Tourism Environment Industry
Tourism is the world's biggest industry. It is just one form of recreation, along with sports activities, hobbies and pastimes, and these activities are discretionary use of our leisure time. The essential nature of tourism explains many things about tourism in general. For example, tourism arises out of a movement of people to, and their stay in, various destinations. Also there are two elements in tourism - the journey to the destination and the stay (including activities) at the destination. It further more conveys that the journey and stay take place outside the normal place of residence and work, therefore giving rise to activities, which are distinct from the resident and working populations of the places through and in which they travel and stay.
The movement to destinations is temporary and short-term in character - the intention is to return home within a few days, weeks or months. Furthermore destinations are visited for temporary purposes, which do not entail taking up permanent residence or employment.
In 1976 Tourism Society of England defined it as "Tourism is the temporary, short-term movement of people to destination outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during the stay at each destination. It includes movements for all purposes." Tourism can also be defined in terms of particular activities selected by choice and undertaken outside the home environment.
Tourism growth over the last 30 years has been phenomenal, and it is still increasing. Tourism growth is a process, it is a continum. It is now seen as the world's biggest industry. While the growth in tourism has benefited most host communities, it has also caused adverse impacts on some tourism destinations. Some of these impacts have been detrimental to maintaining the resources that drew visitors to the destination in the first place. Therefore, there is a clear need for an introduction of a strategy to ensure that the benefits that are to be derived from tourism are not outweighed by the costs, and that tourism to Britain does not degrade the key resources on which it is based.
As technology progressively improved, the tourism industry dramatically grew. The reasons for this growth are substantially improved road networks, more disposable cash for holidays, cheaper travel and lower accommodation costs.
A visitor attraction is a place of interest where tourists visit. Some examples would include historical monuments, zoos, museums, and art galleries, botanical gardens, buildings and structures (such as castles, former prisons, skyscrappers etc.)
Visitor attractions are either man-made, natural or an event; regardless they are what provide the initial motivation to visit. There should be a close match between the market and the supply of attractions. The attractions industry is now more professional and seeking professional recognition.
Although in the past visitor attractions were merely historical monuments, art galleries etc, they now range from theme parks to shopping malls and beyond. Attractions are continuously changing to keep up with peoples changing taste and fashion, and potential for new attractions must be recognized.
To explain how visitor attractions can evolve, a good example to use would be Alton Towers. The gardens were first opened to the public in 1860 and thirty years later, garden fetes attended by as many as 30,000 people were common. Towards the end of the 19th century the popularity of the Shrewsbury's began to decline, which resulted in the forced sale of the house and its remaining land.
In 1920 The park was taken over by local businessmen, of which the main shareholder was William Bagshaw. After he died it was taken over by his two sons, Denis and Anthony. In 1924 they established the house and gardens as Alton Towers Ltd. The gardens were restored and attracted crowds throughout the twenties and thirties.
In 1939 the house lost its status as a tourist attraction as World War II brought about the requisition of the house as an officer cadet training camp. The house and grounds remained under the control of the war office until 1951 and in 1952 the gardens reopened to the public. The house was by then very dilapidated, but a tea rooms operated in the once grand Banqueting Hall and travelling fun fair rides also help attract tourists back to the grounds.
John Broome entered the scene in 1973, when he married the daughter of Denis Bagshaw and became involved with the family business. A short while later he was able to buy a majority stake in Alton Towers which lead to the further development of Alton Towers with many of the rides and areas that exist today built and/or installed.
In the 1980's Alton Towers underwent its most dramatic developments. The 1980's Massive development of the site saw the introduction of the corkscrew rollercoaster, the Pirate Ship, Log Flume, Black Hole, Enterprise, Congo River Rapids, Vintage Car Ride, Tea Cups, Skyride and Monorail.
In 1990 Alton Towers acquired by the Tussauds Group, which brought about more massive investment and development throughout the 1990's, with rides such as the Runaway Mine Train, Haunted House, Energizer, and Ripsaw. Major rides such as Nemesis (1994) and Oblivion (1998) were also installed during this time period, and the first Alton Towers Hotel opened in March 1996.
Alton Towers is a good model for all tourist attractions to follow. It began with humble beginnings as a family home and over the years has expanded and adapted to new circumstances, to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Europe. Its success is largely due to supplying the public with what they demand from a tourist attraction and being able to continuously update their attraction as public perceptions and preferences change.
