Concepts and Basics of Tourism Destination Management

Concepts and Basics of Tourism Destination Management

Tourism can be described as traveling for fun and it may include activities such as camping and sightseeing. Rowen (2016) discovered that people or tourist could travel to a place either for cultural or natural tourism and for this to be possible there has to a proper and a well laid out tourism destination management, which can be described as a coordinated management of all elements that make up a destination including attractions, accessibility, pricing and marketing.  Natural tourism in a destination is tourism that is based on the natural attractions of the area, while cultural tourism is the tourism that is based on the cultural attractions of the place. There are cultures that are more interesting and more attractive that people will come from far places just to come and see how these cultures operate ad they generally cope up with life. A research conducted by Lim (2020), revealed that both cultural and natural tourism affect the tourism development in an area. They both influence or contribute to the implementation of the provision of the best services in a tour, travel and transportation sector and also the accommodation sector.

Tourism Potential of Hong Kong

To begin with, cultural tourism, a place like Hong Kong has one of the most popular and beautiful temples in the world that has attracted tourists for years. The best times for tourists to visit these places have always been from October to December when the weather is pleasant, sunny and cool. Examples of those temples that have massively attracted tourists in Hong Kong over the years are Chi Li Nunnery, Miu Fat Buddhist Monastery and Tsing Shan Monastery (Rowen, 2016). Most people visit temples to get to learn new things and why people do certain things in a temple. Examples of the main things that tourists would always want to learn about temples, which is one of the cultures, are things such as why do people enter the temple barefooted, why the temple bell rings and reasons for lighting the camphor.

There have been many developments that have taken place due to tourism. One of the great tourism developments that have taken place is the developments in the public transport sector. This was triggered by the fact that tourists who keep on coming each and every year need to be transported to their destinations and the only means of transport is the public transport or renting a vehicle (Shen et al. 2018). The need to transport the people to go and see these temples and to learn something new about the culture of the place has made it possible to have the best and the safest roads and railways in Hong Kong. The developments have been in such a way that the country has been forced to come up with sophisticated taxis, buses and minibusses to help to transport the people and this to some extent is a tourism development in the area.

Natural tourism is also very critical in the tourism industry of Hong Kong. Examples are the parks in the area, for instance, Sai Kung East Country park, which for over the years now has attracted thousands of tourists in the area. In this, people mostly visit to see the amazing geological park with amazing hexagonal rock formations, fantastic coastlines and a quiet environment a few meters from the rock (Yam, 2020). There are also amazing beaches in the area like Big Wave Bay Beach, which also attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world from Europe to Africa. There are also wonderful mountains in Hong Kong like the Tai Mo Shan Mountain which attract tourist just for sightseeing and also for mountain climbing.

All these natural tourist attraction sites have encouraged tourism destination developments in the city, whereby there have been developments in terms of infrastructure. Victoria harbor has always been developed to attract and accommodate more tourists who come to the area to visit the place for either recreation or sightseeing (Chiu, Marafa, & Chan, 2017).  The transport has also been developed in the area and also different recreation facilities in beaches like the construction of classic swimming pools to meet the needs of the tourists.

Tourism Development Plan and the Marketing Techniques

The tourism development plan is the creation of plans and strategies to increase and develop tourism for a destination with the main aim of being making money and increasing the GDP of the area. Taking Hong Kong, for instance, for it to be able to increase the number of tourists visiting the place for both cultural tourism and natural tourism, there are several plans and measures that the ministry of tourism can take. This would include the change in how the city markets itself worldwide. The following strategies and plans, when well implemented, they can greatly increase and develop tourism for Hong Kong. One is that the ministry needs to increase its level of distribution that is to increase the number of its agents worldwide. This will help to reach out to people who have not decided which places to visit or what to do when they reach the places they want to visit. A sense of concern will make them feel valued and they will thus like to go to visit the area (Chiu, Marafa, & Chan, 2017). Also, optimization of website usage for mobile use can greatly help. Tourism managers in Hong Kong need to come up with a mobile-friendly website system that can make it easy to book facilities before they come. Also, this will help tourism organizations in Hong Kong to market themselves worldwide.

