Foreign Tour Operators Research Articles

Coordination of complementary tourism supply through a destination card: The pursuit of profitability in the presence of a foreign tour operator

A destination card has been widely used by destination management organizations to coordinate the complementary tourism supply. Such coordination, which involves pricing a destination card, is challenging when a foreign tour operator is present. Though the literature shows that cooperative pricing between a destination management organization and a tour operator increases total profits, the most advantageous profit sharing for a destination has not been addressed. With a theoretical model of base and add-on products, this paper identifies the arrangement between a public destination management organization and a foreign tour operator that will accrue the highest profits for a destination. It is found that the most profitable option for a destination is a cooperative agreement in which the foreign tour operator is offered the same profits as a price leader under non-cooperation. This result comes from the fact that non-cooperation entails an unstable situation in which the tour operator is not willing to relinquish price leadership. The findings are of practical interest to help achieve economic sustainability in tourism destinations that rely on foreign tour operators and seek to coordinate their complementary tourism supply.

EVALUATION OF DIGITAL MARKETING USE IN THE PROMOTION OF LATGALE REGION TOURISM

Destination communication is essential for improving the economic and social development of cities, regions and countries, as tourism has become a major component of gross domestic product in most countries of the world. The development of information technology has fundamentally changed the use of traditional communication tools. Due to the development of modern information technologies, the Internet has become an integral part of tourism communication. Aim of the research is to explore the use of digital marketing in tourism promotion in Latgale region. Research methods - document analysis, statistical data analysis, survey - surveyed tourism information providers in Latgale region; statistical grouping, reading method, interview. The results of the research show that only 20% of Latgale region tourism information providers are actively involved in the use of social media. In the work of tourism information providers more attention is paid to printed materials than to video materials in the digital environment. But the most effective means of digital marketing is that all tourism information providers emphasize the importance of social networks. Digital Marketing Costs has only 40% of the Latgale region tourism information providers and they make between 100 and 3000 euros per year. On Visitlatgale.com and latgale.travel, most of the analyzed digital marketing criteria are not present. Latgale marketing action plan is quite varied and wide where costs are for many exhibitions both in Latvia and abroad, visits of Latvian tour operators and journalists, visits of foreign tour operators and bloggers, training seminars, but the marketing plan for 2019 does not include expenses for digital marketing. Latgale Region Tourism Association Ezerzeme marketing plan necessary to provide expenditure for the development of a communication plan - actively should be used funded projects possibilities, for example costs can be partly covered by the European Union's European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Rural Development Program. Latgale Region Tourism Association needs to attract project funding for tourism information providers training in digital marketing. More attention should be paid to publishing video materials and attracting appropriate specialists. Latgale Planning Region and Rezekne Municipality should improve tourism websites Latgale.travel and visitlatgale.com.

ТЕНДЕНЦИИ РАЗВИТИЯ ТУРИСТИЧЕСКОГО И ГОСТИНИЧНОГО БИЗНЕСА В РОССИИ

With positive trends in the hotel industry in Russia, a number of problems remain that require prompt and high-quality solutions. The current level and prospects of development of the world and Russian hotel market are considered, graphical materials and practical examples from world and European hotel business practices are presented, recommendations are given to solve problems that impede the development of tourism and hotel business in the Russian Federation. It is proposed to create a single portal for foreign tourists and create a register of Russian and foreign tour operators who can offer tours in Russia, their accreditation.

An Approach to Tunisian Tourism According to the Political Changes between 2011 and 2016

Following the Jasmin revolution in Tunisia in January 2011, the country had difficulty keeping its touristic clients according to different causes. Adding that the history of the Tunisian Tourism shows that “mass tourism” is one of the main characteristic of the touristic product. Today, this kind of tourism is no longer competitive comparing to the new aspect of globalization. In addition, with a revenue, less than 50% during these years, the professionals of the sector have found themselves in a position of weakness in front of foreign tour operators, always forced to lower the prices so as not to lose their tourists. The Tunisian government finds difficulties in order to divert the seaside offer, based on the three formulas (sand, sea, sun), towards a seductive alternative product. Given the decline in the coastal supply, tour operators apply their powers to dismiss the Tunisian market by focusing on arguments related to the low level of the promoted product, and political changes. Given these barriers, hotels faced harsh financial difficulties, high debt levels, inadequate funding and the downgrading of hotels due to deteriorating quality. This paper studies the various causes of tourism degradation in Tunisia and the challenges of the tourism sector due to the political change such as the security outlook, which become uncertain and is facing significant challenges particularly with terrorism and civil unrest.

