Global Management Journal

Skills, Perceptions and the Socio-economics of Hotel Front Desk Employees in Israel-preliminary findings

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:22:01 +0000

Skills, Perceptions and the Socio-economics of Hotel Front Desk Employees in Israel-preliminary findings

TEITLER REGEV SHARON

Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies

Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

Mobile Post Emek Hayarden

ISRAEL

sharonregevt@gmail.com

OKSANA GOZIKER

Department of Tourism and Hospitality Studies

Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

Mobile Post Emek Hayarden

ISRAEL

Abstract:

Within the hospitality industry the front office serves as one of the most important contact points with the guests. The skills and requirements from the front office staff may be similar across different countries; however it is most likely that the qualifications and prior education differ. This study will look at the skills, background and attitudes of front office employees in Israel, and the results will be compared to a similar study that was conducted in other countries around the world. The preliminary results support the idea that perceptions are culture-dependent and differ from one country to another, while the skills required are the same across various countries. The results show that it is important for managers to let employees see the possibility of promotion in the hotel as it significantly helps reduce turnover rates.

Key words: skills, hotels, front office, Israel.

1. Introduction

The service industry is one of the oldest industries which developed as a result of people’s desire to travel. In the past, taverns offered tired guests something to eat and a place to sleep at the end of the day.

Many years have passed, and many things have changed; industrial and communication developments have brought to our lives the possibility to travel and to work in many remote counties with growing numbers of people roaming about and, as a result, developments in the service industry.

Today, the international tourist is more aware and experienced and has certain expectations regarding the services he receives while traveling, especially when he can compare the level of service across various countries. Nowadays, the service industry has become the largest industry, and its main resource is the human resource, while and the hospitality industry is one of the service industries where the human resource is curtailed.

Within the hospitality industry the front office serves as one of the most important contact points with the guest. In many cases this is the first place of contact between the guest and the hotel and, as it is often said, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”.

This study will look at the skills, background and attitudes of front office employees in Israel and the results will be compared to a similar study that was conducted in other countries around the world, such as China, Ireland, Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Malaysia [1]. In addition, this paper will look at the qualifications gained through education and will check whether there is a gap between the qualifications obtained at different schools and the ones required; this will enable us to draw some conclusions about the qualifications that should be taught in schools.

2. Current research

2.1 The Hotel Front Office

The service industry, in general, and the hospitality industry, in particular, are intangible; therefore, the customer evaluates the visit experience based on the tangible parts of an intangible product (the room, for example), and on the service he or she receives from the employees of the hotel. The “service experienced” is created at the meeting point of the employee and the customer. At that meeting point, the qualifications and attitudes of the employee may turn the service into a good or a bad experience which, in turn, will affect the perception of the hotel and may affect future visits. These attributes render the “word of mouth” the most common and reliable advertisement. In other words, the employees at the front office play a significant role in building and maintaining the hotel image and reputation and, as a result, the skills and qualifications of the front desk employees became very important.

Many studies have focused on the role of the front office. For example Vallen and Vallen [2] define front office in terms of its role as the main contact point with the guest inside the hotel, regardless the hotel type. Generally, front office can include the reception area and its related areas, where the focus is on “meeting and greeting the guests, providing information and processing the departure [3].

The hospitality industry is regarded as an industry that requires low-level skills and very little training. This view is sometimes debated in the literature. However, in many cases, following this perception may lead to poor human resources management. Boxall and Purcell [4] described it as a debate between “best practice” and “best fit”. Nickson et al [5], in a summary paper of the literature regarding the skills and performance in the hospitality industry concluded that indeed there are a number of jobs that can broadly be regarded as “low skill” jobs, but it is time to acknowledge that the hospitality industry represents a more complex picture of the common “low” skills.

The skills and the requirements from the front office staff may be similar across different countries; however it is likely that the qualifications and prior education may differ. Baum et al compared different countries and cultures to address and identify the generic and job- specific skills that are required from hotel front office staff. They found differences between countries and respondents on topics such as education, gender, career ambitions; they found very few differences concerning the skills required and the perception of skills. In Northern Ireland [6], it was found that communication made an emotional and aesthetic contribution to work, and was influenced by the cultural and economic context. In China, Hai-Yan and Baum [3] found that the hospitality industry did not have enough high quality human resources and that the educated and trained employees did not want to stay in a demanding, low-pay job. In addition, there is a need for professional development and further training, which may help reduce the high turnover rates.

2.1 Israel.

Israel is located between Asia and Europe. Due to its location and to the political situation between Israel and its neighboring countries, it can be reached by air, or by crossing the border from Jordan or Egypt. There is no easy access by train or car from Europe.

Tourism in Israel has existed since its very early days. Even the Crusades can be perceived as a form of tourism. Israel’s tourism potential is tremendous since it has 3000 years of history; it is holy to the three major religions (Muslims, Christians and Jews). In addition the climate in Israel is very mild. Israel is located between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; it has a ski resort in the North and a desert in its south. In addition, the Dead Sea with its unique healing qualities is also located in Israel.

In other words, Israel combines a wide range of opportunities for visitors, including historic cities such as Jerusalem and Acre, modern cities such as Tel Aviv, sea resorts such as Eilat, and the Dead Sea health resort. The tourism industry accounts for 4% of the GDP, and has become the third largest export industry in added value.

However, tourism in Israel has suffered from many setbacks in the past due to terror and security problems, but has been growing significantly in the past few years. 2010 became a record year with 2.8 million tourists, an increase of 21% percent from 2009. The goal of the Israeli Ministry of tourism is to reach 5 million tourists in 2015.

The hotel industry in Israel is well developed and offers a variety of hotels (business, boutique, and family hotels); some are part of large international chains, some are part of local chains, while others are small independent hotels. The number of hotel nights was over 20 millions in 2007 and is still growing (except for a small setback in 2009, due to the world recession). Forty percent of this number were supplied by international tourist, and the rest by Israelis.

In Israel there are 337 hotels, which account for 77% of the hospitality beds in Israel. There are almost 48,000 accommodation rooms in Israel, with 113,000 beds; the average number of rooms in a hotel is 142. The average occupancy rate is 66%, however, a shortage in hotel rooms in the high season is being felt, especially in the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas, and thus further employment in this sector is predicted.

The revenue from hotels stood at NIS 7.7 billion in 2009 (2 billion dollars), 40% of it from tourists. The profit was NIS 1.4 billion (368,000,000 dollars). In 2009 the hospitality industry in Israel employed 26,000 people, with 5,600 trough outsourcing. The average income was of NIS 6,100 a month (about 1,600 dollars), while the employees who worked through outsourcing companies received NIS 4,400 shekel a month (about 1,160 dollars). The cost of labor accounts for 35% of all hotel expenditures.

Hotel rooms in Israel were rated from 1 star (the least good) to five stars (the best) until 1992. Since then the central bureau of statistics rates hotels from 1 to 4 stars, 1 being the highest, based on the type on accommodation (city or recreational) and room size. Hotels still rate themselves along the stars system, but the rate is done subjectively and not by an outside source.

2.2 Current research.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about hotel front office employees in Israel. The study gathers information about the experience and education of hotel front office employees in Israel; it also gathers information about the skills required on the job and the qualifications that are obtained through formal education and those that are missing from such education.

This paper is a preliminary summery of the results obtained as part of on-going study that covers hotels in Israel.

The hotels in Israel are not rated by an outside source, but hotels that rate themselves as 3 stars and above were approached. The only condition for participating in this research was that at least 40 percent of the guests were international guests (as this is the percentage in Israel).

3. Results

The questionnaire was distributed in hotels in Tel Aviv and its surrounding areas, as well as Jerusalem, Tiberias, and around the Sea of Galilee. The questionnaires were distributed in hotels in Israel beginning in February 2011 and will be distributed until August 2011. The data brought forth in this research are from the questionnaires that were filled in February. All of the hotels work with individuals and most of them deal with groups of international tourists. On average 68 percent of the hotel guests are international guests,, of which 58.45percent come in groups.

The preliminary research represents 11 out of the 337 hotels in Israel which represents over 3%. The survey included 34 out of the 60 potential employees in those hotels which represent a response rate of 57 percent.

3.1 Employee background and future plans

The demographic information of the hotel employees in Israel is summarized in the following table

Table 1: Demographic Data:

		Frequency	Valid Percent
Origin	Native land	22	64.7
	FSU immigrant	5	14.7
	Comes from somewhere else	7	20.6
	Other	34	100.0
Religion	Jewish	29	85.3
	Christian	1	2.9
	Moslem	2	5.9
	Other	2	5.9
	Total	34	100.0
Gender	Male	18	52.9
	Female	16	47.1
	Total	34	100.0
Status	Single	16	50
	Marriage	14	43.8
	Divorced	2	6.3
	Total	32	100.0

52.9 percent of the hotel employees are men, the average age being 35.94. The majority of the employees are Jews (85.3 percent, compared to 5.9 percent Muslims and 2.9 Christians) single (50 percent compare to 43.8 married and 6.3 divorced); 64.7 percent of the respondent were born in Israel, 14.7 percent came from the Former Soviet Union and 20.6 percent from other countries.

For the majority of the employees this is their only job (91.2 percent) . 67.6 percent work full time and 35.3 percent work part time; and 58.8 percent had no prior experience, while 35.3 percent had some previous experience.

14.7 percent of the respondent were front office managers, 8.8 percent were shift supervisors and the rest were reception desk clerks.

The information about the respondents’ education is summarized in table 2.

Table 2: Respondents’ education:

	Frequency	Valid Percent
Primary/elementary	2	5.9
Secondary/high school	9	26.5
Certificate /diploma	6	17.6
Vocational/technical	2	5.9
Bachelors	13	38.2
Master degree	1	2.9
Total	33	100.0

Approx. 27 percent of the respondents completed 12 years of schooling, and about 41 percent had a degree, mostly in hospitality.

Chi square tests were performed to check whether there was any correlation between the employee’s position, his/her time at work, and as well as his/her education.

The results are summarized in the following table:

Table 3: Correlation table:

Variable pair	N of Valid Cases	Cramer’s V	P
Job experience* Position of the respondents	28	.27	.39
Position of the respondents*Educational level	34	.498	.15

The correlation between education and position was found to be insignificant (C = .498, p = 0.15). This may send the message to employees that the way to get promoted is not prior experience or education.

The following tables summarize how long the respondent plan to stay at their current position

Table 4: Respondents’ future plans:

	Frequency	Valid Percent
Remaining less than 6 months on the job	4	12.5
Remaining 6 months-1 year on the job	4	12.5
Remaining 1-5 years on the job	7	21.9
No plans at this stage	17	53.1
Total	32	100.0

21.9 percent planned to stay between one to five years in their current job; 12.5 percent planned to stay in their job less than 6 month or between 6 to 12 month; and the majority, 53.1 percent, had no future plans at the time.

Table 5: Next career move:

	Frequency	Valid Percent
Promotion in my current job	8	29.5
Move elsewhere in this hotel	1	3.7
Move to another hotel	3	11.1
Move out of the hotel sector	7	25.9
Other	8	29.6
Total	27	100.0

29.5 percent plan to get a better position in their current work place, 11.1 percent plan to move to a different hotel, while 29.6 plan to leave the hospitality industry.

Table 6: Perception of chances for promotion:

	Frequency	Valid Percent
Excellent	3	9.1
Reasonable	7	21.2
Low	9	27.3
Unable to evaluate	14	42.4
Total	33	100.0

More than 27 percent have low expectations of getting a better job at their current hotel, and 42.4 percent are unable to evaluate their chances for promotion.

The results of the correlation between plans for the future and the perception about chances for promotion in the current job are summarized in the following table.

Table 7: Correlation between plans for the future and the perception of chances for promotion in the current job.

		N	Value	P
Future plans and perception of chances for promotion		33	.606	.003

There is a significant correlation between the perception of chances for promotion in the current job and plans to continue working in the same hotel.

3.2 Employee perceptions

The questions relating to the employees’ perceptions of the job included several statements. They were asked to rate their level of agreement with the statements on a five point Likert scale, from 1 “do not agree” to 5 “very much agree”. The individual results were then averaged in order to obtain the average perception.

The results as to the respondents’ perceptions about their job are summarized in the following table.

Table 8: Perceptions about the job

	N	Mean response on ﬁve-point scale
Front office work is a challenging and demanding area of work	34	4.09
I enjoy meeting and greeting customers, as part of my job	34	4.35
I enjoy the organizational parts of my job	34	4.0
I enjoy the use of technology, as part of my job	34	3.85
I would like the opportunity to work in other areas of the hotel industry	32	3.1
Most work in front office is common sense	34	4.03
Front office work is all about personality	34	4.64
My area of work is well respected by my family and friends	34	3.82
Front office is my preferred field for work and career progress	34	3.03
A specialist college course (in hospitality) is useful for front ofﬁce work.	33	3.85
I was familiar with most of the tasks of the front office before I started work in this area	34	3.21

The respondents strongly agreed with the perception that front office work is all about the personality (4.64).

The respondents also agreed with the statements that they enjoy meeting people (4.35) and that the work at the front office had a lot of common sense (4.03).

The perceptions that the employees disagreed with were that they would like the opportunity to work in other areas of the hotel (3.1) and that the hotel business is their preferred field of work (3.03). Those statements may indicate that hospitality was not the employees’ first choice of employment or that it is part of their future plans.

They also disagreed with the statement that they were familiar with the tasks prior to starting working in this area (3.21) which may indicate that the employees had no previous experience in this kind of work.

3.3 Required skills

The questions relating to the importance of skills included several statements. The employees were asked to rate their agreement with the statements on a five point Likert scale, from 1 “do not agree” to 5 “very much agree”. The individual results were then averaged to reach the average perception.

The following table summarizes the results of the importance of the various skills as perceived by the employees.

Table 9: Importance of skills

	N	Mean response on ﬁve-point scale
Communication (oral)	33	4.67
Professional and ethical standards	34	4.65
Team work	34	4.52
Leadership qualities	34	3.88
Use of FO equipment	34	4.15
Customer care	34	4.88
Interpersonal	34	4.76
Accounting	34	3.24
Marketing	34	3.62
Use of technology	34	3.91
Health and safety	34	3.73
Communication (written)	34	3.91
Legal issues	34	2.71
Knowledge of foreign language(s)	34	4.53

The skill that was considered most important was “customer care” (4.88), followed by communication, interpersonal, and professional and ethical standards. The least important skill, as perceived by the employees, was legal issues (2.71). Other skills that were perceived as less important were accounting, marketing, health and safety, and the use of technology.

Discussion and Conclusions

Most hotel front office employees in Israel are young (average age of 36), single, and male. Fifty percent of the respondents work in their current job between 1 to five years – this is a lower percentage compared to other countries , except for Northern Ireland [1]. This may point to a problem that needs to be addressed by hotel managers.

The correlation between future plans and the chances of getting promoted in the current job indicates that if hotel managers want to reduce employee turnover rates, they need to develop possibilities of promotion within the hotel, or hotel chains. In addition the employees see no connection between prior experience and education to the job position, which may indicate that in order to get a better position, it is not necessary to accumulate experience and/or education – it may be good qualifications, but it may also be for other reasons.

Looking at the perception about work in the hotel front office that were rated highest – “Work is all about personality” and the fact that they “Enjoy meeting the guests” – may indicate that this kind of job is suitable for certain people – for those who like working with people. This is no surprising result, and the perception that those who go to work in the hospitality industry are “people’s persons” is a common perception.

The statements that were rated lowest – “The opportunity to work in other areas of the hotel” and “The front office is my preferred field of work” – may point to a serious problem for hotel managers; it may indicate that hospitality and specifically front office was not the first choice of work for most employees. This is very surprising, especially since approx. one quarter of the respondents had a bachelor degree in hospitality. The answer may be that these educated employees, once they started working, found the job not rewarding, and that they did not see any options for promotion. Once again, this may point to a problem which hotel managers must deal with.

It is not surprising to see that front office employees rate communication skills and the ability to work with other people high. However, the relatively low rate that employees gave to marketing (3.6 on a scale of five) indicate that they do not see their importance as a marketing tool of the hotel, and hotel managers may have to work on this point.

The relatively high value that was attributed to the knowledge of foreign languages is not surprising, either, especially with the relatively high percentage of foreign guests in the selected hotels.

In addition to looking at the perception of hotel front office employees in Israel and the skills they believe are required, there is a lot of value in comparing the results from Israel to those from other countries, in order to check whether there is a difference in these perceptions across different countries, and whether there are a differences in the skills required in different countries [1

The perceptions found among hotel employees in Israel were quiet different from those found in hotel workers in other countries. For example, in Israel, most employees agreed that working at the front office was "all about personality" (4.64); this statement was rated first in Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan, but all the other countries that were checked, it was rated fifth or lower.

The result concerning meeting the guests was similar to the one obtained in other countries, where it was rated first or second. However, the result about the job being mostly common sense was much higher than in most other countries, except in Brazil, where, it was also rated third.

The disagreement with the perceptions about previous experience was consistent with the findings in most other countries, where it was also rated last. The disagreement with the perception about working in other areas of the hotel, and with the fact that the front office is the preferred area of work, was inconsistent with the findings from most other countries. Only in Brazil and China, the front office was also rated low as a preferred place of work, and in Egypt and Northern Ireland, employees disagreed with the statement that they would like the opportunity to work in other areas of the hotel.

The above strengthens the claim that the perceptions are culture-dependent and vary from one country to another. The skills that were perceived as important and as unimportant in Israel and in other countries were very similar, which supports the perception that the skills required for the job are similar across different countries.

It is important to remember that this is only a preliminary study that covers only a small part of the hotels in Israel. One should see whether the same results are obtained when the full survey is completed. However, the two most important points for hotel managers that appear at this point are that they should strengthen marketing and that they should provide the employees with the possibility of being promoted in the hotel.

This will significantly help reduce turnover rate, as there is a significant correlation between the chances of obtaining a promotion and the employees’ future plans.

