TOUR 3009 Destination Management: Critical analysis – Assignment 1
Introduction
The purpose of this study focusses on how Vancouver film tourism can help improve this tourism destination’s stronger competitive position. Vancouver is one of the densest cities with a highly ethnically diverse population. XXX explains that this city, for many years, has served the major tourism destination in Canada. Vancouver has strong competitive competitiveness since it is endowed with different tourism attraction sites ranging from museums to beaches. Therefore, it always stands out among other destinations. Besides, given that by 2005, this city had begun mass production of films, it has slowly master film tourism, which has come in hand to boost the traditional heritage tourism. It will this study will focus on the film tourism sector and the heritage sector.
2 Discussion
2.1 Destination Resources and Situational Analysis
For many years, Vancouver has continuously remained one of the leading tourist attractions in Canada for local and international tourists. According to XXX, this city is rank number two most toured cities in Canada, and it falls under the 100 cities in the world with the highest number of visitors. Vancouver has numerous great competitive strength as a tourism destination. One of the competitive advantages is that this city has several tourist attractions sites such as Capilano suspension bridge, Grouse, mountain, BC, place, lighthouse park, among other places. Again, this destination is well known for its strong engagement and promotion of the movie industry; thus, it keeps attracting a lot of people to come and witness or experience the same environment they have exposed to in various films. The other competitive advantage of this city and a tourism destination is that it is a safe place as everyone is welcome and protected by the law. Therefore, this place is endowed with numerous tourism destination resources that always bring satisfaction to the tourists.
Based on the tourism activities taking place in Vancouver city, it is correct to conclude that this destination is at the development stage in the tourism life cycle. Just as explained by XXX that a tourism destination at the development stage has noticeable development of additional tourism activities. For example, a destination at this stage has increased promotional efforts to promote the area, increased growth, and improvement of additional tourist facilities, among others. The same characteristics are also seen with the Vancouver XXX(WEBESIT). Thus it is at the development stage. On the same note, Vancouver has numerous destination resources that have continuously attracted tourists throughout the world. Some of the destination sources of this city include things such s; beaches, Museum of Anthropology, Grouse Mountain, Vancouver Art Gallery, Lighthouse Park, among others. According to the report published by the Canada tourism ministry, Vancouver, in the last financial year, welcome 11 million visitors from around the world with more than 12 million local tourists XXXX. This report further established that this city is, in fact, the largest tourist attraction destination in Canada.
Vancouver has mastered the art of attracting tourism through traditional tourism. Moreover, this has also developed a particular emerging interest in tourism, particularly film tourism, thereby continuously attracting people throughout the globe. According to XXX, continuous development of traditional tourism, such as making it convenient and comfortable for tourists to visit Granville Island, Vancouver Aquarium, and Science Word, among others. Asa result, Vancouver has established a strong brand in North America and even throughout the globe. On the same note, XXX explains that Vancouver is one city that stands out in terms of its robust investment in the film sector; thus, it has successfully established its film tourism, which saw the number of people visiting this city to increase. Some of the iconic films such as; the Grey, Fifty Shades, among others, are some of the films that have made many people visit the city to see where the movies were shots.
Numerous STEP factors affect the maturity of traditional tourism and the growth of film tourism as one of the emerging tourism sectors. One of these factors that would affect the maturity of heritage tourism while supporting the growth of film tourism in Vancouver is continuous technological growth. XXX explain that the emergence of digital technology has brought a rapid, substantial change in the practice of conservation of cultural heritage by different society. These scholars went ahead to stipulate that due to technology, some of the archives and museums been tampered with, making them lose their values. As a result, many people are discouraged from visiting heritage sites, thus leading to the decline of this traditional tourism. On the other hand, the advancement of technology has made it possible to include some of the heritage elements such as the museum in the film, thus driving this new tourism sector to maturity. Film tourism is the industry can be more competitive over the traditional heritage tourism sector because the continuous improvement in technology makes it easier to share video and movies hence the film sector will influence many people to visit the city.
