Tourism Global Production Network - Coursework Example

TOURISM GLOBAL PRODUCTION NETWORK Student’s Name Code & Course Professor’s Name University City Date Tourism Global Production Network Global Production Network (GPN) refers to organised operations, functions and transactions that result in production in a specific product or service (Cooke 2013). Tourism is a major revenue earner for many countries in the world. This implies national economies rely on the industry. Tourism as an industry feeds from numerous other industries and requires inputs from various sources. For this reason, the tourism Global Production Network is very comprehensive and highly organised. The tourism GPN supply chain is made up of inputs, component of trip, organisation, sales and final product (Christian 2013). The supply chain is organised at both local and international level. Inputs Inputs are the pull factors or basically what attracts tourists. They are places or events of interest to tourists. This includes natural beauty and resources for example rivers (River Nile), Lakes, Waterfalls (Zambezi), hills, mountains, beaches, coral reefs, and islands. Islands and beaches are particularly popular during the summer. There are also wild animals found in zoos, national parks and reserves which harbour endangered species or animals facing extinction. A great example of a natural event that is a great attraction is the Great Wildebeest migration of Serengeti and Maasai Mara that usually occurs around the same time every year. There are also places of historical significance, for example, the pyramids of Giza which are an important aspect of the early Egyptian civilisation, ruins such as the ruined city of Machu Picchu in Peru and the Colosseum in Rome, monuments such as Vasco da Gama Tower are also great tourist attraction, ancient temples, castles, and museums. Cultures such as Zulu of South Africa, Maasai of Kenya and Chinatowns in the USA are among popular tourists attractions. The classical Seven Wonders of the world also attract millions of tourists every year. Landmarks are also a great tourist attraction, for example, Eifel Tower in France and the Statue of Liberty in New York. Other attractions include art galleries and amusement parks such as Disneyworld, which can be found in Paris, California, Florida, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Components of trips The components of the trips comprise transport, accommodation and excursion. Transport can be in the form of air, rail, water or road. Air transport is facilitated by airline companies for example Fly Emirates, Kenya Airways, Turkish Airlines etc. The cost of their services is staggered allowing people on different budgets to make trips. Water transport via cruise ships is also quite common. Water tourism is a common practice in Netherlands. Locally, ferries and boats transport tourist across water bodies. Road is common among local tourists but is also possible over long distances for tourists who prefer road trips. Road transport is also common in animal parks in the form of safaris. Trains are also used for transport especially locally. For examples, the Machu Picchu ruins of Peru are only accessible via train or a three-day trek. In Europe, metros are common modes of transport between cities. Drivers, pilots, captains are important professions in this sector as well as other staff such as airhostesses on planes and waiters and entertainers on cruise ships. Accommodation is provided by resorts, lodges, and hotels. This service industry largely relies on tourism and has grown as a result. World famous hotels include the Hilton Hotels, BurjKhalifa in Dubai and Ritz in Paris. The hotels offer various services including food, accommodation, relaxation services such as spas, bars, and lounges, swimming pools, gaming areas. Labour needed include chefs and caterers, waiters, receptionists, managers, janitors among others. The excursion includes sites, activities, and guides. There are various activities that tourists can engage in while in their preferred destinations. For example, they can go hiking and mountain climbing on mountains and camp in national parks and forests. Sports activities such as water-skiing, cliff diving, beach volleyball and rugby are available most beaches. Tourists can also go canoeing, rafting and bungee jumping in rivers and lakes. Organisations Organisation is mainly the job of travel operators. Their job is to put together a tourist experience. This includes transport and hotel services for one price. To do this, they find tourist-worthy destinations and contact the relevant authorities. They negotiate with the destination supplies and come to an agreement. Travel operators are also in direct contact with tourists. For this reason, they are said to control the supply chain (Christian 2013). Though the with the invention of the internet the role of tour operators has been greatly undermined as people go online and arrange their trips, they are still significant in the supply chain. In Kenya, a good example of an association of tour operators is the Kenya Association of Tour Operators. Internationally, Butterfield and Robinson is rated one of the best tour operators. Sales Travel agents are responsible for advertising and selling. They tell prospective tourists of possible destinations and supplies. They sell travel products and related services on behalf of the suppliers. They serve as intermediaries. They operate either in offices or online using websites. Popular travel websites include Expedia. There are also mobile applications that facilitate the same. For example, TripIt, which is more or less a pocket travel agent. Final Product Tourist products can also be put together and sold as a package. This is the final product. Many tour and travel companies put together holiday packages for different seasons. For example, summer packages, Christmas packages and Valentines packages to mention but a few. The packages will normal include air tickets, accommodation, and a few activities. Packages usually include air tickets to the destination, transport from the airport and hotel booking. Besides the mentioned industries that are part of the supply chain, there are supporting industries whose contribution to the tourism GPN is indispensable (Christian 2013). These include real estate (responsible for the building of hotels and resorts), insurance (cover hotels, transport vessels, and health insurance for labourers as well as tourists), food (in the hotels, planes and cruise ships), retail, and credit card. There are also supporting institutions such as tourism fairs, tourism associations, and tourism boards, for example, Kenya Tourism Board, which advertises Kenya’s tourist attractions and comes up with policies to improve the tourism the industries. All the different aspects of the supply chain are well coordinated on both local and international levels. This facilitates for international travel which for many countries bring in more revenue than local tourism.More often than developed countries gain the most from the supply chain since they are more economically able in terms of capital and technology (Mwaura &Ssekitoleko 2012). This is despite the fact that a better percentage of tourist destinations are in developing countries (Christian 2012). Similarly, large companies benefit more from the supply chain in contrast to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Components of