The results of the current study support the idea that perceptions are culture-dependent and differ from one country to another, while the skills required are the same across countries.

Reference

[1] Baum, T., Devine, F., Kattara, H., Hai-Yan, K., Osoro, W., Teixeira, R. M., et al. (2006). Reflections on The Social Construction of Skills in Hospitality: Preliminary Findings From Comparative International Studies. Proceedings of the city and beyond: 16th Annual CAUTHE conference. Melbourne.

[2] Vallen, G. k., & Vallen, J. j. (2004). check in check out managing hotle operation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice- Hall.

[3] Kong, H. Y., & Baum, T. (2006, 6). skills and work in the hospitality sector the case of hotel front office employees in China. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Managment (18), pp. 509-518.

[4] Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2000). Strategic human resources managment: where have we come from and where should we be going? International Journal of Managment Reviews , 2 (2), pp. 183-203.

[5] Nickson, D., Baum, T., Losekoot, E., Morrison, A., & Frochot, I. (2002). skiil, organizational performance and economic activity in the hospitality industry: A literature review. Economic and Social Science Research Council working papaer .

[6] Baum, T., & Devine, F. (2007). Skills and training in the hotel sector: The case of the front office emploement in Northern Ireland. Tourismand Hospitality Reserch , 7 , pp. 269-280.

Top management – the market needs and application of managers in rural tourism in Slovakia

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:21:47 +0000

Top management – the market needs and application of managers in rural tourism in Slovakia

Ing. ZUZANA LUŠŇÁKOVÁ, PhD.

Department of Marketing

doc. Ing. MÁRIA ŠAJBIDOROVÁ, PhD.

Department of Management

Faculty of Economics and Management

Slovak University of Agriculture

Nitra, Slovakia

zuzana.lusnakova@fem.uniag.sk

maria.sajbidorova@fem.uniag.sk

Abstract

It is not easy to find a good and loyal employee, but not impossible. The basic trend now is a need for change in attitude already at offering the job place. To get good quality and suitable employee expect to focus on his expertise and skills that are necessary for his job and specific job position.One of the objectives of the company owners, who lead the competition fight for the customer on the market, is a satisfied employee who represents the company to customers in a positive way. In today’s ever changing environment it is necessary to educate staff continuously and develop their abilities, because the knowledge gained in high school, college or vocational courses is not enough.

There is the lack of job opportunities in the field of rural tourism in Slovakia so we decided to find out how it is with interest for labour forces – top managers and the current facilities management in rural tourism in Slovakia.

Strategic plan for promoting the application of the labour force on the labour market in the field of rural tourism was drawn up on the grounds that qualified managers find just very difficult the application in family enterprises operating in rural tourism facilities and is essential for them to apply on the labour market. Our aim was also to provide them a strategic plan how to find their own place on this rural tourism labour market.

Key words: top manager, rural tourism, rural tourism facility, labour market

1 Introduction

Today it is ineffective to use the media as a newspapers and magazines to promote job places. The direct and active search for specific people who best meet requirements for the job is much preferable today. As the second effective method we consider jobs online presentation, especially on the own website of the company. This method particularly prefers younger generation, among which the trader can also find real talents. Furthermore, there is particularly appropriate the recommendation of middle management – manager recommends manager. The reason is that a worker who knows his job, knows whether a particular person fit for the job and if it would be beneficial to society. We can not forget the social networks such as Facebook in finding staff for a particular job or the use of good quality and recruitment agencies.

Before it is any suitable candidate selected, it is important to know the company’s requirements for a worker. Willingness to longer-term employment is important beyond the usual requirements such as education, the necessary experience or at least an interest and relation related to a specific type of work. This will alleviate the current problem with fluctuating staff right in tourist facilities, because as we discovered on the basis of research, the reason for employee redundancy is not always the low wage, but the unwillingness to work and inadequate education.

If the company finds a suitable candidate for job position in middle or top management, it is necessary to offer him time and space for adequately orientating in the issue and also in the environment.Subsequently, the manager can provide adequate and expected performance. Ideally, the manager should remain in job position for at least two years, to be able to evaluate his work results and then further advance is possible. If a company has subsidiaries or partners abroad, it is appropriate and beneficial for the manager to find out how they are functioning. This is not common in Slovakia, managers do not migrate for work very often and are fixated on the environment in which they live.

The challenge for management is also creating of the favorable working conditions for their employees, such as a friendly working environment, convenient working hours within the limits of the facility, organization of non-work events, providing discounts for services offered by the facility for employees and their families. The quality remuneration system should be introduced at the middle and top management level, not exclusively financial. Equally important is the verbal assessment of their work, which encourages managers to further value creation.

Continuing education and development of managers increase the quality of obtained education, skills and abilities. The basic properties that employers currently require are flexibility, adaptability and proactivity. Training and development better prepare staff to cope with new tasks and challenges, as employees should be prepared to cope with new demands from their superiors, but also be ready for change of their job position in the organization.

The development and training should primarily depend on the employees themselves, but businesses would also have to show initiative. First, it shows the employees that company care about them and on the other hand, also because the people use other sources.
Staff holding the necessary knowledge is the most valuable asset of organizations in this century. “The only way of organizations development and gaining competitive advantage in the market is to employ and support those people who are able to work, enjoy and develop their knowledge potential.”

2 Problem formulation

Tourism is very important for the European economy. It accounts for 5 % of direct employment and proportion of European GDP and has a tremendous multiplying effect over other economic sectors, enjoying forecast stable growth for the future. Tourism has one of the highest labour mobility rates across Europe, permitting discussion of the emergence of a truly European economic sector and a labour market with a truly European dimension. Thus, the discussion about new occupations and future skill needs for the sector in Europe has a particular significance. (Tessaring, M., Strietska – Ilina, O. 2005)

The definition of rural tourism has been the subject of many debates in the literature without arriving at any firm consensus (Bramwell 1994). First of all, rural areas where rural tourism occurs are difficult to define since criteria used by different nations vary enormously; secondly, not all tourism which takes place in rural areas is strictly “rural” – it can be urban in form, and merely be located in a rural area; thirdly, different forms of rural tourism have developed in different regions and hence it is hard to find characteristics that are common to all of the countries; fourthly rural areas are in a complex process of change due to the impact of global markets, communications and telecommunications that have changed market conditions and orientations for traditional products. Besides, though some rural areas have experienced depopulation there are many of them that are experiencing an inflow of people to retire or to develop new non-traditional businesses.

Rural tourism has long been considered a means of achieving economic and social development and regeneration. More specifically, it has been widely promoted as an effective source of income and employment, particularly in peripheral rural areas where traditional agrarian industries have declined. More recently, however, a number of established tourism destinations have also turned to rural tourism in order to diversify their tourism products and markets and to spread the benefits of tourism away from the coastal resorts into the hinterland. (Sharpley, R. 2002)

Now that the novelty factor of visiting the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe is over, the focus must be on product quality, professional service and value for money if an internationally competitive tourism product is to emerge. The natural assets of the Slovak Republic point towards an unful”lled potential for rural tourism. (Clarke J., Denman R., Hickman G., Slovak J. 2001)

Although not expressed in the surveys, the most important labour shortage in tourism is of managers (top and middle management) and entrepreneurs. There are several reasons for this. For a long time, Montenegro’s tourist industry was dominated by large public enterprises. Most often, top and middle management were not appointed and promoted according to their

education and capabilities but according to other non-professional criteria. Education at all levels, especially higher and university education, has not been producing a competent labour force. Management education has been especially weak, with no specialised education for management in tourism. Some available programmes were of too general a nature and with little practical training. In the last decade, the best people left the country, or left the sector, to

survive and some of them left the public sector to start a private business. (Sisevic, B. 2005)

The knowledge and skills required to provide services shaped by current social trends become

highly interdisciplinary. Multiskilling and new hybrid occupations reflect the trend for new types of tourism products and services – more complex and sophisticated in nature – and the growing demand for functional flexibility in the labour force. The debate about the role of qualifications in the tourism sector touched on the problem of losing human resources to other

sectors’ appreciative of personnel from tourism and employers’ failure to attract qualified personnel to the sector. Taking into account the need for qualifications from other sectors (e.g.

ICTs), the workshop participants agreed that transversal and hybrid qualifications with a broader general basis might be useful and could lead to new occupational profiles. (Tessaring, M., Strietska – Ilina, O. 2005)

Tourism basically demands a considerable labour force and offers a high job supply for both highly and less qualified manpower. An indispensable factor in developing the tourism sector is a professional client-oriented attitude, a basic product component being personalised service. Currently, however, some deficiencies may be observed both in skills and in handling

clients. It is, at present, a quite common contradiction that young people graduate from schools involved in tourism education, whereas businesses need qualified Professional anpower with practical experience. Hungarian tourism training and education opportunities are continually expanding and training programmes performed in foreign languages are also available in secondary and tertiary education. Tourism education, however, became student market oriented, which resulted in overeducating in certain fields with shortages in others. The number of those graduated in tourism tertiary education exceeds labour market demand, explained by the interests of the institutions being maintained on a market basis as well as by the inflexibility of the education sector. Nevertheless, tourism is still a fashionable profession;

it is also quite popular among those young people who wish to carry on with their studies but do not have a specific choice of profession. A considerable number of qualified tourism experts continue their careers outside the profession. (Szabó, M. 2005)

3 Problem solution

Ministry of the Labour, Social Affairs and Family in Slovak Republic do not account almost any offers to fill jobs positions in TOP management in rural tourism throughout the year. Also web pages like www.profesia.sk do not offer jobs for the applicants of TOP management in this area. Offered jobs are mostly for cleaners, barmaids, waitress and sometimes occurs the offer for the facility operator.

Just for the lack of job opportunities in the studied area throughout Slovakia, we decided to see how it is with interest and the current facilities management in rural tourism in Slovakia.

To identify the needs of the labor market in tourism, where we specifically focused on the possibility of applying the TOP managers in the field of rural tourism, we have compiled a questionnaire. Facilities engaged in rural tourism throughout Slovakia were respondents. The tested sample represented 124 facilities. The questionnaire was sent through the mail and was replied by 88 facilities from the whole number of respondents. All these questionnaires were usable.

All rural tourism facilities, which created the sample under consideration, offer a similar portfolio of activities – accommodation, horse riding, selling cheese and cheese products, their taste, respectively agrofarms visits and other accompanying events. Through the following questions we tried to determine the extent to which the owners of facilities considered TOP management leadership important.

1. Is your rural tourism facility the family business? Yes No
2. Is your rural tourism facility leaded by qualified management? Yes No
3. If you feel the need to deal with the qualified business management question where would you look for suitable candidates? (employment offices, the competition, web sites, cooperation with universities, …)

4. Please indicate what would you require from your TOP management?
5. Do you think your rural tourism facilities thrive or fail?

As we expected, most of the facilities in the field of rural tourism in Slovakia is a family business. The results of our questionnaire survey confirmed the situation where up to 96% of respondents belong to family businesses. In family businesses, the recruitment of staff is almost always carried out without tender. This method of recruitment should be certainly applied in filling senior management positions. For efficient and good business management is vital to fill the managing post by qualified managers, which should realize also the owners of the analyzed subjects.

The second question examined whether rural tourism facilities are managed by qualified management despite our assumption that they are family businesses. We found out that TOP management is manged by owner himself in 75% of analyzed rural facilities. 10% of facilities is managed by a family member of the owner or person close to the holder. Regarding education, only in 16 cases were the owners or their family members trained in the management of rural tourism facilities. However, experience with the management of rural tourism facilities, which came into practice in Slovakia or in similar facilities abroad (Austria, Italy) where entrepreneurs have richer and more favorable experience in working in the field of rural tourism is much more relevant for owners.

When we asked respondents where they would look for potential senior managers for their business if they were needed, we offered them possible answers – the labor offices, competition, web sites, cooperation with universities. From the offered answer the cooperation with universities was marked 15 times, which is very rarely realized in our opinion. It may be due to the fact that owners are looking very rarely for the top managers for their businesses. Web site and in particular the labor offices are used also very rarely for these purposes. If the owner had already decided to employ a manager in his rural tourism facility he would do it through recommendations from friends or competitors.

The fourth question was what would respondents require from their executives. Respondents consistently said they would require practice, experience, knowledge, ability to manage this facility and love for nature and animals. Claims are high, in essence there are not vacant positions. It is apparent from the post of top executives.

At the end of the questionnaire we wanted to know the subjective opinion of respondents – owners of rural tourism facilities, whether their facilities thrive or fail in their opinion. The answer may surprise even it was foreseeable that these undertaken facilities should be effective, otherwise they would not provide their services. More than 85% of respondents immodest stated that their facility is doing well (although that is not led by a qualified management). Maybe the naswer is the result of excessive Slovak patriotism. 10% of companies were unable to clearly answer the question and 5% of facilities would not be satisfied with its functioning.

Slovakia has the opportunity to use EU funds throughout the duration of the National Strategic Reference framework in years 2008-2013. The Managing Authority, which is the Ministry of the Economy of the Slovak Republic, is responsible for the efficiency, propriety of management, provision and use of this aid in accordance with EU regulations, institutional, legal and financial systems and the regulations of the Slovak Republic.

3.1 Strategic plan for promoting the application of the labour force on the labour market in the field of rural tourism

Strategic plan for promoting the application of the labour force on the labour market in the field of rural tourism was drawn up on the grounds that qualified managers find just very difficult the application in family enterprises operating in agro-tourism facilities and is essential for them to apply on the labour market. Our aim was to prepar them a strategic plan to find their own place and job on rural tourism labour market.

Priority objective is aimed at the new jobs creation and increasing the adaptability in the area of rural tourism having regard to the knowledge society.

Target group constitutes a component of the labour force, which is looking for application on the labour market in the field of regional development (rural tourism), mostly it is focused on the alumni of the universities.

The intention of the project is to prepare potential local leaders to create projects by increasing their knowledge and skills. By means of courses we would like to train managers for positions of the regional managers within a small area and the government. At the same time we want to prepare them as potential collaborators for the Regional Development Agencies (RDA) for the elaboration and managing regional projects and give a chance to selected candidates to participate in the working process with the option of establishing their own businesses.

Measures to achieve the objective in creation of the advice-information system in the field of regional development, through the Regional Development Agencies, which are located in each region. Next action is to provide educational programs, whose purpose is to make familiar the target audiences with new trends in rural tourism. Than it is important to propose and process an innovative course material for ensuring the education of target groups. After that we need to ensure the publicity of the project outputs. The Regional Development Agency do these training programmes in cooperation with the V4 countries. The aim of RDA is to deepen knowledge in the field of rural tourism and improve the possibility of applying the human resources on the labour market.

The objective of the training courses is the target group education in the field of tourism as a possible form of self-employment and also the use of human resources, notably from the ranks of the unemployed and also a series of small businesses in tourism and motivation of unemployed for career choice in tourism.

The implementation phases of the project

Processing of project proposal in the form of application for the rural tourism facility,
Find partners for transnational cooperation and to prepare the agreement proposal of transnational cooperation,
Preparation of the study materials for the courses participants,
Preparation of the technical-organizational conditions for the education implementation,
Implementation of the training courses,
Continuous evaluation of the participants results in training courses – choice for foreign study trip,
The completion of the training courses implementation and the final evaluation.

3.2 Regional managers – the chance for regions

Operational programme: Human resources

The project will be supported in the framework of the operational programe Human Resources co-financed from the European Social Fund.

The main objective of project is to train qualified and flexible workforce through the courses of regional managers, which find their application on the labour market and thus facilitate the development of the whole region.

The intention of the project is to prepare potential local leaders for the projects creation by increasing their knowledge and skills and also by means of courses to train participants to the position of regional managers within a small area and the government. At the same time to prepare them as potential collaborators for the RDA for the elaboration and managing regional projects and to give a chance the selected candidates to engage in the work process, with the possibility of founding his own firm/ facility.

The result of the project will be three implemented regional managers courses with a total of thirty trained regional managers in the issues of mobilizing and managing funds from domestic sources and the sources of the EU, as well as training to launch and operation of self-employment.

Specific objectives of the project are

to contribute the achievement of the professional and practical knowledge for the purpose of enhancing the training for the development and implementation of projects,
to provide basic information about operational programmes in the social field, in the field of infrastructure, tourism development, the reconstruction of the historical parts of cities and towns and rural development, etc.
to provide training to create a place of people own business, to improve the potential and possibilities of target groups adaptation to demand requirements and the needs of the labour market,
to learn training courses participants how to use the internet with a focus on the use of the information about the financing possibilities of individual projects from the EU structural funds.

4 Conclusion

Tourism is undoubtedly one of the fastest developing and most promising industries of the Slovak national economy. The rural tourism in Slovakia represent a perspective business sector but it needs to worry about its development and improvement. Slovakia has great natural and cultural-historical potential, especially in rural areas, which can be connected with services and programs for tourists and this can bring much greater economic effect. However, Slovakia still lags behind the advanced countries, but it could be solved by cooperation with foreign countries. In this area of tourism there is particular cooperation and encouraging to development needed as well as individual entrepreneurs should care about their business advertising, get into the minds, do such actions that would contribute to greater demand for rural tourism in Slovakia. The rural tourism facilities should more cooperate with travel agencies, which would act as intermediaries between entrepreneurs and those who are interested to spent some tme in the countryside.

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http://www.sario.sk/userfiles/file/Ensario/PZI/sectorial/turism/tourism_in_slovakia.pdf

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http://www.allbusiness.com/management/820344-1.html

http://www.study-tourism-abroad.com/

Challenges of Sustainable Tourism Development in the Developing World: the case of Turkey

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:20:50 +0000

Challenges of Sustainable Tourism Development in the Developing World: the case of Turkey

Assoc.Prof.Dr.Elif Hatun KILICBEYLI

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the challenges to sustainable tourism development in developing countries with special references to Turkey as a part of the developing world. It was found that the factors that have emerged as challenges to sustainable tourism development related to priorities of national economic policy, the structure of public administration, an emergence of environmental issues, over commercialisation, and the structure of international tourism system. It concludes that although the principles of sustainable tourism development are beneficial, their implementation is an enormously difficult task to achieve and owing to the prevailing socio-economic and political conditions in the developing world. Hence, any operation of principles of sustainable tourism development necessitates hard political and economic choices, and decisions based upon complex socio-economic and environmental trade-offs. Moreover, it states that implementation of these hard decisions may not be possible unless international organisations encourage and collaborate with governments of developing countries to implement the principles of sustainable tourism development.