2.2 Overview of destination positioning and emerging tourism product analysis
Destinations are the centerpiece of tourism that must be managed effectively. Accord to XXX, the destination is the most challenging and difficult entities in the tourism sector to control. Therefore, to help a tourism destination attract a large number of people, it must have authority in charge must identify and use the most relevant key position strategy. Consequently, one of the vital positioning strategies that must be utilized in Vancouver to market its film tourism is the diversification approach. XXX describes diversification approach as a destination growth strategy that involves adding a new product line into the market. In a simple term, this destination positioning deals with introducing new products and services to the market to make momentum in both the local and international markets. XXX explain diversification approach positioning strategy a substantial positive impact because of the perception that a given product is superior to the rest in the market. Thus, it would make many tourists believe that Vancouver tourist destination is superior to other destinations.
Diversification strategy has numerous characteristics that differentiate it from other destination positioning approaches and drive it to make a tourism city to be outstanding than other regions. The first characteristic of this strategy is that it chose to diverse on the product or the service. For example, Vancouver can decide to focus more on its film tourism by bringing in new products into the movie product to change perceptions of a large number of people about the superiority of this destination. The other characteristic of this strategy is that it can easily concentrate given niche tourism with a combination of various similar products to attract a large number of people into visiting the place. XXX explains that diversification can make a destination to be known throughout the world, especially when it is designed to tap a particular tourism niche by combining it with other core sectors of the society, such as the wildlife management sector. Therefore, when used appropriately, a diversification strategy would help Vancouver to increase the number of visitors it receives.
On the same note, differentiation positioning strategy would provide Vancouver film tourism with a higher and stronger competitive positioning advantage compared to the heritage tourism when using localization strategy. The differentiation strategy will provide film tourism with a stronger competitive position because it has the power of adding values to the destination, thereby attracting new customers. Again, when compared to the localization strategy used in positioning heritage tourism, differentiation can change the perception of various tourists in other markets, thereby making them view Vancouver as superior to other places. However, localization approach positioning for heritage will only concentrate on the already existing local markets, local products, or festival thus, and it does not offer customers a thing to make them have to visit Vancouver. Therefore, differentiation will bring a more substantial competitive positioning advantage than a localization strategy.
Using the IVRO evaluation criteria, it is established that differentiation and localization positioning strategies have numerous strengths and weaknesses. To begin with, differentiation strategy has advantages such as; creating additional values, enabling an organization or destination to compete in different ways, leads to brand loyalty, among others. On the other hand, its disadvantages entail issues like; straining resources and not guaranteeing revenue increase. On the same note, training of the labor force, a large market for the destination or service, is created in the local market and forms the suitable means of communicating with the consumers. It Disadvantages include factors that may create un-healthy competition, over-dependence on the domestic market, and may promote dishonesty in the industry.
2.3 Product diversity & visitor experience analysis
There are numerous key market demand as well as demand pattern for film tourism in Vancouver.
The most popular key market demand for film tourism is socio-demographic profiles. In today’s society, the tastes and interests of people in different things such as the choice of what type of leisure to engage are made best of an individual’s education status, economic wellbeing, religious affiliation, sex, ethnicity, marital status, or employment. XXX, in their study, found out that an individual income determines the type of film they watch and where they watch them. Thus, in the end, dictating where they visit as a tourist. When a person’s income is high, they are likely to tour outside their country or beyond their after being influenced by types of films they watch. However, those with lower incomes are always local tourists as they have a limited amount to spend, even when they have the desire to travel and experience the place they saw in the movie. Again, the education status will determine the type of film someone watches. For instance, a highly educated personality would have a taste for an excellent movie showing clear the region where the film was shot. As such, they will try and visit those areas in person to enjoy the same scenic view they saw in the movie. Therefore, socio-demographic profiles are one of the essential key demand factors for film tourism.
