the staff at any restaurant and needs to be ordered and consumed by the tourists.

Final Output (Tourist experiences)

The final outputs are nothing but the personal experience the tourist takes from availing services and by carrying out various tourism-related activities. The tourists utilize the intermediate outputs (or services) to generate intangible but a high value experience such as satisfaction, recreation, and completion of a business related task or maintaining a contact of friends or relatives.

Steps of Tourism Product Development
The following general steps are taken for tourism product development −

Research the Market

At this step, the tourism marketing force conducts research on the current market to identify the opportunities. In includes economy, study of various market segments and their varied requirements, past market data, and current market and tourism trends.

Match the Product with Market

By assessing the market segments and conditions for tourism, different packages are created for various market segments such that they can satisfy the requirement of each segment of individuals.

Assess the Destination

Since destinations form the basis of product development, the product development force visits the prospective tourism destination to assess its tourism potential and its ability to accommodate and serve the tourists, features of the destination, and its shortcomings. It is assessed to judge if the destination is fulfilling the requirement of Accommodation, Attractions, Activities, or Amenities. It is also checked for the ease of Accessibility.

Understand the Stakeholder Role

Tourism product development is the result of collaborative efforts of various stakeholders. It involves identifying all the stakeholders in private and public sectors, DMOs, Tourism and allied businesses, and their respective roles in creating or developing a part of a tourism product. The stakeholder meetings are conducted for creating a project plan. The project goals are set to realize long-term vision, medium-term action plans, and short-term progress assessments.

Product Building

At this step, the product is actually built using required resources and consultations of the expertise to create intermediate inputs (facilities and amenities) and intermediate outputs (services). It encompasses not only development of destination infrastructure but also support for special activities and experiences.

Marketing & Promotion

The functional and emotional benefits of the tourism at the tourist destination are communicated to the market. The marketing people create brochures, place advertisements on the business portals, and contact media to promote the destination and the product on the television and radio. They also use various other marketing techniques to increase the product visibility.

Providing Human and Technical Resource

It includes providing skilled staff and contemporary technology to cater the needs of tourists efficiently, to handle all tourism related operations at the destination effectively, and to communicate with the staff easily.

02/12/2020

Tourism Management - Developing Product

“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words; people, product, and profits. Unless you have got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”

− Lee Lacocca, American Automobile Executive-

The tourists have ever changing demands which the tourism product is required to satisfy for the survival of the tourism industry. Kotler defines a product as it is "anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. It includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organization, and ideas".

Medlik and Middleton (1973) term tourism products as “a bundle of activities, services, and benefits that constitute the entire tourism experience.” This bundle consists of five components: destination attractions, destination facilities, accessibility, images, and price.

Having been known what the tourism product is, let us see the elements of the tourism product and how the tourism product is developed.

Elements of a Tourism Product

Here is an onion shell diagram that depicts elements of a tourism product. The diagram shows progression of elements from core to outer shell depicting the declining direct management control. It shows that the consumer’s involvement is maximum at the outermost shell. The tourism product is not just presence of all five elements but it is also the interaction of these elements among themselves.

The Physical Plant

It is tangible and is composed of various resources on which the tourism is based. Plainly, the physical plant is nothing but the destination with sound and catchy architecture that enhances tourists’ experience. It can be −

● A natural attraction such as a landscape, wild life, natural structure.

● A man-made attraction such as a resort.

● A fixed property such as an accommodation.

● A mobile property such as a ship or an airbus.

● A natural or manmade condition such as weather, crowd, infrastructure at the destination.

Service

The features or facilities of the physical plant are put to use for the tourists with service. Providing services calls for a major contribution from human resources. It pertains to performing tasks for the benefit and satisfaction of the tourists. For example, serving food in a hotel is a service by the staff there.

Hospitality

It is the attitude with which the service is provided. Hospitality includes performing the service with smile, enthusiasm, untiringly, and with dedication. For example, arranging guest room supplies or serving food or beverage in a presentable manner is a part of hospitality.