Author Keywords: Sustainable development; Sustainable tourism development; Challenges; The developing world; Turkey

1. Introduction

Following the popularisation of sustainable development as an environmental management concept by the publication of the World Commission on the Environment and Development’s (WCED) ‘Our Common Future’ in the late 1980s (WCED, 1987), a growing proportion of the tourism research literature has focused on the principles and practice of sustainable tourism development. ‘The term sustainable tourism has come to represent and encompass a set of principles, policy prescriptions, and management methods’ ( Hunter, 1997, p. 850). It is interesting to note that this literature has originated from developed countries ( English Tourist Board, 1991; Globe’90, 1991; D’Amore, 1992; Owen, Witt & Susan, 1993; Harris & Leiper, 1995, etc.). Consequently, the principles of sustainable tourism development appear to have been established by developed countries without taking into account conditions in the developing world. They fail to provide a conceptual vehicle for policy formulation to progress sustainable tourism development in those countries owing to limitations that originate from the structure of developing countries and the international tourism system.

The main objective of this article is to examine challenges to sustainable tourism development in the context of the developing world with special references to Turkey. However, it should be noted here that it may not be possible to find evidence to strictly support every contention about challenges of sustainable tourism development because of formidable difficulties to obtain information from public and private sources and non-availability of written material about sustainable development issues in many developing countries where almost every kind of information is treated as confidential. Therefore, this paper may reflect in part a polemic

based upon the author’s observation. Following a review of the underpinnings of development, sustainable development and sustainable tourism development, the paper then considers challenges to sustainable tourism development in Turkey. A major conclusion is that sustainable tourism development is an enormously difficult task to achieve in developing countries without the collaboration of the international tour operators and donor agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

2. Sustainable development

Definitions of sustainable development have two components: the meaning of development and the conditions necessary for sustainability (Miltin, 1992). Generally, development implies a process that makes an effort to improve the living conditions of people ( Bartelmus, 1986). In the words of Dudley (1993, p. 165), ‘Development is not just about increased wealth. It means change; changes in behaviour, aspirations, and in the way which one understands the world around one’. ‘Economic growth does not by itself constitute development. Development is ‘round’; it includes human and institutional change as well as economic growth’ ( Hapgood, 1969, p. 20). It involves broader concerns of the quality of life such as life expectancy, infant mortality, educational attainment, access to basic freedoms, nutritional status and spiritual welfare ( Pearce, Barbier & Markandya, 1990). That is to say, development should not be regarded and treated as a technical engineering exercise and more attention should be paid to historical, cultural, social, economic and political realities ( Stiefel & Wolfe, 1994). Additionally, the emphasis of sustainable development is to carry developmental achievements into the future in such a way that future generations are not left worse off ( Department of Environment, 1989; Pearce et al., 1990; WCED, 1987). In this context, sustainable development is defined by the United Nations’ World Commission on the Environment and Development (WCED) (1987, p. 42) as a ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need’. Repetto (1986: 15, cited in Pearce et al., 1990, p. 4) has reflected the above broad concern of sustainable development as follows: Sustainable development is a development strategy that manages all assets, natural resources, and human resources, as well as financial and physical assets, for increasing long-term wealth and well-being. Sustainable development, as a goal rejects policies and practices that support current living standards by depleting the productive base, including natural resources, and that leaves future generations with poorer prospects and greater risks than our own. Examining the above context of sustainable development reveals several main points as yardsticks. First, sustainable development is predominantly considered as a long-term strategy to preserve and conserve the environment, though the present is not ignored. Second, it proposes an inter- and intra-generational balanced level of welfare. Third, it is perceived as a universally valid prescription, which is supposed to be applicable to all countries without considering their level of development, socio-cultural and political conditions.

3. Sustainable tourism development

Sustainable tourism development should be seen as an adaptive paradigm, a part of the parental concepts of development and sustainable development, and it should aim at contributing to objectives of sustainable development and development in general by determining specific principles in the light of its parental concepts. That is to say, sustainable tourism development should be ‘accepted as all kinds of tourism developments that make a notable contribution to or, at least, do not contradict the maintenance of the principles of

development in an indefinite time without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs and desires’ (Tosun, 1998a, p. 596). In this manner, Butler’s (1993, p. 29) definition of sustainable tourism development appears to be a substantial contribution to unify the concept of sustainable tourism development with its parental terms. Butler stated that:

…sustainable development in the context of tourism could be taken as: tourism which is developed and maintained in an area (community, environment) in such a manner and at such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not degrade or alter the environment (human and physical) in which it exists to such a degree that it prohibits the successful development and well-being of other activities and processes. That is not the same as sustainable tourism, which may be thought of as tourism which is in a form which can maintain its viability in an area for an indefinite period of time. It is worth emphasising that Butler has distinguished sustainable tourism development from sustainable tourism. Although this distinction seems not to be widely recognised, it is important. Sustainable tourism development has been also reviewed comprehensively by other several researchers such as Bramwell and Lane (1993), Owen et al. (1993), Murphy (1994), Harris and Leiper (1995), Tosun (1996), Mowforth and Munt (1998) and Tosun (1998a) etc. For the purpose of this article it may be useful to identify some basic principles of sustainable tourism development by taking into account conceptual arguments for development, sustainable development and sustainable tourism development (STD). These principles may be stated as follows: • STD should contribute to the satisfaction of basic and felt needs of those hitherto excluded in local tourist destinations. • STD should reduce inequality and absolute poverty in local tourist destinations. • STD should contribute to the emergence of necessary conditions in tourist destinations which will lead local people to gain self-esteem and to feel free from the evils of want, ignorance and squalor (see Goulet, 1971 ; Thirlwall, 1989 ). That is to say, STD should help host communities be free or emancipated from alienating material conditions of life and from social servitude to nature, ignorance, other people, misery, institution, and dogmatic beliefs (see Todaro, 1994 ).• STD should accelerate not only national economic growth, but also regional and local economic growth. This growth must be shared fairly across the social spectrum. • STD should achieve the above objectives or principles in an indefinite period of time without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need. The above principles of sustainable tourism development remind the reader that ‘the remit of sustainable tourism development is extended to consider the role of tourism in contributing to sustainable development more generally’ (Hunter, 1997, p. 860). In this regard, sustainable tourism must be regarded as an adaptive paradigm capable of addressing widely different situations and articulating different goals. This implies that sustainable tourism development, as an adaptive paradigm is a multi-disciplinary and broad concept. Hence, it touches upon a wide range of issues such as economic development policy, environmental matters, social factors, structure of the international tourism system, etc. Generally speaking, sustainable tourism development appears to be beneficial. If applied, most of the negative effects of mass tourism may be eradicated and many alternative forms of tourism might be induced. However, there seems to be several limitations to moving towards a sustainable tourism development in a developing country such as Turkey. These are the priorities of a national economy, a lack of a contemporary tourism development approach, the structure of the public administration system, the emergence of environmental matters and over-commercialisation, and the structure of the international tourism system. These variables are termed as ‘challenges of sustainable tourism development’ in the context of the developing world. It should be noted that some of these challenges are inter-related, and, thus, are not completely exclusive. In the following sections they will be examined with special references to Turkey as a developing country to exemplify those points made under the given broad context of sustainable development and principles of sustainable tourism development.

3.1. Priorities of national economy

When the balance of payments and external debt of Turkey are examined, it is clear that the country requires foreign currency earning in the short and long term. The balance of payments current account deficit increased from 0.6 per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 1992 to 3.9 per cent of GDP in 1993. In 1993, the current account deficit of US$6.4 billion and debt repayment of US$4.4 billion were largely financed by foreign borrowing. For 1994, foreign debt service was some US$9.5 billion. The downgrading of Turkey’s sovereign credit rating in January 1994 limited new foreign borrowing to US$721 million. The immediate mechanical effect of the depreciation of the Turkish Lira (TL) was to raise the foreign debt burden. Consequently, the increase in the debt service ratio raised concerns about Turkey’s ability to meet its external commitments without debt rescheduling. Further, the dominant feature of the labour market in Turkey is the rapid growth of the working-age population and the large proportion of lower-age groups — implying that strong job creation is needed merely to hold the unemployment rate steady (OECD, 1995 and OECD, 1996).

Worker remittances are an important contribution to the balance of payments of the country, but the second and third generations of Turkish workers abroad have a tendency not to spend or invest their money in Turkey. When this tendency is taken into account, tourism seems to be one of the few main alternative sources of foreign currency earning. These economic necessities have forced decision-makers to encourage tourism development without considering principles of development and sustainable development.

Consequently, Turkey saw tourism as an easy, effective and relatively cheap instrument to achieve export-led industrialisation as a core principle of the free market economy formulated by international donor agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Tosun, 1999). The government in 1982 enacted the Tourism Encouragement Law No. 2634 to accelerate mass tourism development. This Law has induced many private and public entrepreneurs to undertake large amounts of fixed investment in tourism by building hotels, yacht ports, swimming pools, etc. The Tourism Encouragement Law No.2634 provided a wide range of fiscal and monetary incentives. It also appropriated State-owned land for tourism development, reduced bureaucratic formalities for tourism investors, relaxed restrictions on the employment of foreigners in the tourism sector, introduced vocational education and training development projects, and gave precedence in telephone, telegram and postal services. These incentives were given to tourism investments that took place in tourism regions, tourism zones and tourism centres as determined by the Tourism Incentive Act No.2634. This ushered in spatial concentration at the expense of regional balanced development. It is argued that the incentives that were given to the tourism sector are a result of the adoption of a liberal capitalist economic policy. This has created a ‘get-rich-quick’ mentality coupled with dubious practices in fiscal and monetary policies (Sezer & Harrison, 1994; Tosun, 1998a). Additionally, it was claimed that there were cases where incentives were given on the basis of inner party courtesy or intimacy of friendship and relationship rather

than entrepreneurial capability ( Kusluvan, 1994). This seems to be a reflection of the haphazard system in Turkey for resource allocation by the state authorities and the preferential access to state decision-making bodies that is extremely important for success in business ( Ayata, 1994).

This may suggest that patron–client relationships have become a tool to achieve national objectives at the expense of local communities in those local tourist destinations, widening intra-generation inequity and unbalanced regional development alongside wider socio- economic and political concerns. That is to say, the pattern of tourism development was shaped by the generous tourism incentives that reflect concerns of central government while, it is argued here, environmental, equitable or similar societal considerations have been deemed as being secondary. These issues in the context of Turkish tourism have also been discussed in details elsewhere (Sezer & Harrison, 1994; Tosun & Jenkins, 1996; Tosun, 1998a).

It is not realistic to expect that a sector of the economy of a developing country will contribute to sustainable development of that country without a significant change in both the overall socio-economic structure and the public administration system (Tosun, 2000). Sustainable tourism development requires equity both inter-and-intra generational, which seems to be incompatible with the interests of those people who invested their capital in the tourism industry. It appears to be very difficult, if not impossible, to formulate a tourism policy which contradicts the investors’ interests. Thus, it is unrealistic to achieve sustainable tourism development and expect tourism ‘to promote greater equality in the distribution of the benefits of that industry, if the forces making for inequality are left a free rein in their society and if policies aimed at the eradication of poverty are not vigorously pursued’ ( de Kadt, 1979, p. 45).

The implication of the Turkish tourism development policy is clear. The opportunity to derive foreign exchange from tourism export and employment created by the tourism industry are opportunities not easily ignored. Thus, tourism is too important to leave to the lower level of governmental bodies rather than cabinet level. Not surprisingly, tourism as a primary source of foreign currency earning and employment generation is perceived as a national priority that pre-dominates over secondary objectives and wider issues such as preserving cultural heritage, environment, fair distribution of economic growth, etc. all of which comprise the principles of sustainable tourism development.

3.2. Lack of a contemporary tourism development approach

The tourism sector has been represented at a ministerial level for more than 30 years in Turkey, but a contemporary approach to tourism development has not developed (Tosun, 1998b). Although enacting the legislation of the Tourism Incentives Law No. 2634 appears to have provided a more detailed structure for the tourism development; it was not the objective to create sustainable tourism development. Rather, the main objective was to achieve tourism growth in volume and value terms, in both demand and supply-side aspects. In the words of Brotherton and Himmetoglu (1997, p. 77); ‘The plans have essentially consisted of volume/value objectives designed to be achieved through an allocation of state-owned resources and the provision of a range of incentives to help facilitate the achievement of these goals’. In the broader context of sectoral development planning, these activities in relation to tourism growth in Turkey are not effective planning and do not reflect the concerns of contemporary development approaches to tourism development. Obviously, these activities are a part of overall economic growth policy to achieve centrally determined objectives driven by not only the need of the country, but also by dominant business interests. Yet it may be said that in the absence of a fair distribution of the fruits of economic growth across the social

spectrum, such a policy may be counter-productive. Examining seven Five-Year Development Plans (FYDPs) reveals that the main concerns of tourism development have not changed much since the first such plan in 1963. These tourism plans have focused merely on maximising foreign tourists’ receipts and thus increasing the supply capacity of the tourism industry. In this context, the main shortcomings of tourism development approach in Turkey are determined as follows: (1) a lack of flexibility and decentralisation, (2) some lack of comprehensiveness and integration (3) lack of community perspective, (4) being driven by an industry dominated by international tour operators, multinational companies, major domestic business interests and central government and (5) lack of consistency, co-ordination and co-operation (Tosun, 1996; Tosun, 1998b). That is to say, sectoral planning is done in isolation. Co-ordination, two-way communication and co-operation between and amongst related bodies are very weak and in most cases do not exist. Turkey has a traditional powerful bureaucracy that dominates legislative and operational processes. Any approaches that conflict with this traditional bureaucracy are not acceptable to the powerful bureaucrats. This is an obstacle to establishing co-ordination and co-operation between and among the various bodies. Moreover, there is competition among public bodies to increase this traditional bureaucratic structure in order to enlarge their area of influence. Ultimately, these structural and historical problems in the public administration system are an important limitation to the planning process. Furthermore, the planning approach lacks a time dimension. The short-term issues have dominated the planning process. The nature of the tourism sector has increased the domination of the short-term planning approach and policies. The State Planning Organisation (SPO) has failed to create clear solutions to sectoral problems. There is a belief that to be important is to be successful which leads the need to maximise foreign currency earning in the present tourism season. This short-term thinking has increased the level of dependency on foreign tour operators. One of the main obstacles in this regard is political instability, which ushered in inconsistent tourism policies and planning practices. It is interesting to note that in a 75 year history of the Turkish Republic 56 governments have been in power. The average span of duty of every government was 1.3 years. According to the Ministry of Tourism (1997), between 1963 and 1996, 30 ministers were appointed to this position. The average span of duty of each Minister of Tourism (MT) was 1.1 years, a span too short to achieve anything, particularly at national level. Because of this, ‘the historical position of the Turkish state with respect to tourism has been fairly inconsistent’ ( Sezer & Harrison, 1994, p. 82). Furthermore, ministers and even general directors have a tendency to change the personnel in their departments when they are appointed to a new post. The Ministry of Tourism is not exceptional in this regard. Naturally, high personnel turnover rates decrease efficiency, continuity and thus the effectiveness of tourism development plans in particular and state bureaucracy in general. As Brotherton, Woolfenden and Himmetoglu (1994) noted, the change in government gave birth to something of a political hiatus and re-ordering of priorities, changes in policies and personnel. These unstable policies have caused uncertainty, which has led to the emergence of a laissez-fairel approach to tourism development. To sum up, it may be said that these common shortcomings of the current tourism development approach pose challenges to sustainable tourism development in Turkey. It would be naive to expect that truly sustainable tourism development will be achieved under the guidance of such an ad hoc, short-term and narrow tourism development approach. Indeed, under this given climate of uncertainty, it seems to be improbable to sustain sound tourism development. It is therefore evident that alternative approaches are required to achieve the goal of sustainable tourism development.

3.3. Structure of public administration system

Turkey as a unitary state contains a network of local officials who are centrally appointed and closely related to locally elected bodies. In this unitary state, ‘power is devolved to subordinated area units, but central authority always retains the sovereignty and the right to determine the degree of autonomy that is enjoyed by these units’ (Harper, 1987, p. 15). That is to say, Turkey could not establish local governments as separate corporate entities ( Ersoy, 1992). Consequently, local governments were never permitted to develop independent policies free from the strict central government control ( Ersoy, 1992; Koker, 1995). Therefore, historically, Turkey has a strong central government that has practised administrative tutelage on local government. This tutelage practice of the central government has precluded an emergence of responsive, effective and autonomous institutions at the local level. Ultimately, this has ushered in non-participation or pseudo-participation of local people in their own affairs. Not surprisingly, the public administration system in Turkey seems to be too bureaucratic to respond to public needs effectively and efficiently. As a two-stage survey sponsored by the International Republican Institute (IRI) illustrated, an overwhelming majority of urban settlers are very dissatisfied with the service delivery system by the municipalities and overwhelmingly express feelings of being left out of the political process (IRI, 1995). In this regard, Carkoglu (1997, p. 89) stated that ‘there is no reason to believe the situation should be any better at that administration level’.

The above argument in relation to public administration system in Turkey reveals that Turkey evidently has a weak local government with lack of financial resources and authority to defend the interest of local people in their constituencies. In the words of Ersoy (1992, p. 336), the most important structural problem is that ‘no relationship has been established between the functions and responsibilities of municipalities and their income structures. …one of the most important aspects of the problem is persistently ignored’. Consequently, any approach to sustainable tourism development in the absence of strong local planning authority and involvement of local communities in the planning process to some degree seems to be very difficult.