Преимущества использования динамического пакетирования туров для отрасли и бизнеса

The article is devoted to research on new trends for the Russian market of tourism, dynamic packaging of tours. The dynamic packaging of tours refers to the formation of tours in real time on the same site under the request of a particular user with the updating of prices and places. In contemporary science the concept of dynamic packaging is not designed and is not adequately reflected in the writings of scientists, despite the fact that in the period of crisis and changes of the business models of interactions on the tourism market, innovative forms of relations can have a positive impact as on individual entrepreneurs, as on the industry as a whole. Based on the foregoing, the main objective of the study is the analysis of the applications of dynamic packaging in the Russian tourist activities. On the basis of this analysis there have been identified four types of companies that use the dynamic packaging of tours on the Russian market: 1) companies which use dynamic packaging to extend the range of their services, 2) companies which use dynamic packaging as a basis for their activities: foreign tour operators which work entirely online and for which dynamic packaging is the tool of activities, and finally, global distribution systems, which due to their powerful platform of online booking, use the dynamic packaging of tours to attract new customers and increase sales. The article concludes about the benefits of dynamic packaging in the modern Russian conditions for business and consumers, and the industry as a whole.

Regional network governance and sustainable tourism

Effective governance has been identified as one of the most important factors in sustainable tourism implementation. As governance structures are increasingly becoming network-based, attention needs to be diverted to the effectiveness of partnerships in achieving sustainability in tourism. Evaluating the effectiveness of regional tourism governance in Cyprus by considering regional tourism organisations’ (RTOs) public–private network involved exploratory research whereby semi-structured interviews with key tourism stakeholders were performed. Findings reveal that network governance-related challenges interact with region-specific characteristics, inhibiting the effectiveness of regional tourism governance in implementing sustainable tourism. Specifically, RTOs represent a weak form of governance and their effectiveness in implementing sustainable tourism is limited by the continuing dependence on foreign tour operators, a system of mutual favours which complexifies the nature of tourism planning and a growing emphasis on economic interests further fuelled by recent austerity measures imposed in Cyprus. The paper concludes that network governance cannot be considered separately from the socio-cultural, economic and environmental factors of the context in which it is studied and proposes that further research reflects the horizontal relations across regional, national and global networks.

Congestion and Coordination Problems in a Tourism Economy

Tourism countries tend to face congestion externalities, which lead to over-production. Transport services produced in the countries of origin and tourism services provided at the destination are highly complementary, so these economies also tend to face coordination failures between firms, which result in under-production. Moreover, the presence of foreign firms poses the question of how much profit is retained by the destination. This paper analyses the joint effects of these problems on the destination's welfare, and the policies implemented to address them. Direct selling and bundling by foreign tour operators emerge as possible market arrangements. Four main results are obtained. First, in the direct selling situation the optimal policy depends on the relative importance of the problems. Second, tour operators always lead to over-production. Third, the presence of a single tour operator is not the solution to congestion. Finally, the switch from several tour operators to a single one is welfare reducing.

Assessing Travel Business Partners Using the Critical Incident Technique and the Analytic Hierarchy Process

This study is concerned with the evaluation of the service quality performance of the business partners of small and medium-sized travel agencies. Assessment dimensions and criteria were collected from 36 senior travel managers using the critical incident technique (CIT) and from 56 general managers at different travel agencies using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to calculate overall weights and priorities for each criterion. The research results indicated that ‘timely information’, ‘the particularity of the scenic spot’ and ‘vehicle quality’ were the three primary evaluation criteria. The results are intended to assist foreign tour operators in improving their service quality and performance and, moreover, to provide small and medium-sized Chinese travel agencies with objective evaluation criteria for choosing the most appropriate business partners.

