Sustainable Tourism Development in North India

The endeavor of the chapter is to inspect the perception of residents, tourists, hoteliers, and travel agents in respect to sustainable development of tourism and to study the role of tourism stakeholders in promotion of sustainable tourism in North India and to suggest the measures for promotion of sustainable tourism in the study area. Based on a survey of initially, 71 items emerged, but after survey, only 43 items were found significant. Likert-type scale values assigned, 1 to “strongly agree,” 2 to “agree,” 3 to “neither agree nor disagree,” 4 to “disagree,” and 5 to “strongly disagree,” was provided to the subjects for them to use in indicating the importance of each of the 71 general sustainable tourism development statements. Of 2300, only 1380 (60%) respondents completed the questionnaires and were valid. The data are analyzed with the statistical package program for social sciences (SPSS 12 for Windows). The basic analysis and tests utilized in this study includes descriptive-statistics analysis, factor analysis, mean and bivariate statistical procedures, etc. The study provides a strong indication that there are significant differences among tourism stakeholders on sustainable tourism development parameters. This research highlights the changes that sustainable tourism development has brought to the community and presents the various perceptions of stakeholders in this particular setting. The research demonstrates that to plan for more sustainable forms of tourism development, the subjective perspectives and the roles of all stakeholders need to be understood and integrated into a responsive planning framework.

Impact of Consumer-Generated Content (CGC) on Travel-Related Decisions

While online portals have improved accessibility of resources and information to potential travelers and tourists, there is less existing literature about the impact of consumer-generated content on travel decisions. The chapter has analyzed the factors of motivation for creating, accessing, and using consumer-generated content in order to have a better planned travel decision, which results in a memorable trip. The research resulted in ranking the factors of motivation for creating, accessing, and using consumer-generated content in order to identify the need of today's traveler.

Strategic Analysis of the Contemporary Tour Operation Industry

Tour operators and travel agencies are the fulcrum of the tour operation industry given their eminent role in the tour operation sector value chain. This chapter addresses an underrepresentation in the current tour operation discourse in the period post WW2. To put the matter into context, at the global stage, fundamental changes have occurred since the end of WW2, notably political cum socio-economic and demographic shifts, advances in education, and increases in per capita income due to dual family income among a raft of other variables. These have arguably boosted demand for packaged tour holiday. However, in spite of the highly fluid environment, there is little academic research on emerging economic jurisdictions in the TO and TAs sub-sectors' strategic intent in light of such profound developments. Very few researches have attempted to interrogate these pertinent issues in the context of emerging markets` view point. This chapter seeks to bridge this gap by analyzing how these fundamentals have informed and redefined the contours of the TO and TAs landscape. The chapter lays claim on and envisages to make theoretical contribution by advancing the frontiers of knowledge in the following specific domains of multi-destination theory, TO and TAs product development, population demographics, TO and TAs work ethic, and TO and TAs commitment to environment protection philosophy which have been understudied in the contemporary travel and tourism literature discourse.

Travel Agencies and Tour Operators at KidZania

The role of tour operators (TOs) and travel agents (TAs) are putting together transport, events, attractions, accommodation and food / drink into a package and are then selling them to customers. The authors introduce in this chapter a new marketing strategy for TOs and TAs, as there is fierce competition in the retail environment. The approach offers an alternative to the existing marketing and distribution channel in the industry. The KidZania concept in itself is very strong from a marketing point of view due to its high capacity to convince customers. Also, with KidZania, TOs and TAs have an opportunity to ‘breed' ethical tourists, that is to say, tourists that respect their host, their environment, and culture. That said, the KidZania model could be said to be a form of manipulation of emotions, by pushing the children to behave and consume the way we would like them to.

Sharing Economy and Sustainability in Tourism

The chapter focuses on the growing importance that the sustainability issue is gaining in tourism and on the increasing research of sustainable forms of tourism among travelers, looking to the relation with the emerging market of the sharing economy. Three streams of literature are merged: the contemporary tourists, the sustainable tourism and the sharing economy. This triangulation allows reflecting on the challenges that tours operators and in general the traditional tourism sector have to face in order to maintain their position on the market while accomplishing the sustainable goals. The analysis of three case studies, peer-to-peer platforms from South Korea, Italy, and the USA, favors the identification of some preliminary suggestions.

Online Competition in the Distribution Chain

Until recently, travel agents have been the principal intermediary between travel suppliers and consumers, with information as their primary trade. However, changes to information and communication technology (ICT) and the beginning of the internet have the potential to allow travel suppliers and consumers to interact directly. Today, consumer websites that integrate global distribution systems (GDSs) are no longer only an emerging threat but show fierce global competition between travel agencies and tour operators worldwide. Subsequently, one of the most pertinent questions today is how local, small-scale travel agencies respond to these market changes and what practices do they use to maintain their comparative advantage and offer competitive services? However, despite the relevancy of this issue, literature is generally scarce on travel agency strategies to confront the competition of consumer websites. Thus, in order to address this question, this article provides an analysis on the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are available to travel agencies and strategies and practices that travel agencies can use to compete with websites.