In turn, therefore, local governments in popular local tourist destinations seem to have failed to meet local people’s needs and have not, for example, addressed issues like the migration of large numbers of tourists and second-home owners into those local holiday resorts. For example, the Municipal Governor of Kusadasi (a well-known coastal resort on the Aegean Sea), stated that the population of Kusadasi has been dramatically increased due to the new jobs in the tourism sector and those who settled here to spend the rest of their lives — mainly retired people. Moreover, the population has been further increased during the summer season.

Every person who moves into a second home for 3–4 months [and every tourist visiting Kusadasi for one or two weeks] during the summer adds to the existing burden on the shoulders of Kusadasi Municipal Government. The range and cost of services have increased. In spite of this, the revenues of the municipal government have not increased to be able to meet the additional demand for services. In grants extended by Ministries and other bodies…to the Municipalities, population is a criterion besides other characteristics of the town (Suyolcu 1980, pp. xii–xiii).

It is also reported that Bodrum (a well-known coastal resort on the Aegean Sea) has grown from a small fishing village to a centre of tourism explosion which houses nearly 100,000 tourists even though its population capacity is around 10,000. This has taken not only Bodrum by surprise but Turkey itself. Bodrum has become the hottest tourist spot in Europe (Lamar, 1988).

The statements regarding Kusadasi and Bodrum seem to be still valid for many local tourist destinations in Turkey, owing to the fact that not much progress has been made in the decentralisation of the public administration system since 1980. Moreover, ‘…decentralisation practices created an opposite move towards centralisation in the 1980s’ (Tosun & Jenkins, 1996, p. 528) and local bodies have been organised in a way that can still be used by the ruling party. Hence, if central and local government are not in the same political party, this creates conflict and further problems in terms of flexibility, simply because of partisanship.

Given the lack of financial resources and authority to make independent decisions at local level, it seems to be very difficult for mayors of these resort towns to respond effectively to the needs of tourists and residents simultaneously. As a result, the power structure and patron–client relations in these tourist destinations have led local governments to respond primarily to the needs of tourism entrepreneurs and tourists, and thus ignoring the needs felt by permanent residents. It is clearly observable in many local tourist destinations in Turkey that there seem to be two different communities. One consists of tourists, tourism entrepreneurs and second homeowners. This community is well organised and has a leading role in local politics owing to its members’ financial power and client-relations with central government. Most members of this community do not live permanently or educate their children in those local administrative units. This mobile community to a large extent belongs to high-income groups or educated elites at the national level.

Moreover, access of indigenous people to beaches in front of luxury hotels and holiday villages has been prevented via physical barriers such as fences. Additionally, luxury hotels have hired security guards to stop access of non-hotel guests onto beaches. These attitudes and mistreatment by hoteliers are against the Coastal Law dated 04. 04. 1990, No. 3621 and the 1982 Constitution according to which, coastal areas including beaches are under the protection of State. The coastal areas are public properties accessible free for everybody and with no limitation (see Kalkan, 1991). Somehow, there appears to be no political will, opposition and legal action against the misuse of beaches and mistreatment by hoteliers. This may be due to the fact that local people do not have much knowledge and information about the relevant law and regulation. On the other hand, it may also be a reflection of a weak local government that finds it difficult to protect the interests of the local communities by taking legal action against the rich business elites. The second community is composed of indigenous people and local civil servants (teachers, nurses, police, postmen, etc.). This immobile community (permanent settlers) is separated from the mobile (seasonal) or temporary community. Members of this community live at the rear of the developed local holiday destinations, where components of basic infrastructure are very poor or at a primitive level. The settlements of the indigenous people are in the form of slum housing, most of which do not have hot water systems, inside toilet, proper bath, etc. Naturally, there seems to be a very limited and negligible relationship in primitive form between members of these two communities during the peak season: local people work for the temporary community as cleaners, waiters, night-keepers of hotels and luxury second homes, dishwashers, gardeners, etc. These jobs are, by nature, low paid and do not have high social status. Moreover, these jobs do not create opportunities to accumulate skills and qualifications that can be transferable to other employment areas. Thus, when tourism disappears, the jobs will also disappear. The above discussion and author participant observation suggest that tourism development in prime local tourist destinations has brought powerful and organised business interests into the powerless, unorganised indigenous communities. In the course of time, the business interests have become dominant power holders and served their self-interest at the expense of indigenous people who live on the margin of their felt-needs. This seems to be largely due to ‘the formation of local government in Turkey [that] has been initiated by the state, reflecting administrative and fiscal concerns of the centre, and has not been a source of democratic citizen participation in a public space’ (Koker, 1995, p. 61). In this regard, tourism development appears to have ignored intra-generation equity by catering for tourists and tourism entrepreneurs’ needs at the expense of indigenous local people. It should be kept in mind that transferring public resources to tourism investors via the noted generous tourism incentives has accelerated this process. In brief, tourism continues to be driven by central government and its clients, rather than community interests in Turkey. This reveals that tourism development in many local tourist destinations in Turkey and elsewhere in the developing world contradicts principles of sustainable tourism development as stated at the outset of this study. Thus, it is extremely difficult to achieve sustainable tourism development in Turkey without the political will to re-structure the public administration system towards decentralisation and community empowerment.

3.4. Emergence of environmental matters

In the 1980s hard currency bottlenecks were serious problems for Turkey. It was very difficult for the government in power to find short-term foreign loans at even relatively steep interest rates, due to the serious socio-economic and political crisis that brought on the last military intervention. This caused Turkey to lose its credibility in the international financial market. Therefore, the government decided to develop the tourism industry without considering its opportunity costs. Soon after, it prepared all necessary legislation that gave generous incentives to develop the tourism sector in order to secure foreign currency earnings. Moreover, natural resources, historical sites and cultural heritage have been conceived as idle and cost-free instead of a long-term asset.

Not surprisingly, the negative impact of tourism on the physical environment has appeared, following the phase of more or less uncontrolled development during the 1980s. In the absence of pro-active, comprehensive and integrated planning approaches, development has concentrated in a spatially unbalanced manner. It is interesting to note that successive governments have encouraged this spatial concentration by deliberately channelling generous tourism incentives to pre-determined tourism regions, tourism areas and tourism centres. Unbalanced and geographical concentration of tourism development has created environmental problems in various forms at different local tourist destinations.

First, uncontrolled hotel construction has emerged on the coastal areas. To Alipour (1996) and Brotherton and Himmetoglu (1997, p. 77), ‘these tourism facility developments in the prime Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions took place to a large extent in a haphazard way’. Although physical land-use planning and development guidelines were prepared for these regions (Southwest Turkey Touristic Investment Areas) by the Ministry of Tourism, implementation of these guidelines have not been controlled. Moreover, it is stated that ‘Even if they are operating in the official economy, Turkish businessmen specialise in getting round the rules’ ( The Economist, 1996, p. 13). This implies that unless there is a strong control mechanism, implementation of the land-use planning regulations will be ignored easily by private entrepreneurs.

As a result, Aegean and Mediterranean coastal strip development has taken place, which may reflect the absence of comprehensive and integrative planning approaches to tourism development. Moreover, many hotels and holiday villages violated construction regulations and the Coastal Law No. 3621. The construction of hotels and other facilities has not been integrated into traditional or dominant architectural styles. This haphazard building and polluting of resources has endangered sustainable tourism development. Thus, the final output is architectural pollution and an example of construction site syndrome.

Second, environmental pollution has become an important problem at these popular local tourist destinations due to the lack of measures to cope with the generation of new or increased waste residues. Sewage disposal systems were installed solely according to local residents’ needs without taking into account tourism development in many if not all tourist destinations in Turkey. The carrying capacity of sewage disposal systems have been exceeded due to a rapid increase in numbers of hotels and second-homes construction in addition to the migration of significant numbers of people from less-developed regions of the country to work in the construction of hotels and second homes. These people who worked in the construction industry then remained in the labour force as gardeners, dishwashers, waiters and the like. On the other hand, some hotels outside the main settlements have not linked their sewage disposal system to the main system because of installation costs. Moreover, since there was no strict control and regulation that would have prevented hoteliers from polluting the environment, particularly at the initial stage of tourism development, it is possible that non-solid waste finds its way into natural water supplies. Hence, there may be pollution of underground and surface water. Yacht tourism also has created considerable water pollution at some local tourist destinations on the coastal areas. For example, yachts have polluted seawater around the yacht port in Kusadasi by discharging dirty water into the sea without any pre-treatment. Solid waste such as cans and bottle, etc. are thrown into the sea from yachts in the area. Third, overcrowding, traffic jams and noise have created discomfort for local people. It can be clearly observable in prime local tourist destinations such Kusadsi, Bodrum, Marmaris, Urgup, etc. that buses carrying tourists unnecessarily use their horns. Some leave the main road, passing through the local residential streets. In particularly both early in the morning and late at night these buses have created an unacceptable disturbance for local residents whilst transporting tourists from hotels to airport or vice versa. Moreover, some bars, discos, nightclubs remain open, playing loud music late at night. This disturbs local residents who have to rise early in order to work on the farms, etc. Traffic congestion seems to have become a problem particularly in the region of Cappadocia during the peak tourist season. For example, this problem can be observed in front of the main rock churches that are on the main road. At times there are 4 or 5 buses bringing visitors to the rock churches and underground towns. The visitors stay 2–3 hours visiting some main attractions, and tend to leave at the same time. The traffic congestion keeps tourists and residents waiting which consequently create discomfort. However, the traffic problem appears to be due to an uncontrolled and disorganised traffic system in addition to overcrowding. If some arrangements were to be put in place, the problem could be solved, at least in the short term. On local market-days (halk pazari), overcrowding has become an unmanageable problem in the public open-market areas in many local tourist destinations since these areas were designed and arranged according to local people’s needs. Open public markets appear to be very attractive for foreign tourists as they create a natural shopping atmosphere in a traditional form and the shopping is relatively cheap. However, sellers seem to pay so much attention to foreign tourists that they sometimes ignore local residents’ shopping needs. Local people feel humiliated by the lack of attention accorded to them. Shop owners find it more profitable to deal with foreign tourists who are likely to buy more without bargaining as local people do. Fourth, the most detrimental impact of tourism development and tourists has been on both the unique and highly fragile natural and man-made resources. This could be observed in Pamukkale and in the region of Cappadocia since the mid-1980s. Pammukkale has become very attractive for tourists and, thus, for tourism entrepreneurs, owing to the fissure-ridge and terraced-mound travertines created over the last 400,000 years as a result of deposition from thermal waters that spring at 35°C from within active fissures and faults. Many of these fissures travertine are up to 10 m wide. The actively accumulating travertine attracts visitors to Pamukkale in increasing numbers. Consequently, urbanisation of the areas has accelerated since the 1980s. Such uncontrolled urbanisation has given rise to two main problems: (1) Hotels and motels have been extracting subsurface thermal waters to supply private swimming pools and baths. Pumping has led to a fall in the water table and is beginning to exhaust some of the natural hot springs. (2) Some open fissures are being filled by domestic waste from adjacent municipalities, hotels and motels. Surface waters collecting in these fissures will wash pollutants into the main thermal-water reservoir. This will bring two major problems. Firstly, the polluted thermal waters will precipitate unclean travertine of unsightly appearance and, secondly and more importantly, the polluted thermal waters will pose a threat to human health where they continue to be used supplying baths, swimming pools and even medicinal drinking water. (Altunel & Hancock, 1994, p. 129).

Tourists, both foreign and domestic, have tended to behave in an irresponsible way. Visitors appear to have carelessly left solid waste such as cans, bottles and cigarette butts on the travertine. This has contributed to the deterioration of this fragile and unique natural resource. In brief, the urbanisation of the Pammukkale travertine plateau, and tourists themselves have progressively impaired the attractive environment that visitors come to view. There are too many people in too small an area.

The Cappadocia region is arguably one of the most attractive and fragile sites in the world due to its unique cultural heritage and natural volcanic beauty. The geological history of the region dates from Oligocene times, 38 million years ago or so (Bowen and Bowen). The geological structure of volcanic origin has formed, by wind erosion, bizarre formations that are known as the ‘fairy chimneys’. The first inhabitants date back to 3000 BC. in the Cappadocia plateau. Cappadocia provided an asylum to early Christians who had selected the Goreme Valley and Urgup for building churches in the year 53 AD, thus laying the foundations of Christianity in this part of the World. The broken valleys, which were formed by erosion, sheltered the Christians fleeing Roman oppression. Christians built a multitude of churches by hollowing into the rocks in the Valley of Goreme. The rock churches were decorated with impressive religious frescoes (Turizm Bankasi, 1986; Nevsehir Il Turizm Mudurlugu, 1995).

The unique scenery, geological structure, religious relics and historical sites are the primary attractions for tourists. They distinguish the Cappadocia region from other local tourist destinations in Turkey. However, those tourists who do not have an interest in religious relics and natural attractions have damaged these antique human and natural resources by behaving in an irresponsible way. Some of the rock houses have been used as tea gardens, bars, etc.; and some have been bought by foreigners, who visit the region every year, to use as accommodation during their stay in Cappadocia. Moreover, since there were no strict planning regulations or local authorities with power to implement existing regulations, ribbon development has occurred along the scenic routes and in areas of volcanic beauty. There are some examples of integrated building styles in the environment, but generally there has been a failure to integrate the superstructures of the tourism industry with the natural volcanic beauty, which in the words of Pearce (1978), is ‘architectural pollution’.

The Ministry of Tourism has become aware of the environmental matters and has taken some measures to prevent environmental damage through tourism development. For instances, the most significant attractions (Goreme, Derinkuyu, Ihlara Valley, Zelve, etc.) were taken under State protection, which can play an important role to keep Cappadocia a world-class site. However, measures have not been taken in time to stop this environmental erosion in some other parts of the region such as in Urgup and Ortahisar. Turkey has successfully implemented an Environmental Protection program to save Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas, which are a species of sea turtle, on a small part of the Mediterranean Sea. This project was strongly supported by the central government because of international pressure, but exceptional cases should not be generalised. The report of the special professional group of tourism (Devlet Planlama Teskilati (State Planning Organisation), 1995), which had been taken as the basis for tourism sector development planning, seems to have failed to provide a comprehensive legislative guideline to stop environmental deterioration due to the tourism development. However, the report of the special professional group for environment ( Devlet Planlama Teskilati, 1994) highlighted the gap between legislation and implementation. Consequently, the Seventh FYDP ( State Planning Organisation, 1995, p. 206) clearly pointed out that ‘It is required that the articles of the Constitution which are directly or indirectly concerned with environmental matters should be amended in line with the principles of a sustainable economic development’. More specifically, it was suggested that the Environmental Law No. 2872, the Law on Forests No. 6831, the Law No. 2634 on Encouraging Tourism, the Law of Resettlement No. 3194, the Law of Coasts No. 3621 and the Law on the Protection of Cultural and Natural Entities No. 2863 should be updated and amended according to the requirement of sustainable development. The relevant governmental documents in review reveal that some professional groups in Turkey have already become aware that new legislative measures are necessary to preserve, protect and improve natural and man-made resources. However, there is still not a comprehensive plan to cope satisfactorily with environmental matters that have appeared through tourism development. It is clear that the present level of legal action and measures in respect to environmental codes appear to be insufficient. That is to say, planning lags behind change, as it often does in Turkey as a developing country, and change brings the destruction of much of the country’s rich historical heritage. Hence, this matter is one of the dominant threats to tourism development in Turkey. Perhaps, as the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) stated, ‘Turkey may need international help and support in the years immediately ahead’ to deal with this serious problems of tourism development in Turkey.

3.5. Emergence of over commercialisation

Utilising culture as a tourism resource is a critical issue. Culture should not be manipulated or exploited particularly as an instrument for tourism development. In the past, several studies emphasised the negative impact which unplanned and irresponsible tourism development may have on the indigenous culture of a region (Jafari, 1974; Young, 1973; Ritchie & Zins, 1978). However, it is claimed that cultural heritage and traditional values were manipulated and exploited for the sake of economic benefits of tourism development by placing the Ministry of Culture under the umbrella of tourism in Turkey ( Sosyal, 1982).

Although the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was separated into two separate ministries in 1989, the current circumstances in many local tourist destinations reflect Soysal’s concern. Local cultural values in many local tourist destinations have become a part of the tourism product. They have been used as a commodity and marketing tool to increase the average length of stay of the tourists and maximise foreign currency earning. Consequently, a ‘get- rich-quick’ mentality has emerged in the tourism industry. Hoteliers, and other tourism- related entrepreneurs, have tried their best to use everything available to maximise their profit margin without considering the consequences of their activities even for their future business. Traditional ceremonies, folk dances, etc. have been performed as part of the entertainment activities in hotels, bars, discos and restaurants. For example, the author personally witnessed that a circumcision feast has been presented in such a way that it created fear in boys who would be circumcised. To be paraded in front of so many foreign people with different language and colour should not be allowed and it becomes an additional stress factor for those boys kept waiting for the sake of tourists and money. It is not only uncomfortable for these boys, but the content of the circumcision feast has become exaggerated that it is inconsistent with reality. Another example, in this regard, is the performance of ‘Turkish Nights’. Eroglu (1995) stated that Nevsehir School of Tourism and Hotel Management established a team specially educated to perform folk dance and folk drama in restaurants and hotels in Cappadocia, but hoteliers and restaurant operators have not accepted the specially educated team because of its relatively high cost, and prefer cheaper, unprofessional teams at the expense of the destruction of cultural values. Eroglu (1995) particularly emphasised that some of the folk dramas have been performed in forms that have humiliated the local communities from where the dramas and dances originated.

