Tourism and Hospitality

Tourism and Hospitality

            Tourism and Hospitality is an industry involved in travelling for pleasure, or business, and the way people interact when they meet either in hotels, casinos, or even restaurants. Tourism is the primary activity that necessitates the existence of hospitality. Generally, tourist and hospitality are interdependent in that the existence of one field depends on the other. The field of tourism and hospitality is broad and requires special attention during its analysis.  The management of the tourism and hospitality sector goes hand-in-hand with the current issues in the market. Tourism can be defined as the activity of visiting and area either for adventure or for recreational purposes. Hospitality on the other side can be defined as the reception of guests or visitors in a given area. The main purpose of promoting tourism is the improvement of trade between regions. Tourism and hospitality are related in that, tourist are visitors who require special reception at their tourist destinations. For an individual to become a tourist, several factors have to be incorporated. First, the individual has to be interested in adventure. Two, the individual has to be financially stable, or at least able to pay for or acquire sponsorship for the services associated with tourism. Tourism and hospitality are widely connected to several other disciplines, which are also changing hence the dramatic change in the tourism and hospitality sector. In the recent past, the tourism sector has been exposed to various changes that can lead to a dramatic turn of events. The purposes of tourist visits have changed from being purely recreational into becoming business and family visits related. The human resource, financial, operational, as well as the market has been affected by the current trends being witnessed in the tourism and hospitality sector.

The operational structures in the tourism sector have significantly been affected by globalization.  The globalization effect however mostly affects the less developed countries. Developed countries have a well-developed infrastructure to accommodate diverse groups of tourists and do not require further development for global tourism. However, less developed countries have been forced into obtaining loans to supplement the already straining economies in a bid to develop the infrastructure necessitated by the globalization of tourism (Kirilenko, p. 14, 2018). The burden of the globalization of tourism has left many less developed countries unable to repay their debts. Local governments are tempted by the desire to have better infrastructure by giving tax incentives to outside developers. Most of the tax incentives are in the form of tax holidays that exempt the companies from paying taxes for some period. The exemptions that are given to outside developers act to deprive the local governments of the revenues that would have been collected. The encouragement of outside developers limits domestic developers from engaging in the development works and therefore the money that the governments use for infrastructure development does not remain under the government’s territorial boundaries (Cocolas, p.147, 2016). Also, international tourists also tend to prefer international standard hotels and services. Local hotel owners are forced to import foreign materials to meet the needs of the customers — the import of material leaks resources out of the countries instead of helping the local communities.

The financial aspect of tourism and hospitality has not been left behind in the current changes in the entire tourism sector. The currency exchange rates have been an issue of concern for many tourists with the rates being affected by factors outside the control of one’s country of origin. The changes in the exchange rates have been affecting the travel patterns of the tourists. One of the critical changes that have happened in tourism financial aspect is the change in spending pattern and competition among tourist receiving countries (Tyagi, p.567, 2017). The gross domestic product of tourist generating tourists affects the tourist markets. It is common to find that countries with high GDP spend more in terms of financing trips for tourists to the international market. The data on the GDP levels of tourist generating countries is useful to the tourist receiving countries. The tourist receiving countries need to identify the countries with a high probability of producing more tourists for strategic purposes such as trade agreements (Han, Meng and Kim, p. 92, 2017). The data on GDP for tourist generating countries is useful for predicting tourist patterns, and thus countries can plan on the type of services to offer. The competition that happens between tourist receiving countries is based on trade agreements and the development of relevant infrastructure.

Human resource sector of the tourism and hospitality sector is a critical sector because helps in gaining the competitive advantage of the market. The efficiency of a human resource department is determined by the competence and quality of the employed personnel. However, the human resource aspect in the tourism and hospitality sector has been significantly affected by the introduction of technology. The need for quick customization of customer provision of services has led to the replacement of human labor with technology. For example, the accommodation sector has introduced customer self-check services at the different terminus (Liu, Huang & Fu, p. 133, 2017). Although the use of technology has improved the efficiency of service delivery, several job opportunities have been scrapped off. Also, the integration of Information technology has been a significant breakthrough in the tourism industry. Tourist companies can spread information concerning service delivery to a large population of potential tourists in a short time. The critical aspects of the human resource department that include job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment and job sharing have been significantly affected by technology.

The property management in the tourism markets has been witnessing significant changes in the recent past. Property management involves the front desk activities of tourism institutions such as the hotels. The development of technology has led to the introduction of integrated property management systems in different hotels. Most hotels are based on systems where all the activities of the hotel are done from a computer. The integrated property management operates as a connection of a network that involves different departments managed by different departments to control all the activities in a tourist hotel (Cornelissen, 2017). The introduction of the integrated property management system helps in the secure transmission of data and thus fast delivery of services and response to orders. The integrated property management system also helps in avoiding operational mistakes which are always present in the manual management of tourist hotels.

In sum, the issue of concern is the effectiveness of the tourism and hospitality management on the changing nature of the market. The issue of globalization has brought significant changes in the operation structures of the tourism sector. The human resource structure has also been impacted both positively and negatively by the introduction of technology into the tourism industry. The financial aspect of the tourism industry has seen significant changes due to competition between the tourist receiving countries. Also, the property and market systems have been affected by the integrated property systems. Generally the tourism and hospitality management departments have efficiently adapted to the changing nature of the industry.

Bibliography

Cornelissen, S., 2017. The global tourism system: Governance, development and lessons from       South Africa. Routledge.

Liu, B., Huang, S. S., & Fu, H. (2017). An application of network analysis on tourist attractions: The case of Xinjiang, China. Tourism Management, 58, 132-141.

Han, H., Meng, B. and Kim, W., 2017. Bike-traveling as a growing phenomenon: Role of             attributes, value, satisfaction, desire, and gender in developing loyalty. Tourism        Management, 59, pp.91-103.

Kirilenko, A.P., Stepchenkova, S.O., Kim, H. and Li, X., 2018. Automated sentiment analysis in             tourism: Comparison of approaches. Journal of Travel Research, 57(8), pp.1012-1025.

Nicholls, S., Amelung, B. and Student, J., 2017. Agent-based modeling: A powerful tool for        tourism researchers. Journal of Travel Research, 56(1), pp.3-15.

Edgell Sr, D.L., 2016. Managing sustainable tourism: A legacy for the future. Routledge.

Cocolas, N., Walters, G. and Ruhanen, L., 2016. Behavioural adaptation to climate change           among winter alpine tourists: An analysis of tourist motivations and leisure            substitutability. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(6), pp.846-865.

Tyagi, A., Dhar, R.L. and Sharma, J., 2016. Police culture, tourists and destinations: A study of   Uttarakhand, India. Tourism Management, 52, pp.563-573.