Assignment-
Aim: The aim of this assignment is to enable you to build on the work done in class to develop further your understanding of issues linked to tourism destinations including their culture, social and physical features and also their popularity.
Summary of learning outcomes: On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to meet the four learning outcomes set out below:
1. Understand the scope of key UK and worldwide tourist destinations.
2. Understand the cultural, social and physical features of tourist destinations.
3. Understand how the characteristics of destinations affect their appeal to tourists.
4. Understand issues likely to affect the populsrity of tourist destinations.
You have recently started a new job as a Tourism Marketing Officer in a national tourism office in London. As a marketing officer, you are expected to demonstrate an understanding of the scope of UK and worldwide tourist destinations. This theme is the focus of tasks 1 and 2 below.
Task 1 - Understand the scope of key UK and worldwide tourist destinations
To test your ability to analyse and understand tourism-related statistics, your supervisor then has asked you to provide her with two separate written documents
a. In the first document, you need to show an analysis of main tourist destinations and generators of the world in terms of visitor numbers (tourist arrivals) and income generators (tourist receipts). Your analysis should focus on:
(i) The average expenditure in UK compared with Europe and Asia.
(ii) Implications of the differences of Tourist Arrivals and Tourist Receipts in countries such as France, Turkey, Thailand, Hong-Kong and Mexico.
International tourist arrivals, 2014.
|
Rank
|
Country
|
International tourist arrivals (2014)
|
International tourist arrivals (2013)
|
Change (2013
to 2014 (%)
|
|
1
|
France
|
83.7 million
|
83.6 million
|
.1
|
|
2
|
United States
|
74.8 million
|
70.0 million
|
6.8
|
|
3
|
Spain
|
65.0 million
|
60.7 million
|
7.1
|
|
4
|
China
|
55.6 million
|
55.7 million
|
-.1
|
|
5
|
Italy
|
48.6 million
|
47.7 million
|
1.8
|
|
6
|
Turkey
|
39.8 million
|
37.8 million
|
5.3
|
|
7
|
Germany
|
33.0 million
|
31.5 million
|
4.6
|
|
8
|
United Kingdom
|
32.6 million
|
31.1 million
|
5.0
|
|
9
|
Russia
|
29.8 million
|
28.4 million
|
5.3
|
|
10
|
Mexico
|
29.1 million
|
24.2 million
|
20.5
|
International tourist receipts, 2014.
|
Rank
|
Country
|
International tourism receipts US$(2014)
|
International tourism receipts US$(2013)
|
Change (2013
to 2014 (%)
|
|
1
|
United States
|
177.2 billion
|
172.9 billion
|
2.5
|
|
2
|
Spain
|
65.2 billion
|
62.6 billion
|
4.2
|
|
3
|
China
|
56.9 billion
|
51.7 billion
|
10.2
|
|
4
|
France
|
55.4 billion
|
56.7 billion
|
-2.3
|
|
5
|
Macao
|
50.8 billion
|
51.8 billion
|
-1.9
|
|
6
|
Italy
|
45.5 billion
|
43.9 billion
|
3.7
|
|
7
|
United Kingdom
|
45.3 billion
|
41.0 billion
|
10.3
|
|
8
|
Germany
|
43.3 billion
|
41.3 billion
|
5
|
|
9
|
Thailand
|
38.4 billion
|
41.8 billion
|
-8.0
|
|
10
|
Hongkong
|
38.4 billion
|
38.9 billion
|
-1.4
|
SOURCE: UNWTO Tourism Highlights, 2015 edition
b. The second written document should present a statistical analysis of tourism destination trends over the last ten years and a prediction of future trends, specifically for the UK. The statistics can be accessed through the UNWTO website. You are to show an extract from the 2015 report to evidence the basis of your analysis. You may find it useful to add a graph presenting the tourism trends for the past 10 years.
Task 2: Understand the cultural, social and physical features of tourist destinations
Now that you have successfully completed the first task set by your supervisor, she has asked you to go a stage further in exploring the UK's appeal to tourists. You start by going back to the list of the Top Ten Tourist Destinations given in Task 1a.
a) (i) Choose any two destinations from the list in Task 1a and use the blank table provided to analyse the attractions of each of them alongside those of the UK. (This means that you will be analysing 3 destinations in all. You can also choose your home country if you wish, as long as the three destinations are leading destinations and consist of one from Europe, one from the rest of the world, plus the UK). Your analysis should cover the cultural / social / physical features of each destination as set out in the table below.
(ii) After completing your table, you write an explanation (based on your analysis) of what you see as the most important elements that make up the appeal of each of the 3 destinations.
(b) Having identified the features of the leading tourist destinations you have selected in Task 2a, select ONE among the three destinations, and compare its features to the features of a developing tourist destination. This can be any country of your choice. You are to present the comparison of its features in a table provided below, and provide an explanation of the similarities and differences of the destinations.
Task 3 - Understand how the characteristics of destinations affect their appeal to tourists.
The purpose of the third task is to identify the characteristics of tourist destinations in terms of its political, social, economic and physical aspects. You are then to relate how these characteristics affect the appeal of tourist destinations to its visitors.
(a) Giving specific examples to illustrate your points, make a comparison of the appeal of current leading tourist destinations like US/France/UK with that of currently developing destinations like Burma/Uzbekistan/Nepal. You may use Plog's typology of tourists in order to describe the appeal of these destinations in terms of the types of tourists visiting them.
(b) Identify the characteristics of tourist destinations in terms of the factors listed below, and evaluate by discussing the negative and positive effect of these characteristics to the appeal of the tourist destinations.
a. Economic -availability of consumer goods; tourism as an economic alternative.
b. Physical - physical infrastructure, poor transport network and communication; lack of utilities.
c. Social - levels of poverty, quality of life, incidence of disease and literacy levels.
d. Political - forms of government, use of tourism as a political tool
Task 4 - Understand the impacts of change on the travel and tourism sector
The purpose of this task is to understand the issues experienced by the host community that affect the popularity of the tourist destinations, and how the host community respond for responsible tourism to enhance the destinations.
(a) Focusing on the three issues listed below, provide an analysis of their likely effect on the popularity of tourist destinations. Illustrate your analysis with real examples.
a. Natural disasters e.g. April 2015 earthquake in Nepal
b. Terrorism e.g. July 2015 Tunisian beach terror attack
c. World disease e.g. February 2015 outbreak of swine flu in India
(b) Again, giving practical examples, discuss the potential for responsible tourism to enhance the host community in the three issues/situations listed above. Identify measures or programs if there are any implemented by the host community in addressing these issues.
Attachment:- Assignment.rar