Impact of a Mediating Role of Repurchase Intentions on Customer Retention

Research in the area of packaged tour services, provided by the national and foreign tour operators has concentrated on mutual relationships among tourist-perceived service quality, satisfaction and repurchase intentions. However, little research in this domain has been done to explain the impact of repurchase intentions of experienced tourists on the relation between perceived quality of service and their satisfaction. This model was tested using substantial data set of experienced tourists with time span of three years. While previous literature has suggested that quality perceptions impose direct effect on tourist satisfaction, this study shows that such effect is more powerful when mediated by repurchase intentions of experienced tourists. The quality of packaged tour services mediated by repurchase intentions of the experienced tourist is expected to be paramount for the retention of the tourist in the long term. KEY WORDS: repurchase intentions, quality, packaged service, services chain, tour operator, retention, tourist satisfaction.

The Commons and Anti-Commons Problems in the Tourism Economy

Countries specialised in tourism tend to face two problems with contradictory effects: the commons and the anti-commons, which lead to tourism over- and under-production, respectively. This paper develops a two-period model to analyse the joint effects of both problems on a small and remote tourism economy. Congestion and the complementariness between foreign transport and local tourism services are key features in this type of markets. As a result, direct selling and the presence of foreign tour-operators emerge as possible market arrangements with different implications in terms of welfare and public intervention. Four main results are obtained. First, in the direct selling situation the optimal policy depends on the relative importance of the problems. Second, the existence of tour-operators always leads to tourism over-production. Third, the presence of a single tour-operator does not solve the congestion problem. Lastly, the switch from several tour-operators to a single one is welfare reducing.

Coping with Continuous Crises: The Case of Turkish Inbound Tourism

The aim of this article is to outline how on several levels the Turkish tourism industry has managed to cope with the different crises it has faced since it entered the world of mass tourism. Turkey is undoubtedly a unique destination with a strong tourism industry that depends heavily on European tourists and extends into Europe. The challenges faced by Turkey are not unique. It could be argued that there are lessons to be drawn from Turkey's experience of constant crises which would be applicable to other Mediterranean tourist destinations. As will be outlined in the following discussion, the structure of the Turkish tourism industry has had to adapt itself to various internal and external political, economic and financial crises. This adaptation has been possible because of the intrinsic flexibility of the industry's structure, and the links it has outside the country. Its relative robustness is also helped by the fact that inbound tourism is affected more by international economic conditions, than by the state of the Turkish economy. Turkey has been experiencing crises since the early 1980s, shortly after becoming a mass tourism destination for Europeans. Throughout the 1980s terrorism was instigated by the separatist Kurdish group, the PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party), which was attempting to establish an independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey. As a result of the disruptions created by the PKK, eastern Turkey at that time was not included in the tour brochures of Turkish and foreign tour operators, and was not open to visitors. The main problem with PKK terrorism was that it created internal unrest which was destructive to the Turkish economy and disturbed political relationships throughout the country. Despite this unrest, there were no major terrorist activities which actually targeted the tourism industry or foreign visitors. Throughout the decade other terrorist activities, none of them directly associated with Turkey, had their effect on Turkish tourism figures. The chief of these were the hijacking of two TWA aircrafts and the Achille Lauro cruise ship. In 1986 such incidents escalated as embassies and airports were targeted by terrorists in Vienna, Paris, and Istanbul. The 1990s began with Iraqi threats which led to the invasion of Kuwait, and climaxed the following year with the first Gulf War. Throughout the Eastern Mediterranean international tourist travel decreased because of the war and Turkey faced its first severe crisis with a steep decline in the numbers of visiting foreign tourists. This decline was exacerbated in 1992 when the PKK terrorists warned the

Tourism and transitional geographies: Mismatched expectations of tourism investment in Vietnam*