Additionally, it can be argued that traditional handicrafts have become a matter of mass production without paying much attention to their origins owing to the ‘get-rich-quick’ mentality that has been brought by over-commercialisation. Moreover, a tourist may wonder whether he or she is in a Turkish town. Shops, bars, discos and even tourism employees use foreign version of their names: Zafer is changed to Victor, Cevat to Gerald, Meryem to Mary, Isa to Jesus, etc. It is not surprising to see shops named as the Irish Bar, English Bar, Elegant Wear, Leather Jacket Shop, etc. Even 10–15 years old children speak some words in English, French, German, etc. They prefer greeting foreign tourists with a foreign language without knowing their nationalities while they are polishing tourists’ shoes.

Using cultural values at the wrong place, wrong time with the wrong standard has created in turn a misleading and damaging image about local communities in those tourist destinations. Overtime, it may become increasingly difficult to discern difference between commercially inspired and authentic cultural shows, thereby compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs.

3.6. Structure of the international tourism system

The structure of the international tourism industry in developing countries is characterised by the domination of Transnational Tourism Corporations (TTCs) from relatively advanced wealth industrialised countries (Britton, 1982; Ascher, 1985; WTO, 1985; Dieke, 1988; Jenkins, 1994). It is argued that these industrialised countries generate tourist demand for most developing countries, and the large foreign firms from these generating countries dominate the flow patterns ( Jenkins, 1994). Particularly, in the absence of unique attractions, tourist demand is largely externally determined ( Jenkins, 1980). That is to say, significant decisions as to which destination regions are to be favoured with tourism developments are frequently exercised by travel intermediaries based, not in destination regions, but in the tourist generating countries. ‘Given such external control over the fortunes of the tourism industry in destination regions it must be concluded that tourism is too fragile and unpredictable an industry on which to base total economic development of destination regions’ ( Hall, 1994, p. 119 quoting Goodall, 1987, p. 72).

This argument regarding dependency of tourism development in developing countries suggests that type and scale of tourism development in the developing world is at the mercy of the international tour operators to a large extent. In this regard, it may not be wrong to claim that developing countries are decision-takers, rather than decision-makers regarding the tourism development that has taken place in their territories. There is evidence that international tour operators and multinational companies in the tourism industry have shaped and directed the tourism development in Turkey and elsewhere in the developing world (Ascher, 1985; Dieke, 1988; Kusluvan, 1994). It is noted that investment in promoting Turkey as a tourist destination has a very minor impact on international tourist flows to Turkey ( Uysal & Crompton, 1984). Moreover, it is also reported that ‘it is rather difficult to claim that the popularity of Turkey as a tourist destination is not the result of conscious and well planned marketing and promotional efforts of the MT and other related organisations’ ( Ozturk, 1996, p. 278). The current pattern of international tourism demand for Turkey supports these statements. The EIU (Economic Intelligence Unit) (1993, p. 82) found that, ‘over 55 per cent of all visitors to Turkey travel on all inclusive tour packages tour and 15 per cent on a part organised basis… Eighty five per cent of all charter passenger arrivals travelled by using the companies which are owned and operated by foreigners’. In 1996 60 per cent of foreign tourists who visited Turkey arranged their trips through tour operators ( State Institute of Statistics, 1997).

A closer look at the international tourist arrivals in Turkey illustrates that tourism development is reasonably dependent on a small number of origin countries. In 1996 60.35 per cent (5.2 million) of Turkey’s arrivals originated from OECD countries and 25.77 per cent (2.2 million) from East European (see Table 1). The largest single tourist arrivals in 1996 were from Germany, which accounted for 25 per cent of all arrivals. The top three markets accounted for about 52 per cent of total international arrivals to Turkey in 1996 (see Table 2).

Table 1. Origin regions for international tourist arrivals in Turkey, 1996a

Table 2. International tourist arrivals in Turkey by major origin country, 1996a

It should be noted that the 2.2 million visitors (26 per cent of all arrivals) from East European countries could not be regarded as tourists in the real meaning of the word. The vast majority of these visitors were ‘suitcase traders’ who aimed at to sell goods brought from their own country in the streets. If these visitors were excluded, the top two markets, Germany and the UK, would account for 45 per cent of total arrivals to Turkey in 1996.

In this vein, the proportion of tourists who travelled on all inclusive tour packages may have been higher than the given 60 per cent. Under the given high level of market dependency of tourism development, and the badly needed foreign currency earning (particularly in the short term), it appears to be very difficult for Turkey to make a radical move to change the current pattern of tourism development (Tosun, 1999). Hence, in a developing country such as Turkey, the government’s role is to develop ad hoc strategies for tourism to cope with the high bargaining power of international tour operators and adjust policies to the changes caused by external factors. As Tosun (1997) argues, it is very difficult for Turkey to develop a pro-active planning approach by which to decrease or eradicate the influences of the external factors on the tourism development due to the nature of the international tourism system. This suggests that the structure of the international tourism system has led Turkey to create a tourist infrastructure of facilities based on Western standards even in relatively underdeveloped local areas to provide the mass tourist with ‘the protective ecological bubble of his accustomed environment’ ( Cohen, 1972, p. 171) while local people in these areas have difficulty in satisfying their felt-needs such as those of housing, education and health. The type, direction, volume and impact of international tourism in Turkey are being determined by external factors to a large extent. In this context, it may be stated that tourism is an industry developed and run by foreigners for foreigners.

The above argument may suggest that the structure of international tourism seems to be an obstacle to making decisions to move towards a more sustainable tourism development in the developing world. It has left no choice for Turkey to consider except the current mass tourism development, which is driven by the international tour operators and appears to contradict principles of sustainable tourism development. Thus, it has become imperative for Turkey to accept and support certain scale and types of tourism development in certain geographic locations in her territory at the expense of environmental degradation and worsening intra and inter-generational-equity. In this context, it may be said that under the current imperfect market conditions, Turkey as a cheap popular tourist destination has two choices. First, to accept the current type, scale and direction of tourism development that seems to contradict principles of development and sustainable development. Second, to reject the current type, scale and direction of tourism development and accept a certain type and scale of tourism development that will contribute to sustainable development. This second option seems not to be acceptable in terms of current political preferences and economic priorities. In fact, the first option may be the only choice for Turkey.

4. Conclusion

Although arguments regarding the challenges to sustainable tourism development have been raised with special reference to Turkey as a part of the developing world, they may be valid for many developing countries that have adopted a similar tourism development approach and experienced similar difficulties. Hence, it may be possible to draw several general conclusions.

First, like many other developing countries, Turkey has chronic and severe macro economic problems such as a high rates of unemployment, rapid growth of the working-age population, high rate of inflation and interest, an increasing rate of deficits in the current account of balance of payments and an increasing debt: service ratio. In the short term many developing countries do not have alternatives to tourism to find sources of foreign currency earnings and to create jobs for the rapidly growing working-age population. Thus, developing world governments do not have much option other than to support current tourism development even though it may not be compatible with the principles of long-term sustainable development. The development of tourism is essentially built on long-term investment, but for short-term benefits. Sustainability as a long-term objective can only have relevance if it can gather the support of present day beneficiaries. These macro-economic imperatives suggest that unless developing countries find additional sources of foreign currency earning and employment generation, they will support whatever forms of tourism development are available to them, including those that are unsustainable.

Second, in developed countries, approaches to tourism development planning have moved from a historical, narrow consideration of demand, supply and physical requirements to more comprehensive, integrated and environmentally sensitive approaches, which are sine qua non for sustainable tourism development. However, this evolutionary process has not had much opportunity to be applied in developing countries. Thus, on the one hand, contemporary approaches to tourism development such as community involvement, comprehensive, integrative and system approaches appear to be essential to achieve a better tourism development, if not sustainable tourism development, in the developing world. But, on the other hand, adopting those planning models and approaches developed in and for developed countries to solve the problems of tourism in developing countries requires considerable effort, financial resources and expertise, all of which may not be available in those countries. Even if these models are financially and technically feasible, it may not be feasible in terms of ‘politics’. In other words, decision-makers may not accept such a model since it may be contrary to their interests. Any planning model should be both politically acceptable and desirable in developing countries if it is to be implemented. Adapting the techniques and approaches developed by others does not necessarily meet developing countries’ needs. Hence, it is suggested that developing countries need to develop their own contemporary tourism development approaches by taking into account their own socio-economic, political and legislative conditions to cope with the unplanned and uncontrolled tourism development that has emerged as a challenge to sustainable tourism development. Third, centralisation of public administration functions has brought the dangers of concentration of power in too few hands in developing countries. This public administration structure has catered for business interests as clients of decision-makers at the expense of indigenous communities in many local tourist destinations. This suggests that there is much truth in the German proverb ‘stadtluft macht frei’ (town air makes man free). It is argued ‘in support of the conception that local bodies know local problems and feelings, and so what is suitable, better than the central authorities possibly can’ (Allum, 1995, p. 413). Hence, local governments should be re-organised to defend, protect and reflect concerns and interests of local people in their administrative territories. Obviously, without financial resources, local governments cannot provide services to their constituencies. Consequently, local government should be empowered not only politically and legally, but also financially. Additional financial resources should be made available for local governments to be used particularly for community development projects. For example, a community development tax or community compensation tax can be collected to raise financial resources for this purpose. This may encourage local government to find ways of empowering those who live in its area. However, re-organisation and empowerment of local governments may move patron-client relations to provincial level. In this vein, a cautionary approach is needed. New measures should ensure the equality of treatment of all residents and should avoid creating other problems or shaping the form of prevailing problems rather than solving them. Fourth, there is a need to establishing quality standards for handicrafts so as to distinguish those handicrafts that are made in accordance with their origins from those that are not. A special trademark or symbol can be developed to represent this quality standard. When buyers see this special trade mark or symbol, they can be more confident about the quality of the products. The quality standard marks should be publicised in tour operators’ brochures and via tourism information centres. This measure may be a means to counter over-commercialisation and protect consumers. Similarly, entertainers such as folk dance performers, Turkish night organisers, etc. should be controlled via a certification program. The Ministry of Culture or relevant organisation should certify those entertainers who perform folk dances and organise traditional animation programs and only certificate holders should be permitted to organise entertainment programmes. This may also help government to collect more taxes. For example, many entertainment organisers are not registered as self- employed in Turkey and therefore many of them do not pay taxes. There is now considerable evidence that tourism does have definite but variable impacts on communities and the wider society in developing countries. It should be noted that, as Harrison (1992) postulates, there may be something quite patronising in the suggestion that the culture of many developing countries may be weak and require protection from outside influences. The cost of achieving some economic advancement by adopting international mass tourism must be measured against the loss of cultural heritage, which can be observed in many developing countries as the result of the modernisation process. As tourism is part of this modernisation process, it is important to anticipate and manage the negative social, cultural, economic and environmental problems arising from tourism. It should be kept in mind that it is not the modernisation that attract tourists, but the traditional and authentic cultural values that are the main sources of attraction alongside other socio-economic factors and natural resources in a tourist destination. Fifth, environmental codes should be developed and enforced to protect unique and fragile natural resources and cultural heritage. Necessary rules and regulations should be enacted for this. These measures should be strict and free of misinterpretation and misuse. If necessary, international agencies should be approached to collaborate to protect these non-renewable resources. Additionally, signboards should be put in place to advise tourists of restrictions. Through booklets and newsletters tourists can be informed how these fragile resources can be easily damaged. Tourist guides should be educated about environmental issues. Tourist guides should be responsible to introduce to tourists relevant environmental codes and give, free of charge, relevant booklets and newsletters to tourists in their groups. Most importantly, there should be control to implement these environmental codes via empowering local government, non-governmental organisations and local communities. If those codes are ignored for any reason there should be significant monetary fines that can be additional sources of finance to improve and the protect the relevant environment. Sixth, the Turkish tourism experience reveals that the form and scale of tourism development that has taken place in developing countries is shaped by international tour operators. Intense competition between identical tourist destinations in terms of price, rather than product differentiation and quality, and increasing the supply of almost identical commodity tourist destinations increase the dependency of destination countries on the international tour operators. This high level of market dependency puts the developing world in a position of a decision-taker, rather than decision-maker. In other words, because of the nature of tourism and its reliance on the international market it was a sector over which the host community and governments could exercise only limited control. Given the structure of the international tourism system, developing countries cannot afford to reject or oppose decisions of the international tour operators owing to the real possibility of losing substantial economic benefits from international tourism for which they have already made massive and largely irreversible fixed investment. Additionally, there is often a desperate need for international tourism receipts as a main source of foreign currency earning. The structure of the international tourism system and economic imperatives in the developing world suggest that moving towards a more sustainable tourism development option is largely at the mercy of the international tour operators and donor agencies. That is to say, unless the international tour operators are willing to collaborate with developing countries to take careful measures for sustainable tourism development and international donor agencies contribute to the solution of the macro-economic problems of these countries, there seems to be a real danger of losing the option of sustainable tourism development forever. Finally, this article suggests that the principles of sustainable tourism development have originated from and have been developed by advanced industrial countries that experienced the basis of the pre-industrial phase last century, and where far better economic, legislative and political structures are in operation than in the developing world. Therefore, arriving at sustainable tourism development requires re-structuring the public administration system, and a re-distribution of power and wealth, for which hard political choices and logical decisions based on cumbersome social, economic and environmental trade-off are sine qua non. This cannot be achieved within the present conditions of many developing countries without the assistance of international organisation.

This study proposes that future research should focus on how international organisations including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Union, United Nations, International Tour Operators, etc. can have a role in implementation of the principles of sustainable tourism development in developing countries. It should be noted that economically advanced countries need to protect and preserve both the environment, and peace in the developing world since people of these countries have already accepted cross- border holidays as part of their felt-need.

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Tourism and HRD: Some Perspectives

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:20:46 +0000

Tourism and HRD: Some Perspectives

Prof G.D.Sardana

Professor in Operations

Bimtech Institute of Management Technology,

Greater Noida( India)

Abstract

Tourism is fast expanding. For many nations it provides the main source of GDP. Tourism depends more on the HR capabilities of the service providers. This paper examines tourism from the perspective of business. It considers that the success of tourism will depend upon the business approach of facility planning, marketing and promotion, transportation, efficient supply chain of food and beverages, ensuring quality in delivery and aiming at customer satisfaction. The central focus, the paper investigates is HRM, which is present in all of its activities. The success of tourism depends on training, development and knowledge of the service providers and operators who will run transportation, hotels, and accompany tourists as guides. Finally the papers highlights the importance of culture of the people at large in the society who can convert customer satisfaction into customer delight through their conduct where, as per an old Sanskrit saying, athithi devo bhava, that is ‘ the guest is god’.

Introduction

Simply defined tourism is the business of travel. Expanded it means anything we do to serve the needs and demands of travellers. More elaborately tourism is referred to,

‘ the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal places of work and residence, the activities undertaken during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their needs’( Hunt and Layne 1991).

Tourism is diverse; tourism is dynamic; tourism is all inclusive of many facets of activities and is therefore difficult to bound it by a formal definition. Cook,Yale,and Marqua(2007) refer that tourism includes a wide array of people, activities and facilities. Therefore, tourism is normally considered to comprise of provisions and services of transportation, accommodation, food and beverages, attractions and destinations for visits, entertainment and information. All of these components have one predominant feature, that is customer service. It is basically the service which determines the satisfaction of the traveller who can be more appropriately referred to as the ‘customer of tourism’.

Customer contact model and tourism

The service element is unique in this sector of industry. Services in general follow the ‘customer contact model’. The degree of contact between the customer and the service provider often determines the customer satisfaction. Higher the contact , higher the degree of satisfaction. Conversely, low and indifferent contact can spoil the satisfaction and in some areas creates a negative state. The degree of contact is also differently described as service encounter.

The encounter

Every interaction between a service provider and the tourist becomes a service encounter. Both a tourist and the tourism service provider carry their expectations when they meet and interact. A tourist has built up his expectations from several sources of information. It comes largely from his friends, relatives who have visited the destination before and have spoken of their experiences. I t can be a personal experience of the tourist who this time once again desires to visit the place possibly with his grown up family or new friends. His past experience has been in a state of ‘delight’ and the destination is exercising a great ‘pull’. The tourist in these days of website revolution is also greatly influenced by the promotion publicity provided by tourism promoters over the internet through glossy photographs and a superlative language. As a matter of fact, tourism promotion through internet is emerging one of the major influencing components in enhancing tourism. In a similar context the tourism service provider has great expectations from the tourist. No doubt, tourism is business and every business has to finally result in a good bottom line for the service provider. The service provider therefore carries expectations that the ‘deal’ of a tourist visiting the destination will go through. The service provider has to equip himself with all the knowledge, information, props to win the customer. An encounter is often compared to a theatrical play, where everyone has to put up a performance as per the role demanded. In an encounter it is essentially the ‘performance’ of the service provider to bring the encounter to a successful conclusion. Unlike the arena of a Spanish bullfight where it is the bull who stands always vanquished, in a service encounter it is a win-win situation. The service provider wins his bottom line of business transaction; the tourist his level of satisfaction.

The front office and the back office

The success of the performance depends on the personal attributes of the service provider to create confidence, acceptability, the trust and a ‘show’ when the interaction takes place. All the service providers are not equipped with these qualities, Therefore, service operations are designed to create front office and the back office. There are two categories of service providers: one who work back stage and are happy to work as support functions to ensure smooth running of the theatre. The back stage work is also responsible for efficiency, in cutting down of costs and achieving high utilization of facilities. The front office employees then take the responsibilities of winning over the customer through direct interaction with the customers. It is not to belittle the role of the back stage. The two roles supplement each other. This integration is vital to reach success in tourism.

An Integration model of Tourism

Cook et al( 2007) present an integrated model of tourism. It is explained that a traveller as a tourist is the focal point for all tourism activities and forms the centre in this model. The authors explain that‘radiating from this focal point are three large bands. Each band has several interdependent groups of tourism participants and organizations. These three bands have been titled as :Tourism promoters, Service providers, and External environment. The band of tourism promoters has professional services such as tourism agencies, tourist boards, travel agents, and tour operators. The band of Service providers caters to provision of services of accommodation, food and beverages, transportation. The last band represents the External environment with components of economy, political environment, technology, and society/culture. A change in these dimensions can make a vital change in forcing the status of tourism in a geographic region/ a country. The model stresses on integration, working together of various components to enhance tourism.

