C7084-Understanding the Destination Characteristics Affecting Tourists

Good job so far! Now that you identified your destination’s cultural, social and physical features you are required to produce a presentation on how the characteristics of your chosen destinations affect their appeal to tourists. Your presentation will be presented at the next marketing meeting.

1. Compare the appeal of current leading tourist destinations with that of currently developing tourist destinations

2. Evaluate how characteristics of a tourist destination affect its appeal. 

Understanding the destination characteristics affecting tourists

Comparing the influence of leading tourist destinations with developing tourist destinations

One of the significant responsibilities as a junior product analyst for Mac Backpackers is to consider the interest of the tourists in terms of destinations for vacations. London and Costa Rica are the two tourists’ destinations that are compared in this section. The UK is one of the most famous and preferred tourist destinations in the world (Konovalova & Vidishcheva, 2013). People from around the world visit the UK for vacationing and for celebrating festivals. On the other hand, Costa Rica is located in the Central America that is considered as one of developing tourist destinations. Both London and Costa Rica have a beautiful and breathtaking place to visit. Thus, a tourist visiting London tends to prefer nature

 Both the destinations also differ in terms of transportation facilities, as the public transport of Costa Rica is ineffectively developed and maintained while London has one of the most well-developed and well-connected transportation system in the world. The basic mode of transportation of Costa Rica is extremely poor whereas London is entirely connected by buses, tubes, trains and cars (Ashworth & Larkham, 2013). London has created and presented itself as an exceptional tourist destination whereas Costa Rica is still developing their tourism, as the majority of the general population leads a below standard life whereas London is highly developed in terms of culturally, financially and socially. As a result, London is one of the leading tourist destination whereas Costa Rica is still developing in terms of tourism.

Analysing the characteristics of appealing tourist destination

The decision and interest of the tourist are largely influenced by the various characteristics. The potential characteristics of appealing tourist destination include:

• One of the significant appealing factors that attract the tourists includes the aim of business advancement and extreme concentration on the tourists. This can result in both positive and negative results thereby, affecting the goal of the tourism organization.
• Another factor that appeals the tourists is the security of the tourist destination. Tourists would not prefer to visit countries with higher crime rate for both national and international populations (Wang & Ap, 2013). Thus, the tourists tend to evaluate the effectiveness of the country’s security system before visiting it.
• Another appealing factor of the tourist destination includes enhancing the product life cycle in the tourist organizations. Thus, the destination needs to ensure that the tourists are provided with relevant information about the destination, language, cultures, norms and maps for appropriate directions.
• The financial stability and the value of the exchange rates also make the tourist destinations appealing. Thus, destinations with critical financial issues affect the economy thereby, having both positive and negative impact on the tourists.
• Political issues, additional disturbances and assaults also determine the appeal of the tourist destination. This is because the tourists prefer not to visit countries that encounter regular political issues and disturbance and highlights an unfriendly nature. Such incidents tend to build fear within the tourists thereby, leaving a bitter experience.
• Additionally, the tourists also tend to consider the number of tourist spots in the destination and conduct a financial analysis before visiting a destination that judges the appeal of the destination (Kim et al., 2014). 

Understanding the key issues affecting the tourist destinations popularity

Evaluating the issues affecting tourist destination popularity 

Various factors affect the popularity of the destinations. These include the exchange rate, climatic condition, security, economic situation and legislation.

Legislations: The legislation of the destinations that affects the popularity includes

• Transport Act, 1980
• Development of Tourism Act, 1969
• Travel Package with tour regulation, 1992

Security: Security is one of the major reasons that affect the popularity of the tourist destination. This is because the tourists prefer not to visit destinations with frequent security issues such as terrorist attacks (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014). For example, the 9/11 terrorist attack in the USA affected their tourism industry largely along with other developed countries. A rage of fear was built within the people that forced them to go outside their country by flights. In addition, the terrorist attack in Bali in 2002 destroyed the UK tourism industry and took almost 3 years to revive.

Climatic conditions: The climatic conditions also affect the popularity of the destinations, as they are afraid of the natural and climatic catastrophes. For example, the Tsunami in the Andaman and the Nicobar Island in 2004 destroyed the place. The natural incident caused huge money for the destinations thereby, hampering the economy of the country (Smith, 2014).

Economic situation: The popularity of the tourism industry is also affected by the economic situation of the country. This determines the capacity of the country to invest in their tourism sector and provide lavish experience to the tourists. For example, the economic situation of the country determines the ability of the country to build creative and innovative infrastructure for the tourists (Page, 2014).

Exchange rate: From the economic perspective, exchange rate affects the tourism industry. The tourists prefer to visit countries that have lower exchange rate compared to their own currency. This provides an opportunity for the tourists to spend more at the destination (Mason, 2015).

Discussing the potential responsibilities of tourism for improving host community globally

It is the responsibility of the tourism industry to identify the important factors and work on them for developing their tourism effectively. This is because tourism is one of the fastest developing business globally and contributed largely towards the economy of the country (Saarinen, 2013). Thus, it is the duty of the destinations to consider the issues and take responsibility for improving the tourism globally. In the UK, some of the cities such as England and Scotland has developed a strategic plan in order to promote and improve their tourism. For example, Scotland has developed “Visit Scotland” that takes the responsibility of improving the tourism.

This strategic plan developed by Scotland mainly emphasizes on the following issues:

Social equality: This ensures the satisfaction of the locals that are associated with the administrative activities of the tourism industry.

Economic prosperity: This ensures better tourism business in the end by improving the employment in the tourism sector.

Cultural protection: This ensures the protection of the surrounding environment by protecting the local cultures and heritages. 

References

Ashworth, G., & Larkham, P. (Eds.). (2013). Building a new heritage (RLE Tourism). Routledge.

Crouch, D. (Ed.). (2013). Leisure/tourism geographies: Practices and geographical knowledge (Vol. 3). Routledge.

Kim, M. J., Lee, C. K., Chung, N., & Kim, W. G. (2014). Factors affecting online tourism group buying and the moderating role of loyalty. Journal of Travel Research, 53(3), 380-394.

Konovalova, A. A., & Vidishcheva, E. V. (2013). Elasticity of demand in tourism and hospitality. European Journal of Economic Studies, 4(2), 84-89.

Mason, P. (2015). Tourism impacts, planning and management. Routledge.

Page, S. J. (2014). Tourism management. Routledge.

Saarinen, J. (2013). Critical sustainability: Setting the limits to growth and responsibility in tourism. Sustainability, 6(1), 1-17.

Sharpley, R., & Telfer, D. J. (Eds.). (2014). Tourism and development: concepts and issues (Vol. 63). Channel View Publications.

Smith, S. L. (2014). Tourism analysis: A handbook. Routledge.

Wang, D., & Ap, J. (2013). Factors affecting tourism policy implementation: A conceptual framework and a case study in China. Tourism Management, 36, 221-233.