Tourism Assignment: Critical Research On Tourist System

Question

Task:
Write a tourism assignment addressing the following points:

• Give a description of tourists (how are they integrated into the tourism system/value chain;
• What is a tourist;
• Why do they travel;
• What types of tourists are there; how do they behave etc.

Answer

Background Of Tourism Assignment
Tourism has emerged as one of the fastest growing industries in the recent years across the world. Many countries that people visit largely depend on this tourism industry for their economy and further building and promoting their national culture for reviving the indigenous traditions (Gmelch & Kaul, 2018). Tourism is considered as a vibrant and expanding branch of anthropological study that can be referred to as a complex economic, political and cultural phenomenon that generate profound impacts on local and global regions. The purpose of this report is to carry out a research on tourists, types of tourists and their reasons for travelling.

Tourist System
The tourism industry has started developing with the increasing demand of population with the varied range of consumer goods and services. This rising demand has been further stimulating both manufacturing and service sectors, thereby resulting in increased economic activities and consumption (Sofronov, 2018). Tourists are visitors at different places leaving their normal surroundings and what they do while visiting those places is considered as tourism. It consists of various events around persons travelling to different places and staying there outside their usual environment (Camilleri, 2018). This occurs for generally the following year for vacation, business, study and other purposes. Tourism can be either domestic or international.

• Travel undertaken exclusively within the home country of the individual is domestic tourism and the one outside such boundaries is international tourism (Holloway & Humphreys, 2019).
• Domestic tourism helps in impacting the balance of payments and further reducing outflow of money from the tourist’s home country.
• The fundamental function of the tourism industry is to serve different types of travellers. It consists of four primary sectors including sales and distribution, transportation, accommodation and ancillary services (Camilleri, 2018). Thus, the tourism consumption of goods and services are present in all these four sectors.

Description of Tourists
People emerge as tourists when they willingly leave their normal environments where they live or reside and visit some other places. In this regard, these individuals often engage in different social activities in such destinations irrespective of their distance from their usual places (Abram, Macleod & Waldren, 2021).

• Tourists are embedded in the value system of tourism industry as products and services are offered based on their demands and preferences.
• The type of tourist determines the value being provided by the tourism and travel companies.
• This is ensured throughout the entire value chain of pre-trip, trip and post-trip activities of the tourists by providing relevant information, tourist product availability, transportation services, tourism efficiency, personnel service, tourist satisfaction, loyalty and their consequent influence on trips (Rahmiati, Othman, Ismail, Bakri & Amin, 2020).
• These tourists can either be temporary or excursionists.
• Temporary visitors are the ones staying at a destination for at least 24 hours and often engage in recreation, sports, health, holiday, study or religious purposes. Thus, their visit is often referred to as leisure (Abram, et al., 2021).
• On the other hand, excursionists and cruise travellers can also be temporary visitors when they stay at places for less than a day. Tourists travel for either business or leisure (Abram, et al., 2021). Either way, both these groups leave their known destination to visit some other places and spend considerable time at those locations. Thus, these tourists can have different motives for travelling to places.

Types of Tourists
There are four different types of tourists based on various individual preferences as proposed by Cohen. These are organized mass tourists, independent mass tourist, explorer and drifter (Hosany & Prayag, 2013).

Fig 1: Types of tourists

• Organized mass tourists generally follow a tour guide and fixed itinerary prepared in advance. They possess the highest familiarity and lowest novelty. These tourists depend entirely on a trusted travel agent for their travel plan, accommodations, transportation and package (Kusumaningrum & Wachyuni, 2020).
• Independent mass tourists possess a greater experience of novelty level but have still dominant familiarity level. Their tours are not entirely planned by the travel agents as they have some control over the travel time, plans and places because of not being tied to a group tour. Despite such significant control, these tourists prefer making all arrangements through travel agencies (Hosany & Prayag, 2013).
• Explorers prefer arranging their own trips and have different travel plans as compared to the guided tour packages. However, they still emphasize on comfortable and safe accommodations, transportation and other similar tourist facilities. Alongside trying to blend with the new places they also focus on the risks that they could face (Kusumaningrum & Wachyuni, 2020).
• Lastly, drifters are the tourists, who prefer having unique tours, live like the locals and blend with the new environment without having anything planned.

Reasons for Travelling
There are various reasons for which tourists travel to other places away from their known destinations.

• Some of the most common reasons are avoiding burnout from daily life, taking a trip to distant family or friends, holidays, availing travelling discounts on hotels, airlines, car rentals, tickets and others, checking off items on bucket lists, medical purpose and business deals (Yousaf, Amin & C Santos, 2018).
• Furthermore, tourists travel for gaining various important benefits of travelling. These are relaxing or reducing stress, having fun, excitement or adventure, strengthening their relationship bonds with friends and family members, making memories, seeing close ones excited about such experience, doing something new and spending time with extended family.
• Besides, tourists also travel for discovering new countries and their cultures, interacting with other people, learning new things, studying abroad, finding new jobs, identifying themselves, seeking new experiences and other purposes (Rita, Brochado & Dimova, 2019).
• Such motivations for tourism differ based on the types of tourists and their definite purpose. Thus, these motives vary amongst medical, recreational, holidaying, business and other purposes.

Conclusion
Travelling and tourism industry has developed as one of the fastest growing sectors across the globe with increasing number of people now going to different places. The report first focused on exploring the tourism industry divided into four different sectors of sales and distribution, transportation, accommodation and ancillary services. Furthermore, it defined tourists as the individuals travelling to new places by leaving their known destinations. It further identified the four main types of tourists, namely, organized mass, independent mass, explorer and drifter. Lastly, the report helped in recognizing the reasons for travelling in the tourism industry.

References
Abram, S., Macleod, D., & Waldren, J. D. (Eds.). (2021). Tourists and tourism: Identifying with people and places. Routledge.
Camilleri, M. A. (2018). The tourism industry: An overview. Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product, 3-27.
Gmelch, S. B., & Kaul, A. (2018). Tourists and tourism: A reader. Waveland Press.
Holloway, J. C., & Humphreys, C. (2019). The business of tourism. Sage.

Hosany, S., & Prayag, G. (2013). Patterns of tourists' emotional responses, satisfaction, and intention to recommend. Journal of Business Research, 66(6), 730-737.
Kusumaningrum, D. A., & Wachyuni, S. S. (2020). The shifting trends in travelling after the COVID 19 pandemic. Tourism assignment International Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Review, 7(2), 31-40.
Rahmiati, F., Othman, N., Ismail, Y., Bakri, M., & Amin, G. (2020). The Analysis of Tourism Value Chain Activities on Competitive Creation: Tourists Perspective. Talent Development & Excellence, 12(1), 4613-4628.
Rita, P., Brochado, A., & Dimova, L. (2019). Millennials’ travel motivations and desired activities within destinations: A comparative study of the US and the UK. Current Issues in Tourism, 22(16), 2034-2050.
Sofronov, B. (2018). The development of the travel and tourism industry in the world. Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series, 18(4), 123-137.
Yousaf, A., Amin, I., & C Santos, J. A. (2018). Tourist's motivations to travel: A theoretical perspective on the existing literature. Tourism and hospitality management, 24(1), 197-211.