Systems Approach to Tourism

This paper considers that tourism can be visualized to operate following a systems approach. In systems theory of management, a system has several components, called as sub-systems and sub-sub-systems in case the systems are large. These sub-systems interact with each other, impinge and influence each other and are interdependent. It is the holistic performance that counts. The performance of the silos carries a little significance as no subsystem is responsible in entirety for its performance. In this context the tourism as a system operates as an open system , where there are no boundaries creating isolation of each of the sub- systems. The influence permeates across the sub systems.

The following sub-systems are proposed:

Tourism Strategy Sub-system

This sub-system is a management sub-system, is central to the organization and provides support in policy matters to all other sub-systems concerning tourism in the country. The main objectives of this sub-system are to lay down policy directions for establishing, expansion and growth of tourism. How a nation views tourism as an engine of economic growth, as an opportunity to generate employment and conceives innovative programmes to encourage tourism is a subject which is the focus of this sub-system. Most importantly, this sub-system determines a nations attitude to the growth of tourism and this is reflected in allocation of funds, taxation policy, incentives to open new areas, new capacities, and permission to new initiatives. Simultaneously, the policy decisions take care of conservation of natural and cultural heritage from exploitation to the extent of decimation, ethical issues, and permission to enter some certain tourism pursuits. The state regulators have a major role to play and develop a strategy of tourism for the country. There are visible different policy directives and these vary from one country to another. India, for example does not permit casinos on Indian soil, whereas in some of the destinations, Macau for example Casinos play a major role to attract tourism.

HRD and Tourism Strategy Sub-system:

Gupta(2003) mentions that tourism is a major social phenomenon of the modern society with enormous consequences. Promotion of the tourism generates a plethora of both economic and social benefits, infrastructure development, and social integration. Tourism as an economic sector has challenges to meet the needs of trained and educated manpower for various facets of tourism management. Ashraf and Pooja Mathur ( 2003) point out that there is an increasing demand of human resources who can plan, design, develop, manage, promote tourism or even train manpower to run agencies, to operate tours or even to act guides. The customers are increasingly becoming more discriminatory and look for more quality services. Globalization has added a further dimension of awareness amongst the tourists. There is increased competition from all areas. A tourist expects to be guided on convenient travel, places of destinations to be visited, comforts, care, social customs practiced to avoid annoyance to the local population, availability of preferred food, use of scarce funds. HRD has emerged as a major factor to determine competitive advantage for tourism industry. A trained right human resource enables to provide the right context to a tourist. The sub-system has a role to create a resource of skilled, trained personnel for the range of tourism activity. Tourism requires trained human resource as managers on one side, and staff to carry out both front office and back office operations. Leaving aside some large organizations such as chains of hotels which can afford to set up their own training schools, It becomes the responsibility of the central regulators to create an infrastructure of training schools and provide a choice of professional courses to create trained manpower. New demands have emerged on tourism in this age of international traveller and internet. The trained manpower needs to be exposed and educated in understanding the management function, behavioural aspects of conduct and encounter, relationship management, comprehensive understanding of the human nature, knowledge about the unique demands of a customer coming from a foreign country, knowledge of IT, exposure to money transactions, handling of grievances and professionalism. A capable HR manager in tourism is instrumental to implement the central policy , create a climate of trust, and openness through his professional conduct. Apparently when such trained manpower is available, there is also going to be an impact on policy making. Professional advice would now improve the quality of such policies.

Tourism Facilities Sub-system

This sub-system concerns tourism facilities and these include destinations, accommodations, food and beverages, transportation, sports and entertainment. Destinations cover a wide spectrum. On one side there are holiday homes, resorts, golf resorts, health rejuvenating centres which should not be seen as temporary accommodation to spend a night or so but rather a restful place for away from the maddening crowd. The other destinations include experiencing a past glory in the form of heritage cottages, havelis, old forts, palaces, memorials, city sights to make the dreams come true. New forms of destinations are getting invented. These include visits to places of spiritual experience, watching ceremonies such as change of guards at international borders( a big daily draw at Indo-Pak border), worship rituals at major temples, sites of worship, sound and light shows etc. The traditional destinations such as museums, shows, displays of antiquity, zoos, botanical gardens wild life sanctuaries, night safaris, jungle travels continue to be popular .

Accommodations in the form of hotels, pensions, economy hostels are the sources of major income and generate a good degree of employment. These are made available for different classes of customers depending upon their capacity to pay. Besides, the demand can vary in a substantial manner from season to season. Use and availability of technology is increasingly playing an important role. Transportation is another major facility which can make or mar a travel and customer satisfaction. Tourism in recent times has got a major boost because of innovatory schemes such as creation of old charm trains dedicated to tourists, linkages to important centres of destinations creating tourist-sectors, designing the travel schedules to the convenience of the tourists (Delhi offers convenient connection to the Taj Mahal so that a tourist comes back same day without having to spend a night at Agra).

Hospitality is incomplete without mention of food and beverages. Globalization has created a major impact on this sector. People coming from various backgrounds demand their preferred food. It is very common to see tourism promotion advertisements in Indian media offering Indian vegetarian food to group tourists planning a trip to Europe. Offer of vegetarian food to air travellers by any carrier is now a no more a novelty the way it was perceived a decade earlier. Sports and Entertainment is a fast emerging a major tourism interest sector. There are amusement parks offering various types of shows as folk dances, rock–music, magic, animal performances, tricks; theme parks, wax museums, ocean parks, Disneylands, planetariums, sound and light shows etc. Then there are water games, skating, rafting encouraging tourists to participate. Most of these are manmade creations and are innovations. Organising sports events is yet another form. The world cups with lavish start and closing ceremonies, the presence of the cheer leaders, the league matches in cricket, soccer, baseball have created another category of tourists who would travel from far and near to be a part of the excitement.

HRM and Facilities Sub-System

HRM is needed in all of these areas. There is both diversity and complexity in these facilities. One cannot have an expert in travel arrangements to take care of hospitality in a hotel or be knowledgeable about various cuisines. The operational demands of these facilities require skills, trade knowledge and core strengths of subjects. There is thus a need for professional schools for each of these areas. These are to be supplemented with communication and other behavioural skills. These facilities are integrated. A tourist desiring to be present at a sports event needs travel arrangements, transportation to reach the destination, accommodation, food, beverages, health care and other needs. These are vital as otherwise his visit is meaningless and cannot take place. There is therefore not only a need to run these facilities in a professional manner but even to create a coordination and a holistic performance. The coordination of such a complexity calls for the use of manpower with high analytical skills and knowledge of IT.

Tourism Marketing Sub-system

Tourism is to be seen as any other business( Burns et al.2005). The fundamentals of marketing as are followed in any business segment are also applicable here with only minor changes. The foundations of marketing tourism are built around understanding the needs of the tourists and making an offer of tourism attractions fulfilling the needs of the tourist customers. The approach follows the classical steps of carrying out marketing

Information

The process starts from seeking information about the travellers. This may cover their personal profile including the age groups, education, exposure to external surroundings, their life-style, attitudes to communities at destinations, their reservations on food, leisure pursuits, levels of trust in fellow travellers, tour agencies, attitude to move together, exposure to adventures etc. Another area of interest to any business, including tourism would be understand the affordability of the tourist to spend. The human nature changes. There are also changes necessitated because of globalization of the society . The tourist gets exposed to new standards of comfort and enjoyment. Information therefore needs to be collected frequently and updated on a continuous basis(Cohen 1972).

Motivation to travel

Together with information about the tourist, it is necessary to find out and understand the motivations of a traveller to embark on travel or plan a tour. Cook( 2007) describe that there exist two theories: the push and pull motivations. The travellers are pushed to travel by personality traits or individual needs and wants. These refer to inherent desire of a human being for travel, to go for adventure, to enjoy life after a hard work and success. Students, executives, businessmen are seen to reward themselves of travel to in the name of holiday after a success in their studies, business pursuits, or projects. The traveller wants to escape the mundane routine and seeks a destination away from the stress and worries for a while. He looks for getting pampered and an award of treatment reserved for the kings. The pull theory refers the attractions and compelling desires or appeals or attractions of a destination to a tourist. He is attracted for example to see the Taj Mahal in India, because he has heard about it as one of the seven wonders of the world right from his childhood. The recent royal wedding in England attracted millions.

Segmentation:

In marketing of products or commodities, it is well known that one cannot satisfy all the customers all the time. This is more true in case of services such as tourism. The tourist has his own inclinations and needs. Successful marketing strategy segments the customers and then targets them to attract following the pull or the push motivations. Both Singapore and Malaysia have understood the psyche of an Indian tourist seeking a clean conservative family entertainment and have designed the tourism around the this tourist. Both the countries have claimed a big success. Nepal on the other hand targeted inner urge of a male Indian to go for casino, banned in India. It is no wonder that Nepal casinos are crowded by Indian males sans families. You find Hindi as the lingua franca in these casinos. Segmentation of tourism market is a complex issue. It follows several approaches. The segmentation can be demographic, geographic, psychographic. This could also follow segmenting on interests such as historical sites, spiritual tourism, wild life, heritage oriented.

Promotion:

Marketing and promotion go together. Promotion actually highlights the destinations suited the needs of the customer. The promotion can take place different routes: facilities, easy travel, amenities, promise of experience and fantasy. The vehicles used for promotion are several and change with technologies of the time. Internet and websites have emerged as the main vehicles. Wordof mouth publicity continues to tower. A tourist plans his programme because some one has spoken high of his experience.

HRM and Marketing sub-system

The sub-system has the highest need of trained human resources. Tourism service supplier caters to a number of services related to tourism. The tourism promoters can be found as tour operators, travel agents, tourist boards and as tour guides. It covers provisions of transportation, accommodation suiting the pocket of tourists, serving food and beverages, entertainment, and as tour guides at destinations. The last mentioned in it is a high variety occupation. It covers historical places, safaris to wild life, visits to religious places, attractions, places of cultural impacts and several more. The tour operation and the occupation of tour guides need training, exposure to history, knowledge about the sites, habits of the wild life and more. A specialization is now emerging in this profession.

A successful tourism operator is one who has knowledge of consumer characteristics or what can be called as consumer behaviour. This calls for a grounding in basic aspects of human psychology

Quality Sub-system

The objectives of providing tourism service are to generate customer satisfaction. Services in tourism are essentially intangible in character . These also cannot be inventoried and preserved for future usage. Besides satisfaction of a customer implies fulfilment of his specific needs, which may vary from person to person. Unlike physical products, it is therefore difficult to define quality in the context of tourism. Cook et al( 2007) refer that additionally hospitality, an essential component of tourism cannot be separated from Quality of tourism. The two factors are once again linked to perceptions of customers; actual service received as against expectations carried by the customers. The comparison or the gap between the two determines the level of customer’s satisfaction. A delighted customer is a valuable customer who passes on the word of praise to other customers indecisive to take to travel. Recourse is often taken to PZB Model or the instrument of zones of tolerance to carry out evaluation.

H RM and Quality Sub-system

HR is once again the focus to deliver quality and customer satisfaction. A professionally qualified and trained service provider becomes a change agent and creates learning organization dedicated to continuous improvement. A tourism organization achieves excellence through encouraging its employees to achieve organizational excellence. It selects right type of people with positive attitude and service attitude, team-workmanship, flexible approach, willingness to help people in need , trains and develops them imparting soft skills. It encourages them to actively participate, support and work in teams, empowers the teams to make decisions and carry on improvements. It is a committed employee which can generate customer satisfaction.

External Environment Sub-System

External Environment as a sub-system envelops the other sub-systems. In other words the external environment (EE) sub-system creates an overall boundary under which the sub-systems operate. EE is referred to in terms of applicable political environment, economy, technology, and general cultural aspects of the society it envelops. The political environment determines the law and order situation, the respect for authority and trust for the visitors. Economy refers to the state of prices, availability of products and indirectly affordable travel friendly environment. The cultural aspects of the people refer to attitude of the people at large, adjustability to diversity of social practices and behaviour. The level of education, exposure to technology and belief in rationality and scientific practices is another dimension of the culture.

HRM and External Environment

E E as represented through culture of its people has a profound impact on tourism. It can transform tourist satisfaction to delight. Another culture can convert satisfaction to disastrous dissatisfaction with tourist taking a pledge never to return. Two examples from the authors personal experience are worth narrating.

Back in early seventies it was my first visit outside my homeland India. As a young employee of ABB, I was deputed to ABB’s then headquarters at Baden-Swirtzerland for a training of three months. It was the first day. As I waited at the bus stand to catch a local bus to ABB’s office, a young student of age 5-7 came up to the bus-stand apparently to catch his school bus. He wished me a polite ‘Gutes Morgan’. Nothing unusual! Followed more students possibly 20 of them who came in singles, twos or threes. And individually one by one each wished me ‘Gutes Morgan’. I was amused, surprised and confused. I looked at my dress. Did I look some prince from India or a dignitary or a celebrity? I could not discover any answer.

As I reached office I narrated this episode to a friend of mine, an Indian married to a Swiss girl and settled since long in Switzerland. I confronted him,

‘Look I did not know any one of those young scholars. Neither they knew me. Why were they so courteous to me?’

My friend looked at me amusingly and explained,

‘ Yes it is true you did not know any one of them. But you are wrong in your second observation. Every one of the school kids knew you’. I looked at him quizzically. He went on,

‘ Every single of them knew that you were a tourist in Switzerland and it meant that you were their bread and butter. You were precious for them and most welcome. You would continue to get this welcome of politeness, courtesy as long as you would be here.’ It is a part of Swiss culture towards the tourists.

That is the impression I carry about Switzerland and should have spoken in superlative terms hundred of times.

In late nineties I had to visit Singapore with my wife and daughter, then studying medicine, as tourists. That evening we took a trip of night safari, Singapore’s absolutely marvellous , well planned unique offer to see the nocturnal animals in their original habitat. It was past midnight when were returning to our hotel. We were ga-ga over the safari’s silent train and muted commentary telling the tourists about the nocturnal habits of various animals. Tired as we were, we quickly walked out of the cab after settling the bill. Once at the hotel counter to claim our room key we realized that our costly camera was missing. Our faces went pale.

From our hushed conversations in Hindi and English, the reception desk hostess realized that something was amiss. She came up, ‘ Sir you do not have to worry. You are in Singapore. In half–an hour maximum, when the cab driver discovers your camera in his cab, he would be here.’

Needless to point out that we got our camera in less than fifteen minutes. The cab driver declined to accept any reward /or tip in return.

That is the power of attraction Switzerland and Singapore exercise on tourists to come again and again.

Conclusions

Tourism is the world’s largest industry, generating employment for millions. It is dynamic, diverse and fast growing. It appeals to the basic instincts of a man to know more, to experience, to enjoy, to get entertained and see things for himself. Simultaneously, it is intensely HR oriented. The servers require training, development, knowledge and expertise to deal with fellow human beings. The foremost essential aspect is to understand the needs of the tourist and discover means to satisfy the needs. The human nature varies, it changes with time and environment. The tourism industry, therefore has also to work and invent new destinations, design new attractions appealing to the five senses and bring about the improvements. It is a continuous process.

References

Ashraf S Hussain, and Pooja Mathur( 2003) . ‘Human Resource Development in Tourism Industry’ in, Tourism Industry in India, Ed. Panda, Tapan K. and Mishra Sitikantha, Excel Books, NewDelhi.

Burns, Alvin, and Bush, Ronald F.( 2005). Marketing Research. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Cohen, Eric.(1972). Towards a sociology of international tourism. Social Research 39(1), pp164-182.

Cook, Roy.A., Yale Laura J, and Marqua, Joseph J(2007), Tourism-The Business of Travel,Pearson Prentice Hall, Delhi.

Gupta S.K( 2003). ‘Tourism Education in the21 st Century: Challenges and Opportunities’ in

Tourism Industry in India, Ed. Panda, Tapan K. and Mishra Sitikantha, Excel Books, NewDelhi.

Hunt , J.D., and Layne,D.( 1991). Evolution of travel and tourism terminology and definitions. Journalof Travel Research, pp7-11.

Issues facing both the hotel industry and the providers of online hotel reservation services

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:20:20 +0000

Issues facing both the hotel industry and the providers of online hotel reservation services

OWEN EASTEAL

Tourism Department

Visiting Lecturer University of Economics, Poznan

Visiting Lecturer University College of Business, Poznan

Based in the UK

owenconsult@enetworkers.co.uk

Abstract: Historical context / GDS / Business Travel Agents / Creation of online hotel reservation services / What do such services offer? / Special provisions for corporations and business travellers / Positive and negative issues for both parties / International aspects / The future.

Key words: History / GDS / BTA’s / Beginnings / Offer / Business travellers / Issues / International development / Future

This paper is intended as an overview of the past, present and future issues facing these two important elements of the tourism industry. It is based on the practical experience of the author who spent more than ten years in the hotel industry at a time when developments in IT and the concomitant electronic reservation systems were having their first effects on the hotel industry. This coincided with the entry into the hotel market of entrepreneurs who recognised the enormous business potential of newly created electronic reservation programs. They saw the benefits that would accrue to their customers by having an opportunity to better compare hotel offers in their chosen destination as well as facilitating a complete transparency of hotel rates and services. The author has spent the last eight years working in very close association with the two major, leading online hotel reservation services in Europe and has assisted their entry into global markets and specifically that in the UK. The comments and issues raised are purely based on experience of the author, both past and present, and represent an interesting historical aspect of the growth of the two branches of the tourism industry.