Abstract: The Vietnamese state's interaction with international capital has been influenced by the Communist Party's strategy to develop a ‘socialist market economy’ which aims to maintain the leading role of the state and its one party dominance while implementing economic reforms. This is at odds with alternatives proposed by neo‐liberal institutions such as the IMF and World Bank who favour a progression towards a more fully‐fledged market economy coupled with political pluralism. As a result, foreign investors and the Vietnamese government have had a turbulent relationship over the past decade stemming in large part from differing perceptions of a market economy and what foreign investment should entail. This paper depicts the principal issues that lay behind the restrictive policies toward foreign tour operators through a case study of their management and regulation in Vietnam throughout the 1990s. It is argued that foreign tour operators and Vietnamese tourism authorities perceive the role of international capital in tour operations quite differently. Over‐regulation has provided little space for foreign tour businesses to operate in a manner that has met their expectations, while government policies have been intent on ensuring that profits remain in the country. This paper also illustrates how social networks undermine top‐down government policy directives and allow foreign tour businesses to continue operating, albeit in a complex and insecure environment.

Dependency on Tour Operators

Tour operators have increasingly emerged as the most powerful and influential factor of international flows from the main generating countries to various destinations, since they are able to interpret and manipulate the “push” and “pull” factors of the tourism process to a commercial end. As a result, many tourist-receiving destinations have to face the intervention of foreign tour operators in their tourism industry. Despite the crucial role played by tour operators for the development of insular regions' tourism, little empirical evidence is available on the relationship between tour operators and the destination tourism suppliers. This paper presents the findings of a study undertaken during the summer of 1997 on the Greek island of Crete. From the findings, it is evident that the Cretan tourism industry is heavily dependent on tour operators, and that various actions should be undertaken by the island's public and private sector to overcome this problem.

The role of the tour operator in South America: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay

The role of the tour operator in the supply chain has focused traditionally on the dominant position of companies situated in the generating countries of Europe and North America; despite recognition of the tour operator located in emergent receiving countries, the area has not been discussed extensively. This paper investigates the opinions of 37 tour operators in four emerging countries in South America, with a view to evaluating the nature and level of contact with foreign tour operators and suppliers. It assesses the degree of internationalisation that occurs, and the extent to which tour operators are involved in the process of tourism development. The paper confirms the role of the receiving tour operator within the distribution chain, but concludes that in terms of stimulating tourism development there is a need for more research into the relationships between government and the wide range of organisations involved in the process. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Hotel marketing and price policy

The paper discusses basic methods and means for forming and applying a price policy in hotel marketing and emphasizes the importance of market orientation in forming the price policy as well as the importance of researching user perception of the price in forming a price policy for the product. As the development of Croatia's hotel industry (as well as tourism) is based on seasonal business and the booking offer mostly realised via foreign tour operators, price policy did not develop as per strategic behaviour of the market and in harmony with product policies. Using a theoretical example based on application of prices for hotels in tourism locations it is shown that hoteliers who decide for the application of market orientated price forming policies, can use the method average prices and divide the financial year into two periods, i.e. use the same prices throughout the whole year.

International Directory of Foreign Tour Operators and Wholesalers. U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20230. No date. 64p

International Directory of Foreign Tour Operators and Wholesalers. U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20230. No date. 64p

The impact of a tropical holiday resort on its environment: The example of Diani Beach in Kenya

The economic value of tourism in developing countries — an issue? Kenya, as other developing countries, develops its tourism, principally to take advantage of its economic benefits. So far Kenya is convinced about these benefits. More doubts, however, have been raised elsewhere, including certain industrialized donor countries. One objection bases on the opinion that developing countries would obtain only minor returns from tourism. This pre‐occupancy confuses the whole travel package (which includes air‐fare, services rendered in the countries of origin and the margin for foreign tour operators) and services rendered in Kenya. As has been shown in this Ministry even for travel packages Kenya receives some 57 % of net returns (value added) in foreign exchange (F.E.). Hotel services in Kenya alone account for some 85 % of net receipts in F.E. In the particular case of imported wines and liquors it could be proved that one Shilling spent for imports yields eight Shillings in F.E.