Ways of Effective Destination Management

Always the success of a destination depends on how well the planning has been done both in terms of management and marketing of the destination. Both the government, tourism organizations in the country, the tourism industry and the host community have a part to play on destination management (Chiu, Chan & Marafa, 2016). One of the ways of effective destination management is to come up with strategic visions and strategic plans that will keep both the tourism industry and the tourism organizations to create a good tourism destination. For instance, having such a goal, the tourism industry in Hong Kong will make sure that the services are quality so that the people will come back again next time.

Another effective way of destination management is that to come up with laws and policies that will ensure that the tourists who come to the areas are very comfortable and that they enjoy the services a great deal. Examples of such policies include ensuring that the tourists are not being overcharged or to come up with means and ways to ensure that the tourists who come are not exploited in any way (Chiu, Chan & Marafa, 2016). This should be something that should be planned early in advance and be made known to the tourists entering the city.

Destination Management Organizations and the National Tourism Organizations in Hong Kong

One of the main DMO in Hong Kong is the DMC Hong Kong and it plays a crucial role in offering tailor-made services to the tourists. It operates in every corner of the city. Another major role of the organization is that it does sports events and special interest tours for individual tourists, small groups and even large groups. The staff of the organization is made up of a team of individuals who understand the unique culture, lifestyle and trends of the people of Hong Kong (Chiu, Chan & Marafa, 2016). This greatly helps the people to fully meet the needs of the tourists, especially those that have come to learn the culture of Hong Kong. The same thing happens with the National tourism organization in the area that is the Hong Kong tourism board. The main role played by the board is to maximize the social and economic contribution that tourism makes to the community of Hong Kong and consolidate the city’s position as a desired tourist destination.

Typical Developments and Problems in Hong Kong and their Solutions

The developments that have been seen in the area so far is that the accommodation facilities have been greatly improved. The tourism sector has tried their level best to put standards on which all the people or organization building accommodation facilities should meet and this has greatly helped to attract more tourists. Concerning problems, one of the main problems is the place is very expensive to visit. High costs have made it difficult to visit the place because if people consider visiting Hong Kong, they get discouraged because they might spend more money. This started in 2014, where the government has just been allowing the raise of the costs (Cheng, 2019). This has discouraged a lot of tourists and since then the number of tourists entering the city has somehow reduced. The solution to this is that the government needs to regulate the price they charge the visitors and also try as much as possible to subsidize the prices, especially to their regular customers.

References

Cheng, K. M. (2019). Medical tourism: Chinese maternity tourism to Hong Kong. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(14), 1479-1486.

Chiu, H. Y., Chan, C. S., & Marafa, L. M. (2016). Local perception and preferences in nature tourism in Hong Kong. Tourism Management Perspectives, 20, 87-97.

Chiu, H. Y., Marafa, L. M., & Chan, C. S. (2017). Nature Tourism in Hong Kong for the Mainland Chinese Market: A Study of Preference and Perception. International Leisure Review, 6(1), 48-69.

Lim, C. (2020). A Tale of Two Cities: Modelling Inbound Tourism from Hong Kong and Singapore Into Australia. In Tourism and Economic Development (pp. 63-83). Routledge.

Rowen, I. (2016). The geopolitics of tourism: Mobilities, territory, and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(2), 385-393.

Shen, H., Li, X., Luo, J. M., & Chau, K. Y. (2018). One country, two strata: Implications of social and cultural conflicts of Chinese outbound tourism to Hong Kong. Journal of destination marketing & management, 6(3), 166-169.

Yam, S. Y. S. (2020). Affective economies and alienizing discourse: Citizenship and maternity tourism in Hong Kong. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 46(5), 410-433.