1.GDS (Global Distribution Systems) and their role in the development of online hotel booking services

These systems were created by the airlines in an attempt to benefit from the increasing sophistication of computers to enable them to handle the ever-increasing number of flights and passengers with which they were having to deal on a daily basis. Not surprisingly the first systems were developed in the USA since it was here that the greatest flight volumes were to be found. The systems were cumbersome and would-be travellers still had to phone in to make a booking but now the confirmations could be issued at once without having to sort through card index systems to find the correct flight on the correct day with the additional work of having to enter the passenger name on this. As computers increased in speed and power and their introduction in general commerce became more widespread the airlines saw an opportunity to increase both their revenue and to improve their customer service by allowing selected travel agencies to have one of their reservation terminals in the office to enable them to book flights directly for their customers. These were the days of the stranglehold of IATA on ticket sales and travel agencies often had to pay to have the terminal despite the fact that they were selling the products of third parties.

It is really surprising that as the power and reach of computing and online systems increased the airlines took some time to appreciate that they had spare capacity on the computers and servers in which they had invested vast sums of money. Even more typical for electronic developments was the fact that each of their systems operated differently and were not able to “speak” to one another using interfaces which are quite normal today. However they then realised that travellers do not just need the means of transport but also need somewhere to stay in their destination. Thus the first tentative connections were made to hotel CRS (Central Reservation Systems). The hotels now not only had to pay the originating travel agent the normal level of commission but were now also obliged to pay a transaction fee to the owner of the applicable airline reservation system.

This occurred at the end of the 1980’s when it was only hotel chains with a very extensive geographical reach and distribution that had such system anyway.

The advent of the 1990’s saw a very rapid increase in the use of electronic systems and soon the GDS were offering car hire and other ancillary services enabling the local travel agent to become a true “one stop” shopping experience which benefitted the traveller enormously. This did result in a very considerable upswing of hotel bookings made directly from such systems. Interestingly it did not result in a drop of bookings from travellers or travel agents made directly in the hotel. Therefore these electronic bookings were in most cases true incremental business. The hotels may have recognised this but nevertheless they employed many tactics to try and maintain full control over their rates and inventory by pushing their own corporate and leisure rates (through direct sales on which they generally did not have to pay any commission).

2.The rise of Business Travel Agents

Concurrently with the rise in the use of GDS for hotel bookings, business travel agents were created catering only for the needs of business travellers, especially from large companies. These agencies all had GDS terminals but added to the worries of the hotels by demanding special rates, often much lower than the corporate rates already on offer and even less than the Business Travel Agent rates hastily introduced by hotels. There were many heated discussion within hotel companies as to the policy to be adopted. This was understandable as the actual rates in hotels were being diluted through the traditional commission paid (perhaps as much as 12% depending on the country in question), the transaction fees of the GDS (in excess of $ 3 per booking – subject to negotiation), an additional premium of 5% commission paid to Business Travel Agents and now a demand from the latter for even better rates, often still to be commissionable. This resulted in most hotel companies considerably developing and refining their own reservation systems to try and compensate for these demands from the market and to safeguard their own destiny, as they saw it. Indeed many smaller chains and marketing cooperations decided to create their own CRS (useful also as a sales’ tool when selling the product to new franchisees).

There was, and still is, a major disadvantage for hotels in using GDS. The amount of information about the hotel, the number of room types and rates is limited, especially when comparing this with their own systems or those developed by the specialist online hotel reservation systems. (This also applies to the major switching systems such as Trust and Pegasus).

3.The creation of online hotel reservation services

So where did the idea of stand-alone online hotel reservation systems originated? The invention of the internet really gave great impetus to the development of such systems as previously any reservation system had to have its own dedicated communication system or use the public telephone network. Holiday Inn even had its own satellite for the transmission of reservations and messages through its Holidex system. Now, with the advent and enormous speed of use and growth of the internet the system became available to all for the transmission of data. Undoubtedly many people all over the world were working to develop systems using the internet but it is likely that the very first system in Europe was developed by Hotel Reservation Service (HRS) based in Cologne, Germany. The author was working in the hotel industry at the time of its introduction and it spread fear and dread amongst the hotels. As is the case even today, many of the systems could not interface with the hotel’s own system and therefore meant extra work for the reservation department in the administration of same. Naturally, the more systems used the greater the chance of human error in the manual entering of data from one system to another. Perhaps the greatest issue that arises when using several non-connected services within a single hotel is the management of room availability in each of them – how many rooms are made available each day in each system? Since the creation and development of HRS many others have seen the opportunity presented for such reservation services and there are now a multitude of different systems some merely domestic in their scope and others (the majority) being truly global in their reach.

4. What do Online Hotel Reservation Systems Offer?

The offer made is very wide depending on the business philosophy and strategy of the provider of the system but the most successful in the area of hotel bookings would seem to be those that only provide hotel bookings and do not diversify into car hire and so on. There is also a differentiation in that some providers offer mostly hotels for the corporate traveller whilst others place more emphasis on leisure travel. This latter segment is being increasingly offered by the business travel sites as everyone also travels during their leisure time. It is also important to note that the corporate hotel week has decreased from Monday to Thursday night to Tuesday to Thursday over the last 20 years, indeed many business travellers are now checking in on Sunday to benefit from the cheaper rates usually available on that day.

4.1 Free registration and inclusion on the website – at first companies tried to levy an annual fee but this had to be low (and therefore attractive to the hotels) and the administration and collection of such fees usually cost more than the monetary value to the company levying the fee. Therefore most companies will now enter a hotel into their system free of charge, as long as it meets basic criteria. What does this free registration include? Inclusion on the website and therefore making the hotel visible and available to book to customers / uploading of a certain number of hotel photographs (long proven to be a decisive factor in the hotel selection process) / a detailed hotel description written by the hotel / technical advice and assistance / a 24/7 reservation office for the benefit of affiliated hotels.

4.2 Marketing measures – free or for a charge. Banners, inclusion in regular, electronic mailings to registered customers, opportunity to promote the hotel through customer competitions, presence at many trade shows and exhibitions throughout the world, indirect promotion through Google Ads, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) through linkage with many other websites, links to affiliated partners who also accept hotel bookings from their customers. The opportunity to offer packages through the website has proved to be popular amongst hotels.

4.3 Flexibility of Hotel Offer - the hotel has complete control over its inventory and may open and close dates, change rates and booking conditions and alter room allotments at will.

4.4 Various Search Modes – the first hotel search is based on the dates of stay and the chosen destination. Should this not prove to be successful it is possible to make a vicinity search to find a suitable hotel. Search for a hotel near company premises or a customer to be visited, the airport, railway station or famous tourist sight. All results are presented on an interactive map and even driving instructions can be called up and printed out. Google Earth is sometimes provided so that guests can also view the surroundings of their selected hotel.

4.5 Bookings from customers globally – to hotels throughout the world based on a simple destination search. A commission is charged by the provider on the check-out value of the booking. It requires absolutely no pre-knowledge of the hotel chain or destination on the part of the traveller.

4.6 Links – to many thousands of booking agencies who in turn work for a split commission but who increase the reach of the system very considerably.

4.7 Transmission of customer credit card details – used to guarantee a booking especially at very busy times.

4.8 Sales Executives and Overseas Offices – these are maintained by the provider and ensure further domestic and global reach for the online reservation service.

4.9 Meeting Bookings – many providers now have an interactive booking application for meetings. These are becoming increasingly sophisticated and detailed to enable organisers to save time when researching venues, booking meetings and planning both room requirements and meal arrangements as well as their requirements for meeting space.

4.10 Loyalty schemes The linkage to and incorporation of loyalty scheme bonus points offered by many hotel chains is mostly possible.

4.10 Instant confirmation of bookings 24/7

5. Special Provisions for Corporations and Company Travellers

5.1 Integration of the provider’s system into the company intranet.

5.2 Adaptation of the system to the “look and feel” of the Company’s own website.

5.3 Special icon for hotels offering corporate discounted rates identified in the search result list.

5.4 Special icon for hotels having specially negotiated (nett) rates with the company concerned. These special nett rates are booked by the provider free of commission as long as their total does not exceed a certain percentage of the company’s bookings made.

5.5 Employee locator for use in times of crisis and as part of the duty of care legislation.

5.6 Management statistics are provided online and can also serve to police any travel policy decided by the company.

6. Issues which can be viewed as both positive and negative by the hotels

6.1 Commission level Most hotels now accept that their position in the search result listing for their destination is of paramount importance, especially in large cities with a multitude of hotels. Many providers now have the facility to accept “bids” of higher commission on realised bookings to achieve a higher placing in such a listing. It must never be forgotten that most online hotel reservation services have a single income stream – COMMISSION. For survival this pre-supposes a monthly realised booking volume of at least 2 million bookings in order to be able to sustain an SME (small to medium sized enterprise) with their daily company costs, those for research and development and the purchase of new and ever more powerful servers.

6.2 Price Parity Quite understandably hotel chains wish to maintain their pricing integrity. At the start of online hotel bookings many providers insisted on the “best price” in the marketplace, exclusive to themselves. Nowadays all have realised that this is not realistic – it is also very difficult for hotels to otherwise remember to whom they have granted the most favourable rates! However all providers do have staff who check pricing structures regularly to identify hotels which have not adhered to the condition of price parity.

6.3 Room availability It is almost a pre-condition of acceptance for inclusion in the online reservation system that a hotel will maintain a reasonable level of room availability throughout the year and this is checked frequently by the provider.

6.4. Hotel classification International variations do give rise to misunderstandings and therefore most online providers do not utilise the star or other system common in the country in question. They prefer that the rate, hotel description and photos will be the determining criteria in making a booking.

6.5 Hotel inspection Due to the fact that most providers have several hundred thousand hotels in their system actual inspections of hotels are rare. However it has been found that guest evaluations are often a very important determinant. (See section 6.6).

6.6 Guest Evaluations These are increasingly important features of all online booking services. However, in order to avoid unjustified or vicious comments they have to be “policed” regularly. Hoteliers also have the opportunity to respond to comments – either positive or negative and most providers have a clause allowing them to exclude such comments.

6.7 Contracts When working globally this is often a difficult point of negotiation. The provider will usually name their own country law as that applicable – for a hotel in another, far-off country this can often be seen as difficult to accept due to language, costs in the event of litigation.

6.8 Hotel / Client Suspension The right to suspend either a hotel or a client is an essential condition of most business contracts. For hotels this could arise as a result of non-payment of fees or commission, a high level of guest complaints or the non notification of troublesome renovation work. For the client this could be as the result of frequent no-shows, non-payment, non-observance of visa requirements and fraud.

6.9 Value for Money Surveys These are increasingly used in Press Releases and serve to show travellers which cities offer the best value for money. This can be an important tool when deciding annual tactics when a company is working to a specific budget for a city/country.

7. International Aspects

7.1 The provision of the services in a number of languages and, increasingly, enabling the use of other script forms (Chinese, Cyrillic, Arab, Hebrew, etc.) has assumed greater importance.

7.2 Overseas Offices with native speakers enhancing cultural understanding and a good knowledge of the local markets

7.3 International trust Nowadays many systems are truly global and have managed to obtain a .com web address. Many people are reluctant to trust their bookings to a “foreign” company and the anonymity of .com helps companies to maintain a more international image. e.g hotel.de AG uses hotel.info for their international offices and business. Suitable domain names in the this area have significantly increased in rarity and therefore value.

7.4 Electronic booking systems have furthered the understanding of yield management in hotels, thus making the online booking systems an ideal way of trying to sell distressed inventory (unsold rooms on the day of arrival) at the last minute. As a result staff competence in managing inventory and practising yield management has increased enormously and a large hotel will often employ a specialist in this function.

7.5 Provision of statistics This can be a double-edged sword for both the hotel and the customer. It makes the negotiation of special rates for subsequent years much easier as both parties have the same statistics and no unrealistic claims can be made.

8. The Future

What is the future of such online hotel reservation systems and the companies that provide them?

Ever-increasing competition will necessitate companies being more flexible and innovative at ever greater speed to be able to remain in business.

The investment in hardware will be constant and increase in relation to the success of the online provider.

On-going program development is time consuming, costly BUT essential..

Will the internet and the use of email decline due to the development of instant messaging as is forecast by some experts?

The increase in “Last minute” bookings in both the business and leisure segments makes the need for fully interactive systems in real time an essential of the modern booking world.

What will be the future function of social networking sites and iPhone Apps as a medium for the transmission of hotel bookings?

At present the market is in control through almost complete transparency of pricing and offers. What will new developments in the future bring?

Bibliography: this paper is based on the author’s more than 20 years experience in global hotel sales and the subsequent 10 years spent working for and assisting in the development of online hotel reservation systems as well as having responsibility for the start-up, management and growth of overseas sales’ offices for same.

Urban Environment for Sustainable Tourism in small traditional city

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:19:07 +0000

Urban Environment for Sustainable Tourism in small traditional city

Assoc.Prof.Dr FERIDE ÖNAL

Faculty of Architecture Yıldız Technical University Besiktas-Istanbul

TURKEY

fonal@yildiz.edu.tr

Abstract: Tourism has become a major international industry, with many countries all over the world relying on the income it produces. Its economic advantages as a major source of finance and employment leads to its active promotion by governments and other institutions, independent of the consequences on the urban environment, ecology and social structure of affected regions.

This paper mainly examines to analyze the problems of the traditional small cities in the context of its development processes and to understand what can be done in order to maintain a sustainable tourism development by evaluating its historical background and current resources. The importance of rehabilitating the traditional pattern of these cities, through which can preserved that its sense of identity and counteract social alienation, is going to be underscored. The city of Bolvadin, which is located on the west of Anatolia is the case of this study.

Key Words: Urban Environment, Sustainable Tourism, urban spaces, Anatolian cities

1 Introduction

The most widely known definition of sustainable development comes from the Brundtland Commission, which defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.“

“Improving the quality of life in a city, including ecological, cultural, political, institutional, social and economic components without leaving a burden on the future generations. A burden which is the result of a reduced natural capital and an excessive local debt. Aim is that the flow principle that is based on equilibrium of material and energy and also financial input/output plays a crucial role in all future decisions upon the development of urban areas.”

Sustainable communities are defined as towns and cities that have taken steps to remain healthy over the long term. Sustainable communities have a strong sense of place. They are places that build on their assets and dare to be innovative. These communities value healthy ecosystems, use resources efficiently, and actively seek to retain and enhance a locally based economy. Unlike traditional community development approaches, sustainability strategies emphasize: the whole community; ecosystem protection; meaningful and broad-based citizen participation; and economic self-reliance.

Sustainable community development is the ability to make development choices which respect the relationship between the three “E’s”-economy, ecology, and equity: Economy – Economic activity should serve the common good, be self-renewing, and build local assets and self- reliance.

Ecology – Human are part of nature, nature has limits, and communities are responsible for protecting and building natural assets. Equity – The opportunity for full participation in all activities, benefits, and decision-making of a society.”

A city is moreover “the place of assembled institutions.” where people come together, bringing with them their understanding of the world and ought to be dynamic without losing its identity as a place. After the industrial revolution, the cities have been subject to poor quality designs, economic dispersion, social differentiation and the invasion of vehicle traffic. So that, the loss of historical and cultural identities, the fragmentation of space through losing its integrity and particularly public spaces that have been worn out irremediably. In this context that focuses on the re-structuring of urban space, arrangement of public spaces, the utilization of historical and the traditional pattern of the city, through which can preserve sense of identity and counteract social alienation, is going to be underscored.

It is strongly believed that developing more sustainable cities is not just about improving the a biotic and biotic aspects of urban life, it is also about the social aspects of city life, that is—among others—about people’s satisfaction, experiences and perceptions of the quality of their everyday environments. In terms of the sustainability of places, managing tourism can have substantial inherent potential to underpin sustainable development and conservation.

WTO defines sustainable tourism as “Tourism which leads to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essentials ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems”and having the following characteristics;

minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts;
generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities,
improves working conditions and access to the industry;
involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances;
makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of
the world’s diversity;
provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local
people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;
provides access for physically challenged people; and
is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence

2 A Spatial Analysis Of Bolvadin

Anatolia, in which many civilizations existed through the history, played an important role as a cultural bridge between east and west. Many trade roads, like Ancient Royal Road, Silk Road,and Roman Period Roads crossed Anatolia. Bolvadin carried the advantages of being located on important trade roads like Ancient King Road and Silk Road during its history

During its history, the Ottoman city differed from the European and pre-Ottoman Anatolian and Balkan cities with its formal aspects:

The Ottoman city is an open city which does not include sharp boundaries between urban and rural areas.
The city center does not have only one landmark, but fragmented between different landmarks and places.
The cemeteries, meadows and “bostans” (market gardens) were not only the extensions of the city, but also provided open space for the people.

The street-pattern of the Ottoman city is irregular and narrow. In the city usually a main road exists, which crosses the city from one end to the other and on which the bazaar, hans and mosques are arranged. This axis was formed in the pre-Ottoman time, during Hellenistic and Byzantium periods (Cerasi 1999: 91). In Ottoman cities, a place or a point, which had superimposed different functions, symbols or representational elements became the center. While none of the Ottoman cities had an administrative center, the local and the governmental officers organized their works from home.

Bolvadin city, located on the inner-western part of Turkey, is one of the oldest settlements in Anatolia and carried the advantage of being located on important trade roads and it had a very active economic life. It also has potentials like fertile agricultural lands, rich underground water sources and it has a spatial pattern which has been shaped by the cultural and social heritage of different civilizations. With its organic street pattern and architectural features, it reflects the characteristics of a traditional Anatolian settlement. Just like many other Anatolian settlements, the open spaces of Bolvadin also became private by walls surrounding them, and a differentiation between internal and external had been created within the city pattern. This internality made it possible to sustain openness behind the walls, without being disturbed by the public life outside.

The city has been demolished because of many earthquakes and wars, and it has been rebuilt throughout its history. The changes that the city went through gave the city its unique character. It has been a center of economic activity for its surrounding settlements, but as its economy remained dependent on agriculture, the city could not retain its privileged position. As a result, today Bolvadin city with all aspects that are peculiar to both urban settlements and rural settlements is a product as a heritage tourism destination.