Content Analysis of Online Visual Merchandising for Indian Online Travel Agents

The main objective of this chapter is to investigate the effect of online visual merchandising elements and identify the relative importance of the various visual merchandising cues to consumers' visits and booking through online travel agencies. In order to examine the relative importance of the visual merchandising of Indian travel agents, two most popular online travel agents, namely Makemytrip and Yatra, were selected. The data for the content analysis was collected from 100 respondents of each website who have visited each online travel agent namely Makemytrip and Yatra at least once. The respondents were asked to browse and explore the visual merchandising cues of the website and fill in the data at the same time. A detailed content analysis was done for both the online travel agents. For comparing the web portals chi-square has been used. The comparison analysis was performed on basis of various elements in the websites, namely website logo color, website main color, number of filters, bulletin board, comparison tool bar, interaction tool, search bar tools, detail information, custom made service, refund policy indication, number of travel service, ease of payment, image position, etc. A coding sheet was developed and designed to explain the various elements of online visual merchandising for these travel agent's portal in order to perform the content analysis. Findings showed the importance of online visual merchandising cues towards online travel agency websites. It also gave implications for online travel agents on how they can use online visual merchandising to attract and appeal consumers and travelers visiting their web portal. The study also reviews an extensive literature on online visual merchandising and presents a detail understanding of online visual merchandising and its elements and how online visual merchandising can be used differently and attractively in different web portals. The result of a chi-square test shows that there is a significant difference in all the factors of online visual merchandising cues. The chapter also gives implications for online travel agents as to how online visual merchandising can be used especially in online travel portals to attract travelers. The findings of the study provide valuable information for online travel agents for developing successful online portals using various web cues that may attract and draw interest of both the online browsers as well as the customers of web travel agents.

Organizational Barriers to Knowledge-Sharing

This chapter aimed at identifying and removing knowledge-sharing organizational barriers in the Egyptian tourism companies. The deductive approach and quantitative method were employed by this study. Moreover, a semi-structured questionnaire distributed to a sample of 278 tourism companies is used for data collection purposes. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used for data analysis. Findings revealed significant effect of organizational barriers on knowledge-sharing behavior in tourism companies' context. A set of recommendations to overcome the perceived barriers of knowledge-sharing in tourism companies was introduced.

Perception of Inbound Tour Operators of India Towards Marketing Strategies of Ministry of Tourism

With the increase in travel frequency at global level, destinations compete with each other to attract tourists. The tourists have a vast array of destinations to choose from. The destinations compete at global as well as regional level. These developments in tourism bring forth the importance of marketing for a destination. The destination marketing is generally undertaken by destination marketing organizations (DMOs) which operate at national, regional as well as local level in a country. In context of India, MOT (Ministry of Tourism, Government of India) undertakes the role of a DMO and is responsible for formulation and implementation of marketing strategies to promote India as a destination at global level. Further, it is imperative to understand the perception of other stakeholder about the marketing strategies of MOT in order to recognize the effectiveness of its marketing efforts. Being co-creator of destination image, inbound tour operators are considered as the key stakeholders at the destination. The objective of this chapter is to understand the perception Indian inbound tour operators towards the marketing strategies carried out by MOT. The data for the study was collected through structured questionnaire. The findings of the study indicated that inbound tour operators perceived marketing plans adopted by Ministry of tourism were effective to position India as a tourist destination at global level. At planning stage of strategy making for promoting India as tourist destination, MOT does not seek the opinion of inbound tour operators. It is suggested that MOT should involve inbound tour operators for drawing the marketing strategies for India as they are key seller for the tourism product.

Insights Into South Africa's Travel Agency Sector With Respect to Service Quality

Travel agencies remain important points of call for tourists wishing to travel locally or abroad. In South Africa, the Association of South African Travel Agencies (ASATA) drives the travel agency sector. The primary aim of ASATA is to maintain and further improve a sustainable and profitable sector of its members by ensuring the delivery of a professional service to the travelling consumer. This service is achievable by the travel agency or tour operators through a strong relationship and open dialogue being present with all stakeholders in the travel and tourism value chain. Since tour agencies operate in dynamic, continuously changing environments, the concept of service quality is an important strategic tool that can be used by a tour agency to retain its clients and attract new clients. Word of mouth is an excellent tool that can create brand awareness and build customer loyalty towards a tour agency. Travel agencies that provide superior quality service in those service offerings to their clients can be leaders in the travel agency sector. This chapter employs the qualitative research approach and looks at unpacking literature on the travel agency sector. Service quality in the sector in South Africa is another key theme explored.