Freedom of Choice

It is offering the tourist some acceptable range of options in order to elevate their experience. The degree of freedom varies greatly depending on the type of tourism (pleasure, business, family, or other), the tourist’s budget, previous experience, knowledge, and reliance on a travel agent.

A good tourism product must include some choice for its consumers. By offering some freedom to the tourists, the product gives some sense of control to the tourists. The freedom to choose an airline, a route, a seat, an accommodation, or a restaurant can enhance a tourist’s satisfaction. Freedom also implies good surprises. When the tourists come across unanticipated events, they get the feeling of being very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, thereby gaining extra value from the visit.

Involvement

It depends upon the quality of inner four elements. These elements prepare the tourists for physical, intellectual, and/or emotional involvement in tourism services. Involvement is not only the physical participation, but also a sense of engagement in an activity- may it be for pleasure or business.

More the involvement of the tourists, more they are interested in striking conversation happily with others, more they are enthusiastic and curious to try out new things, and time passes fast for them.

Thus, a combination of tourists’ involvement, freedom of choice, service with hospitality and perfect destination (with all A’s present) can make the best tourist product.

Key Principles of Tourism Product Development

A tourism product can be of any type from cultural, educational, recreational, heritage site, or a business hub.

Tourism Product Development should

● Be authentic and should reflect the unique attributes of the destination.

● Have the support of the host community.

● Respect the natural and cultural environments.

● Be different from the competitors, avoiding copying developments blindly.

● Be of sufficient scale to make a significant economic contribution, but not very large to create high economic leakage.

30/11/2020

tourism management - Products and Services

“Don’t give up and always keep on believing in your product. Because if you don’t, how can you make others believe in it?”
− Niels Van Deuren, Founder, housinganywhere.com.

The tourism industry as a whole survives because of various tourism products and services. Tourism industry is flexible. The products of tourism cannot be easily standardized as they are created for the customers of varied interests and demands. As the tourism products are mainly the tourists’ experience, they can be stored only in the tourists’ memories.

Let us understand more about tourism products and services −

Types of Tourism Products

The tourism products are grouped into the following types −

Tourism Oriented Products (TOP)

These are the products and services created primarily for the tourists and also for the locals. These products need a great share of investments in private sector. A few of them are −

● Accommodations; For example, Taj, ITC Hotels.

● Transportation; For example, Owning taxis, luxury buses, and boats.

● Retail Travel Agents

● Tour Operators

● Shopping Centers such as malls

● Cinema Theatres such as PVR

● Restaurants for Food and Beverages

● Tourism Information Centers

● Souvenirs Outlets

● Museums, Temples, Gardens, and Theme parks

Residents Oriented Products (ROP)

Here, the products and services are created mainly for the local residents staying at a particular tourist destination. This category requires investment in public sectors more. Some of them are −

● Hospitals

● Public Parks

● Banks and ATMs

● Petrol Pumps

● Postal Service

Intangible Products of Tourism

They include −

● Bookings of accommodations, theatres, and at various sites.

● Tourists’ experience by visiting a destination, eating at a restaurant, or performing an activity.

● Tourists’ memory which is created by storing the details of events and experience on the tour. The high degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction is often stored as a long term memory.

● Transportation of tourists and their luggage from one place to another.

Tour Operator’s Products and Services
To realize the facilities and experience a tourism product offers, service is required by skilled and qualified staff. The tour operator provides the following typical products and services −

Accommodations

The tourist destinations are equipped with different types of accommodations. They cater for tourists’ stay at the destination.

● Serviced − This type of accommodation is supported by skilled staff such as housekeepers, drivers, guides, and cooks.

● Self-catering − This accommodation offers staying facilities but dining is required to be self-catered. It is equipped with cooking, fuel and facility, some basic supplies such as tea/coffee/sugar sachets, and a drinking water source.

● Hotels − Budget rooms to 7* hotels with classy amenities. The hotels contribute a major share of imparting the experience to the tourists by providing best services and amenities.

● Guest Houses − Owned by business or government organizations, which can be used by its staff and staff relatives.

● Camping Sites − They are open sites often located in areas of lush greenery. They are equipped with clean place to pitch the personal tent, a water supply, and electric supply. Camp sites have common rest rooms.

