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16 CHAPTER 1 · INTRODUCTION – THE UNIQUE EVOLUTION OF TOURISM AS ‘BUSINES S’

The product of a tourism business is essentially different from conventional busi-

nesses: it involves a product which is not merely heavily services-oriented but one which
is bought for consumption many months in the future and possibly thousands of miles
away from the point of purchase. It follows that the marketing of such products will
have very particular characteristics. Chapter 6, ‘Marketing in tourism’, outlines basic
marketing principles as applied to the world of tourism. It looks at the subjects of
tourist buyer behaviour and relationship building.
Chapter 7 introduces the key concepts for understanding ‘Finance and accounting for
tourism’ in the tourism industry. Whether you work in the private sector, which is
profit-driven, or in the voluntary sector, where an organisation must at least break even,
you will need the skills and knowledge taught in this chapter.
The particular issues of ‘Managing a small non-profit tourism organisation’ are anal-
ysed in Chapter 8. Similarly, all tourism organisations have to worry about the business
environment they operate in, at the mercy of political, economic, social and technologi-
cal changes and developments. Chapter 9 explains the ‘Analysis of the business
environment and strategy in tourism’. This involves the integration of the business func-
tions studied in the previous chapters.
‘Quality and yield management in tourism businesses’ are areas that managers must
be familiar with if their businesses are to be successful, and are considered in Chapter
10. Today’s businesses have been quick to take advantage of the possibilities which new
technology has presented and Chapter 11 covers ‘Information technology and manage-
ment information systems in tourism’.
The third section of the book explores and develops themes raised in the first and
second sections of the book. The three major impacts of tourism that have been intro-
duced earlier in this chapter are investigated at length in three key chapters – ‘The
economic impact of tourism’ in Chapter 15, ‘Managing sociocultural impacts of
tourism’ in Chapter 16 and ‘Managing the environmental impacts of tourism’ in
Chapter 17. Developing the work of Chapter 2 (‘The structure of the tourism and travel
industry’) are chapters on ‘The accommodation subsector’ (Chapter 18), ‘Tour opera-
tors’ (Chapter 19), ‘Travel agents’ (Chapter 20) and ‘Managing the transport subsector
in tourism’ (Chapter 21). The discussion on the role of the state, discussed in Chapter 3,
is developed with a specialist look at ‘Tourism businesses and the law’ (Chapter 12). The
final sub-theme in the third part is the review of specialist subsectors of the tourism
industry from a management perspective – ‘Visitor attraction management’ (Chapter
13), ‘Sports tourism’ (Chapter 14), ‘Developing mass tourism in developing nations’
(Chapter 22) and ‘The management of heritage and cultural tourism’ (Chapter 23).
The book concludes with a look at ‘The future of the tourism industry’ (Chapter 24).

Discussion question

5 How might the study of tourism from a business or management perspective be different from studying
it from a geographical or a sociological perspective?

Conclusion
Studying the business of tourism management can be challenging. If you come to this
book with a background of tourism studies, it will be hard to take on board that man-
agement is at the core of tourism business – the sociology of tourism will help to explain
the social environment which influences the development of tourism business, but will in
itself prove totally inadequate to explain tourism business strategy, for example.