Furthermore, film tourism offers different services and products, together with activities to enhance specific types of the visitor experience. For instance, film tourism engages in the production of clear and high-quality films. Top-quality films allow the viewers to experience the beautiful environments where the movie was shot, thus making them have the huge to tutor such regions. Consequently, by ensuring that the films have high quality enable film tutors to create cognitive visitors’ experience. According to XXX, the cognitive visitor experience is the kind of knowledge that one acquires through watching a film about a given destination to have a great understanding of the place. Consequently, the cognitive visitor experience would make help more advantage to Vancouver since the filmmakers will target various tourism attraction places in this city while making movies. Shooting movies at some of the most attractive places would influence and changes the perceptions of the people worldwide about Vancouver; hence, most of them would develop the urge and interest to come and visit the city so that they can physically enjoy such beautiful sceneries.
Again the diversity of the products of the film tourism sector, together with the cognitive visitor experience, can help to enhance the more substantial competitive advantage of Vancouver because of various reasons. The first reason is that diversity in the production of different types of films in multiple tourism attraction sites such as the science world, beaches, among other places, would help to create cognitive visitors’ experience. Cognitive visitor experience would make many people decide to visit Vancouver over other areas hence giving its stronger competitive advantages. Therefore, as more and more films are shot at different tourist sites, the more people would be attracted to this city.
2.4 Strategic Direction
1.) How to Manage Destination Competition
Vancouver film tourism has one weakness of inadequate utilization of destination resources like beaches, museums, archives, among others, when making films. Unlike Paris’ where almost every movie display a lot the destination resources from both natural and humanmade tourism attraction, Vancouver film producers to focus more on selling the films to the people than attracting visitors to come and experience how they produce various films. XXX explains that in Paris, some different studios and theatres are used as tourism attractions. These scholars further assert that Paris allows most of its heritage and cultures to be enacted in various cinemas and studios. Thus when such videos are sold to the international market, many people get interested in coming and experience the cultures and ways of life of the Paris people. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Nevertheless, such practices are what is lacking in Vancouver film tourism. XXX explains that at a time, it becomes difficult to differentiate the film tourism sector and the film production industry. This is a film tourism sector that has continuously failed to establish and identify market strategies to use to attract visitors to this place.
The other weakness of Vancouver film tourism is the lack of market diversification of its products in the global market. XXX, most of the films sold in the international market, such as in the American market, are from Washington city and other USA cities, among other places like Paris. Vancouver producers tend to focus more on North America and some of the developed countries but with little focus on developing nations. Thus, it tends to lose a lot of market demand as many people in other countries are not aware of the beautiful tourism sites attraction that exists in Vancouver. Therefore, Vancouver needs to improve its marketing strategies and copy cities such as Paris to have significant impacts on the global market and increase the number of tourists visiting the city. The issue of lack of market diversification Vancouver’s film tourism can be solved in the short run by expanding its sales in other countries so s to tap the new market.
Q2. How to manage challenging issue-crisis risk or change
Crisis or changes in the tourism sector in Vancouver can be managed by planning for change in prior. The entire Vancouver tourism industry must always foresee the impact of the specific risk that may affect their operations and develop a plan of how to overcome the crisis without being negatively affected. According to XXX, an organization in the tourism sector must identify a possible risk that would impact its operations, thereby finding solutions before they are affected. On the other hand, the Vancouver tourism sector should manage it is experiencing within the industry by making everyone know about the change through communicating it to them. Through this, the industry can come with policies to solve such changes in the short-term when a stable and long last measure is still underway.
Conclusion
Vancouver is indeed a tourism hub with high numbers of tourism attractions. Again, this tourism destination is dominated by heritage tourism and film tourism. The heritage tourism exists through many archives, museums, among other resources that were purposefully set up to sell the cultural heritage of this city. However, the new film tourism sector over a few years has had a massive impact on the entire tourism sector. It has attracted people all the globe to come and visit Vancouver to experience its unique heritage, among other tourist attractions that are available in this city. Therefore, Vancouver is one of the best places to visit as a tourist.