Trip, Organization, and Sales The components are on the representation by the business tourism industry through the inbound and outbound tourism destination. The trip segment focuses on the travel, lodging, and excursion. The organization and sales segments are positioned as intermediaries (Baum 2012). The organization segment creates tourism experience through the creation of tourism products. The sales segment advocates for the travel agents as the strongest retail venue. Sales segment is adjudicated towards selling the tourism products online, in the sales office and distribution of the information to potential tourists about suppliers and destinations (Judd 2014). As such, all the tourists’ experiences are bundled together and sold as a product by the assigned global operator and the incoming agents (Lessmeister 2013). Therefore, it implies that the global tour operators tend to control the supply chain hence key drivers of the tourists production network. Local Guides Local guides are managed by typically independent contractors. The agenda is to pose the capabilities of taking tourists through guided excursions. Excursions Operators Excursion operators own the excursion business in tourists industry. The strategy is to focus on one type of excursion and sell other operators’ excursions on commission basis but shortcomings responsibilities beyond their services. Local Operators Local Operators work through coordination and planning. The operators coordinate the trip, planning activities regarding excursions and miscellaneous regarding the transportation of the tourists. Tour Operators National tour operators strategize on tourists tours while travelling with the tourists. The global tourist operators connect outbound and inbound countries while marketing tourist’s destinations. Services are added as the geographical scope enlarges. Process and Chain Value Adoption of information communication technology enables the business to operate efficiently and capture more profit directly. The qualitative business, the staff, offers exceptional meeting the expectations of tourists irrespective of different cultures. Selling tourism chain skills increase the international arrivals by ensuring the destinations meets the international standards. Social Value Wages distributed across tourist workers differ regarding low-skilled workers and high-skilled workers. Oversupply of skilled labour crates fierce competition is hence decreasing the consumer wages. Additionally, most of the developed countries fail to advocate the rights of the employees hence mistreatments based on wage payments and social values. The GPN in tourism is characterized by the existence of gender-based occupational segregations among the employed staffs (Weaver 2012) Institutional Arrangements on GPN The political economy of the operating tourism environment focuses on the resource adjudication processes that advocates for the services for consumers and the workers experience of the tourism industry regarding the GNP (Gotham 2014). In its effect, the political economy, the passage of the tourism services along the chain is as a result of political negotiation involving the actors of the transfers of the resources and services. As such, the services outcome, outsourcing and the management of resources based on the tourism services are the requirements of the environs political capital on the services chain procedures (Alteljevic 2012). Contrarily, the approach of the institutions towards GNP is different from the supply chain, value chains and the distributional channels (Buhalis 2012) Governance acts as an institutional structure in the tourism industry. Based on tourism, governance focuses on the authority and laws that advocate on how financial and human resource availability are distributed towards the movement of tourism industry services. As such, it is he governance that determines the kind of product to be provided to the tourists as the consumers that meet the quality, safety standard, and health aspects. Additionally, governance institutional determines the entry into or exists from the production services being offered. The technical expertise services are as a result of governance. As such, it is through governance that determines the preferred suppliers for the tourism industry in order to receive the expected products and services that meet the consumer’s expectations. The integration of tourist industry firms into ownership as an institution impacts the GNP. The integration of the industry is based on the hotel ownership and airline ownership commodity chains. The integration strategy basically occurs in horizontal procedure. As such, through horizontal, the company service through production chain that involves the tour operators contributes towards the global production network. Additionally, the horizontal integration contributes towards an increasing concentration in the market industry hence the best strategy that advocates towards investments in different geographical locations hence improving on the global production network (Gomez 2012) Vertical integration of institutions impacts the GNP. Using the linkage of production process that can either arise in upstream or downstream, the tourist companies integrate the tour services, travel companies, airline industries and the destination companies into large organizations purposefully for improving the global production through services. In comparison to the horizontal integration, vertical integration positions the tourism in a competitive advantage due to its global recognition by partnering with the big organization (Dale 2014). As such, the tourism industry would gain higher market share hence impacting the GNP positively. References List Alteljevic, I 2012, Culture, economy, and Tourism Commodities: Social Relations of Production and Consumption’, Journal of Tourists Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, p.123. Baum, T 2012, Human Resource in Tourism’, Journal of Tourism Management, Vol. 28, No.12, p. 1383 Buhalis, D 2012, Tourism Distribution Channels: Practices, Issues and Transformation. London: Continuum. Christian, M 2012, A Gendered Tourism Global Value Chain: Economic Upgrading Lessons from Kenya. Washington, DC: World Bank. Christian, M 2013, Tourism Global Production Networks. Available from www.capturingthegains.org [5th May 2016] Cooke P 2013, Global Production Networks and Global Innovation Networks: Stability versus Growth. Available from www.researchgate.com [5th May 2016] Dale, C 2014, The UK Tour-Operating Industry: A Competitive Analysis’, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Vol. 6, No. 4, p. 337. Gotham, K 2014, ‘Spectacle and the Political Economy of Tourism in New Orleans’, Journal of Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 10, p. 1735 Gomez, B 2012, ‘Integrating Tourism Industry’, Journal of Tourism Industry International Analysis, Vol. 14, No.5, p. 557. Judd, D 2014, ‘Tracing the Commodity Chains of the Global Tourism’, Journal of Tourism Geographies, Vol. 8, No. 3, p.233. Lessmeister, R 2013, Power and Coordination in Special Tourism Value Chain’, Journal of Politics, Vo. 2, No. 12, p. 149. Mwaura F., Ssekitoleko S 2012, Global Production Network. Economic Policy Research Centre (RCC) .Available from www.africanportal.com [5th May 2016] Weaver, B 2012, ‘This Isn’t Paradise: The Tourism Industry and Women Workers’, Journal of Gender and Society, Vol. 22, No.6, p. 778 Read More