Visitor attractions plays a major part in the tourism industry, after all they are the main pull to a destination. This is the centre of the tourist industry and many of the other important parts of the tourist industry are merely subsidiaries to visitor attractions, by offering easier serviceability. For example when visiting a tourist attraction it would be necessary to travel to a destination and have the option to stay near the attraction. Both of these are necessary and important parts of the tourism industry, however they have no function other than to aid the actual attraction itself. Therefore it can be said that the other parts of the tourism industry are reliant on the attractions themselves to function.
Large visitor attractions such as Alton Towers are vital to the tourism industry for a number of reasons. They are a centre of a large web of inter-connected organisations and businesses that rely solely on the attraction for their own business. For example, Alton Towers attracts a huge amount of visitors each day. All of these visitors must travel to the site, must eat while they are there, and many will choose to stay over night. This creates a huge opportunity for the businesses that offer these services to a large client base that would not be there without Alton Towers. Also it gives smaller local tourist attractions the opportunity to capitalise on the large number of visitors to the area of which would not be available without Alton Towers. This makes large tourist attractions such as Alton Towers act as a sort of tourism “hub” as it supports and supplies the local tourist industry greatly.
The visitor experience is the main focus of any visitor attraction. It is important that a visitor to any attraction leaves with a positive experience. It is therefore the priority of the management of any visitor attraction to ensure that visitors have the best experience possible. This means every effort must be made to exceed the expectations of the visitors and leave them with a new appreciation of their experience. This is important, as it will aid the attraction of return visitors and new visitors through “word of mouth” association, assuring increased future visitors to the attraction.
An example of a current visitor attraction making positive steps to improve the visitor experience can again be drawn from Alton Towers. Before the opening of the Alton Towers hotel in 1996 all visitors to the site had to seek accommodation from local hotels and bed and breakfasts. By opening a hotel inside the grounds at Alton Towers the visitor experience was improved in a number of ways. Firstly the hotel was designed to be a continuation of the theme park. They achieved this by designing a hotel to be fun to stay at, with a number of attractions in the hotel itself. Some of these attractions included differently themed rooms; children's play areas, swimming pools, game rooms and nightly entertainment. Secondly and for some more importantly staying at the hotel allows patrons to enter the park hours before the general public which became a major draw to staying at the hotel. Both of these things aim to make the experience of Alton towers more fulfilling, comfortable and memorable to visitors.
From this research it can be deduced that visitor attractions are very important to the tourist industry and help a specific destinations economy greatly. An example of how a tourist destination can be devastated is the recent terror bombings.
Not long after the 9/11 bombings huge numbers pulled out of their fully paid luxury cruise to America where they would have seen all the famous sites, and would have had the chance to go shopping in all the major hot spots. The Caribbean resorts suffered greatly from this terrible incident even though security and safety measures had hugely increased, it was no longer a chosen holiday destination and the beautiful attractions were no longer enough for tourists want to visit, in fear of risking their lives.
Bombings in Israel also meant a huge decline in the tourism industry. Although airlines reported that some new bookings had been made for trips to Israel since the bombings, Israel's Tourism Ministry cited 2,000 cancellations in one week - a bad sign for a tourism industry that last year handled a record-breaking 2.5 million visitors.
At the start of the year the Thai capital, Bangkok was bombed, and Tourism officials were bracing themselves for a downturn, but so far they have reported no immediate cancellations in the wake of the blasts - good news for a country heavily dependent on the tourist industry. This beautiful place still remains a very popular visitor attraction. After the main visitor attractions of London were planned to be bombed and the main visitor attractions of Egypt were bombed, it was worrying to see what this might do to the economy but these are places that have their tourism industry unharmed by terror bombings.
Over all visitor attractions will always be the main reason for tourism in specific destinations. It is therefore vital that they keep adapting to peoples changing fashion and taste. The tourism industry relies greatly on this sector. There are very few cases when tourist travel without visiting attractions, an example could be business trips, these people travel for conferences/meetings and sometimes do not have the time to visit that destinations main attractions. Visitor attractions are almost never, not important in a person's priority for travelling, if they are not the sole reason for trips they are often still a very important part of it.
REFERENCE
Holloway, Christopher J. The Business of Tourism 7th ed.
Swarbrooke, John The Developments & Management of Visitor Attractions
Alton Towers, www.altontowers.com [accessed 29th April 2007]
Jewish news weekly www.jewishsf.com [accessed 30th April 2007]
BBC NEWS http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6224049.stm [accessed 30th April 2007]
Alton Towers discovered http://www.towersdiscovered.co.uk/History.htm [accessed 29th April 2007]
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