Reservations

The tour operator is responsible for making reservations for special events or activities the tourists are interested in. At some places, the reservations are required to be done well in advance to avoid last minute hassles. The events or activities such as a music concert or a theatre show, visiting a theme park or a zoo, require people to secure seats or avail entry with prior reservations.

Guided Tours

The tour operators can arrange guided tours. Some qualified staff who can get access to the place, explain the importance of the place, support, and guide the participants through the entire visit. The guide is arranged to accompany the tour participants as a part of tour.

Transport Facilities

These facilities are for travelling from one place to another.

Surface Transport − It includes support of transport by road or water.

Air Transport − This is the support of transport by air, generally given for long distance travel. Many times the tours include a halt of a couple of hours at transit destinations. Today the airports are built and maintained as engaging tourist terminals by providing amenities such as spas, lounges, food joints, bars, and book shops, retail shops for selling authentic local food, clothes, and souvenirs.

Today the Airlines are no more backstage when it comes to caring for their customers. They offer loyalty programs to their customers under Frequent Flyer Program to encourage the customers to travel more and accumulate points and redeem them against travel or rewards.

Dining Facilities

The tour operators can book accommodation that provides dining facilities or it can tie up with the local restaurants which are ready to entertain groups. If the tour package is all inclusive, the tour operator pays for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If not, the tourists need to pay from their own pocket.

28/11/2020

Tourism Management - Marketing Mix

Tourism marketing is different because the customer purchases a series of services. While marketing a tourism product, the sales or marketing person insists on the positive facets of the following four components −

Product

The tourism being a service sold to the customers, tourist experience is the product, which is intangible, and non-storable. The quality of the tourist experience as a product is directly proportional to the quality of the service a tourism business provides. The product must be designed to highlight its features and to satisfy the tourist’s needs. If the product is branded, the customers find it more reliable.

Price

Determining the price of the product requires consideration of three key factors −

● Operating costs − Operating costs include both fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs remain same regardless of the sales which involve building, insurance, and equipment costs. Variable costs include costs for wages, gas, electricity, cleaning, maintenance, repairing, materials used in production, office stationery, linen, food, petrol, machinery, uniforms, bank fees, marketing research expenses, and expenses for advertisements, promotions, brochures, and conducting consumer or trade events.

● Profit Margins − This is determined by comparing the competitors’ offers and the own product offers. Profit margins are set without compromising the competitive advantage.

● Commissions of Intermediaries − Working with intermediaries incurs commissions. Commissions are the fees paid to the intermediaries to distribute and sell your product.

Tourism Product Pricing Policies
Commonly followed pricing policies include −

● Discount Pricing − This strategy calls for reductions to a basic Price of product or services. It is a form of sales promotion which at times proves to be rewarding for the customers.

● Variable Pricing − pricing varies with respect to the variation in features of a product.

● Loss Leader Pricing − It is selling few products at prices lower than the actual prices. It helps to settle the loss by attracting customers to buy more number of products.

● Promotional Pricing − It is selling a product for free with another product with the objective of promoting the free product. Customer interest is generated to use the free product thereby increasing the sale.

Place

The place is where the tourists visit and stay. The potential of a tourist destination lies in its attractiveness or aesthetic value, accessibility, and the facilities it provides to the tourists. The tourists also seek a place highly for the activities it offers, the amenities and skilled workforce it provides, and its location.

Promotion

Promotion is intended to inform the customers about the products, create an image about the product, and position the products in the market. There are various effective ways of promoting the tourism products −

● Advertising the products on television commercials, newspapers, radio stations, and websites.

● Distributing promotional material such as diaries, brochures, keychains, wallets, purses, water bottles, pens, or any small.webpt item designed for promoting the product.

● Setting Point of Sale (POS) displays at various places such as retail stores, shops, malls, or petrol pumps.

● Promoting tourism products in local fairs.

● Promoting the products with their attractive features on the website of the tourism enterprise.

● Conducting programs of sponsorships, or promoting products by offering them as incentives.