Fig.1-2 Bolvadin city plan

3 The Problems and Potentials of The City

The changes of population due to socio-economical reasons have changed the city formation through ages and Bolvadin carries the characteristics of a rural settlement as well as an urban settlement. On the other side, the development process of the city displays some kind of special problems of its own. The lack of an efficient planning mechanism and as a result, the misuse of the land can be considered as the most critical ones among these problems.

Hans, Kervansarays, Hamams, Bedestens and Medreses were built during these years and these functions indicate the economic, social and cultural importance of the city. Today we can get information about these structures from literaturere only. Most of them have been demolished because of wars, earthquakes, and lack of awareness of historical conservation. Having these aspects at the same time, Bolvadin carries many problems and potentials within itself.

Fig.3-4 Streets of Bolvadin

One of the most important problems is the pollution of natural water sources of the city such as Lake Eber, Heybeli Thermal Waters, because of industrial wastes. Lake Eber, which is an important economic potential for the city, has been losing its natural habitat. Heybeli Thermal Waters is also important as a potential health tourism center. For now, these two water resources cannot be used efficiently. Bolvadin stems from the expansion of the city towards its agricultural areas and pastures. These natural lands are under the threat of an urbanization caused by wrong planning decisions.

One other problem is that, regardless of cultural and social heritage of different civilizations that shaped the center of the city, the new developments grow in a system which does not consider the organic pattern of the historic center. Thus the city center keeps losing its characteristic spatial properties.

Although the city grows up through its periphery, the historical center still keeps its importance as the heart of the city, with its economic, cultural and social aspects. But this results with the invasion of the center with motorized vehicles. The city is deprived of its pedestrian character Also, the new developments which do not consider the organic city pattern of the historic center. Thus the city loses its characteristic spatial properties.

All these problems are related to the development process of the city and they stem from the lack of an efficient planning policy and management. This results in insufficient use of the potentials of the city to the full extent.

4 Conclusion

As a result of the planning decisions which do not consider the historical, cultural and natural values of the settlement, Bolvadin has begun to lose many of its potentials and values. This means the loss of our cultural heritage for the next generations and leaving a burden on them. Therefore a wide-spread research and an analytical study, which will reveal the needs of the inhabitants and evaluate the potentials of the city is necessary. Addressing the community’s needs and aspirations while raising awareness of the value of the cultural resources should also be an important goal in tourism and conservation activity. This can be achieved by the reuse and building of new forms that are an expression of the community’s cultural, social, and economic values.

Having said that;

restoration of local ecosystems: decreased pollution and damage to the health of citizens and the environment, and use of sustainable agricultural systems,
creating local economies: revitalization of existing industries, opening of new local business and job development opportunities by using the existing potentials of the city,
participation: creation of common ground for all community stakeholders and citizens to plan effective change should be maintained.

The gradual lost in the meaning of local identities in urban spaces, traditional public spaces have been replaced by the ones, which have been defined as “non-place” as their relationships have been simulated, identity has been “created” and historicality has been lost in a continuous perception of now. By protecting the city’s natural and cultural values, promoting the local economy by evaluating the existing potentials and maintaining the participation of the citizens in order to create common interests and benefits, it is possible to maintain a sustainable development for Bolvadin. As well as, tourism can have positive attributes for conservation and sustainable development and it can also increase an appreciation for the historic environment, contributing to greater local and cross-cultural understanding. This is not only crucial for the future of the city itself, but also it can be a chance to build up a model for other similar cities which are facing very similar problems today.

References:

Beer, A.R., Urban green space and sustainability. In: van derVegt, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of a PRO/ECE- Workshop on Sustainable Urban Development: Research and Experiments, November 1993. Dordrecht, The Netherlands,1994 Breheny M., Sustainable Settlement and Urban Form, London, Pion Ltd,1992

Butler, R.W., sustainable Tourism: A state of the art review.Toursim Geographies,vol,1 issue1,1999 Cerası.,M. , Osmanlı Kenti,Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda 18.ve 19.yy da Kent Uygarlığı ve Mimarisi, İstanbul, Y.K.Y.1999 DETR, Planning for the Communities of the Future, London, The Stationery Office,1998 Gehl J., Gemzøe L., Public Spaces Public Life, Arkitektens Forlag,Copenhagen,1996 H.M. Government , A Better Quality of Life, A Strategy for Sustainable Development for the UK, London, The Stationery Office,1999 Porta S. , The Community and Public Spaces: ecological thinking, mobility and social life in the open spaces of the city of the future, in Futures, 31, p.437-456.UN-CSD, 1999 Sachs, I, “Transition Strategies for the 21.Century” Nature and Resources, UNESCO, vol. 28,1992 SERPLAN, A Sustainable Development Strategy for the South East (SERP 500), London, SERPLAN,1998 URBED, “The Model Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood?” Sun Dial, Issue 4, 1997 http://www.e-unwto.org http://www.icrtourism.org/capetown.shtml http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/isd.htm http://www.indigodev.com/Sustain.html

Green Tourism Marketing; A New Perspective from Grant’s Grid

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:15:21 +0000

Green Tourism Marketing; A New Perspective from Grant’s Grid

Canan Madran, Ph.D.,Professor

Marketing Department

Çukurova University, Faculty of Economics &

Admininstrative Sciences

TURKEY

cmadran@cu.edu.tr http://idari.cu.edu.tr/en

Abstract:

With its current practices, Tourism industry has many negative effects to environmental protection. Marketing people -all in public, government and private level specialists- working in tourism sector, should configure the best green solutions for the current and future strategies. THE REAL GREEN alternatives are needed. This paper uses John Grant’s Green Marketing Grid to suggest a new perspective(re-thinking process) about tourism marketing strategies.

Key-words; Green Marketing, Sustainable/Responsible Tourism, Ecotourism, Green Marketing Grid

Introduction

Tourism, “the pipeless industry” creates huge amounts of contaminants, consumes loads of natural sources and energy, and sometimes leads cultural and historical corrosions. Globally, tourisim shuffles across almost 1 billion people every year by various touristic purposes. With its current practices, Tourism activity has many negative effects to environmental protection (Archer&Cooper, 1998). These can be summarized in general as (Akdoğan & Kozak, 1996:79);

• Touristic facilities and buildings disrupts environment and environmental systems.

• Touristic facilities usually spoils the general sightseeing of the area.

• By tourism activity natural protected areas gets contaminated in various dimensions (air, water, land).

• Production of touristic services create enormous amounts of waste and hard to solve sewage problems.

• Noise pollution.

• Both on the seashore and in every touristic locations, tourism creates irregular urbanization.

• Transportation creates many environmental problems and pollution.

• Unplanned and misusage of scarce natural and historical sources.

Table 1.Tourism and Environmental Issues in Time

Period	Theme	Environment	Tourism
1950s	Interest and discovery	Use and exploit	Beginning of mass tourism
1960s	Gaining conscio-usness	Public interest and protests	Development and enhancement. Environmental issues are seen as attraction.
1970s	Institutionalisation	Environmental Office in charge in USA.Concern on air and water contamination	Growth and success period, Marketing, Research on influences of tourism to environment
1980s	Toxic concern	Acid rain, global warming, ozon layer corrosion	Enlarging world market, technologic improvements
1990s	Rain forest destruction	Climate change,loose top soil, global affects	Ecotoursim, sustainable development
2000s	Global warming	Disasters,clean energy sources, recycling	Slow city practices, ecotourism,

Source: Adapted from Toker, 1995:49.

These first decades of the year 2000s is a crucially important period, to redesign the common perspective and behaviour about environmental issues and tourism. Otherwise there will be no clean, nice, relaxing, exciting and safety tourism possibility in the late of the century. As the other dimensions of the sustainable development, tourism should be redesigned, rebuild, redefined according to the potentials of current and future resources.

1.Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The pillars of sustainable tourism are environmental integrity, social justice and economic development. In Responsible Tourism management – which is a form of sustainable tourism concept- individuals, organisations and businesses are asked to take responsibility for their actions and the impacts of their actions. Responsible tourism applications covers the following qualifications (wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Sustainable_tourism,2011);

Minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts,
Generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities,
Involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances,
Makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity,
Provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues,
Provides access for people with disabilities,
It is culturally sensitive, it engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

One of the very important dimension of the success of Sustainable and/or Responsible Tourism (Archer,Cooper; 1998, 78) is, it should have a community based- management approach. This form of tourism is based on the premise that the people living next to a resource are the ones best suited to protecting it. The tourism activities and businesses are developed and operated by local community members, and certainly with their consent and support. The use of local knowledge also means an easier entry level into a tourism industry for locals whose jobs or livelihoods are affected by the use of their environment as tourism locations (wikipedia.org/ wiki/Sustainable_tourism).

2.Ecotourism and Ecotourist

Under the sustainable tourism philosophy, the most practical concepts are Ecotourism and Ecotourists, which we will use for the applications of the green marketing issues. These concepts are the target markets of marketing strategies imposed by governments, tourism industry and individual companies, hotels and tourism agencies. Ecotourism had been defined in 1990 by TIES(The International Ecoturism Society) as; “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people” (wikipedia.org/ wiki/Sustainable_tourism). Another definition asserts those dimensions of ecotourism (Whiteman,1996, 97), those are;

Direct experiencence with natural and cultural environment,
Defining the environment according the rules of nature, not the tourists,
Accepting the limitations about the usage of natural and cultural resources,
Planning and participating in ecotours,
Improving the environmental ethics concern of tourists,
Economic contribution to tourism industry,
Directing part of the income to the local area of the natural resources.

Ecotourism is defined as an enligthening and respectful form of natural tourism experience (Wight,2001). All of the definitions has three pillars of ecotourism; environmentally sustainable, economically practical and socially and psychologically acceptable.

3. Green Tourism Marketing

Sustainable tourism management needs real green ways of doing business. Green marketing is defined as follows in marketingpower.com(2011); “(social marketing definition) The development and marketing of products designed to minimize negative effects on the physical environment or to improve its quality. 3. (environments definition) The efforts by organizations to produce, promote, package, and reclaim products in a manner that is sensitive or responsive to ecological concerns”. According to Grant (2008), to avoid from the greenwashing threat, green marketing suggests realistic marketing approach to brands and companies. Company and the customers should be in cooperation in the total green process.

Current marketing practices and habits are mainly different forms of “greewashing”. Greenwashing is showing the normal things as green. But the new marketing paradigm should refuse this tricky approach. Even the mass productions were named or labeled as “natural” and “ homemade”. New approach of sustainable marketing refuses the mass consumptionalized, desire-lubricating advertising and promotion practices. But it offers a realistic, transparent, consumer-friendly, cooperative, social network based and a clearly recommended concept. Green marketing takes care of the consumers and educates them. Green marketing contains not only “the good-looking products”, but also “the real good products”. Marketing can easily makes the different things and issues to be accepted as “normal”. The ideal mission of marketing should be to motivate consumers to be more GREEN (Grant, 2008:68).

Grant asserts two main debate areas of perception as “to cut” and “to switch”. Actually these two concepts are inevitablely important for a final decision to sustain. The waste hierarchy, refers to the 4 Rs of reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and added “re-think”. 5Rs is a beginning step to understand the new marketing approach. To cut; means to consume less, to have simple lifesytles, to share more, to buy from real “good producers. To Switch; means to quit from unconscious consumption habits, and change the behaviours to buy ethic, rational, low carbon and fascinating, improved products. Especially in the last 50 years, consumers were tought to consume unconsciously by large advertising and marketing mechanisms. But according to Grant; marketing is still one of the most important mechanism to impose and teach consumers new thoughts of new lifestyles. (Grant, 2008:9-10).

3.1. Green Marketing Matrix

Green marketing matrix is a two dimensional matrix.

1^st Dimension. Making important modifications in consumption culture and life styles.Green marketing has 3 activity based objectives (Grant, 2008:28);

Green – setting new standards- communication; ex.Fuel efficient cars
More Green – sharing responsibilty – cooperation; ex. Campaign for using cars efficiently (low carbon, fuel saving)
Greenest – supporting innovation – to change culture; to rent, to lend or to share the car when unused.

2^nd Dimension. Grant suggests 3 hierarchical levels; Public, Social and Personal levels of action.

Table 2. Grant’s Green Marketing Grid

	A.Green		B.More Green		C.Greenest

1. Company &		Set an Example		Develop the Market		New
Markt						Business
						Conceps


2. Social Brands		Credible		Tribal		Trojan
& Belonging		Partners		Brands		Horse
						Ideas


3. Personal Goods &		Market a		Changing		Challenge
Habits		Benefit		Usage		Consuming



	Setting New Standards-		Sharing		Supporting
	Communication		Responsibility		Innovation-
				Cooperation	Culture reshaped

Source: J.Grant, The Green Marketing Maifesto, MediaCat, Istanbul, 2008

Strategies in the matrix blends issues from “sustainability”, “web 2.0” and “new marketing paradigm”. “Web 2.0”, are 2^nd internet generation which the users share and use the services in common (ex. Wikipedia, youtube) (Grant,2008:29-31). Green marketing matrix can be enlarged for the tourism industry (Grant,2008:94-97).We will supply some examples for hotels, travel agencies and transportation companies and even for the government, and tourists for each box of the matrix.

A.1 Set an Example: Hotels should announce that they have new environmental standards and they should promote the pioneering innovation; as the green energy sources of the hotel(ex.a windturbine, solar energy). “Zero carbon emission airways” as Aeroperlas REGIONAL in Panama, SANSA REGIONAL in Costa Rica.

A.2 Credible Partners: Cooperation with reliable partners, as Green Globe International, Blue Flag, PATA Green Leaf etc.. Green sponsorship is a useful effort as Cittaslow Supporter .

A.3 Market a Benefit: Green products are good for all. Green efforts create savings on the costs and produces high quality products. Thinking and working on the green issues enriches the industry. Travel by bicycle (Velib-Paris), solar powered car, or sailing boat produces no carbon emissions.

B.1 Develop the Market: Hotels or tourism companies having comprehensive sustainable programmes, create highly respected reputations against competitors. Humane tourism, to empower local communities through travel related businesses around the world is a market development strategy. The ultimate purpose is to create “ Mass ethic consumers”. All shareholders of tourism industry should be included the “environmental training” programmes. Provacative and pioneering tourism organizsations should make publicity on various environmental issues. Campaigns and grassroot movements enlarges the understanding in the market.

B.2 Tribal Brands: Tourism organizations and companies should create strong networks of users and participants. “Elite” eco-tourists, or “green” travellers would be the admired consumers of tourism.

B.3 Changing Usage: There are two ways of changing usage; 1^st changing with a better alternative; using train for all accessible area instead of plane. 2^nd way is to cut the unsustainable usage; avoid to select hotels which has no environmental concern, or ceasing flights in close destinations, accessible by train and seaways in Europe.

C.1 New Business Concepts: Creating a new way of operating or new business models. These efforts are redesigning of the world and culture. Cittaslow is the part of slow movement, which is a new way of living in modern world. Cittaslow practices are good examples as Biskupiec, Reszel,Lidzbark Warmiński in Poland.

C.2 Trojan Horse Ideas: This contents all examples, which suggests radical green innovations via cultural packages. How could familiar cultural ideas be used to establish new norms?, How to make a green brand a cool brand?, How to make a green hotel, a cool alternative?

C.3 Challenge to Consuming: Current consumption economy is not sustainable. Tourists should use products in long lifespans, they should share instead of to collect, and they can rent the things needed. Traditional constitutions welcomes modern ones,so there is a need to appraise the things belong to old times, the classics of all areas are meaningful for human being. So, people can still find symbols and meanings to consume without comsuming resources needed for new. Being Slow is an important resource of power, Being Local is the second. Single use, disposables should not be in the green tourism consumption. Retro is a never ending fashion, keep and use long. DIY (Do It Yourself) is a very green alternative. Rental services are green; in London City Club you can rent a car in the club and only pay when you use it.

Discussion

Marketers are the ones who can introduce the new ideas, new lifestyles, new paradigms and the ones who knows the best how to change the attitudes and behaviours. The new upcoming paradigms of these decades should be REAL GREENS.

Grant (2008) rounds up with;

“As communication experts, marketers are in a place where they can really influence, and hopefully change the way we, the consumer, behave…In the west, an uneconomic, non‐satisfactory,luxury consumption comes to an end… Brave‐hearths are needed to decrease Carbon footprints as 70%… The job of the marketer is to change life styles of the people…”

Personal resource usag

References

[1] Akdoğan, M., Kozak, N., Genel Turizm İlkeler-Kavramlar, Ankara, 216 pages, 1996

[2] Archer, B. Cooper C., The Positive and Negative Impacts of Tourism, in William H. Theobald (eds) Global Tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann,1998

[3] Grant, J., Yeşil Pazarlama Manifetosu, (The Green Marketing Manifesto), Mediacat Yayınları, 2008

[4] Toker, M. C., Türkiye’de Turizm Ve Çevre (Karşılıklı Etkileşim Yaklaşımı Açısından Bir İnceleme), Master Thesis, Gazi University, Institute of Social Sciences, Ankara, 1995

[5] Whiteman, J. Ecotourism promotes, protects environment, Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy [Forum Appl. Res. Public Policy]. Vol. 11, no. 4, 1996, pp. 96-101

[6] Wight, P., Ecotourists: Not a Homogenous Market Segment,in David B. Weaver (eds) The Encyclopedia of Ecotourism,CAB International, 2001

[7] wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Sustainable_tourism,2011

[8]www.marketingpower.com/_layouts/Dictionary.aspx?dLetter=G, 2011

Application of destination management in the conditions of the Slovak Republic

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:14:10 +0000

Application of destination management in the conditions of the Slovak Republic

Ing. Katarína Kleinová, PhD., Ing. Juraj Neománi

Department of marketing, Department of informatics

Faculty of economics and management

Slovak university of agriculture

Trieda A. Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra, Slovak Republic

katarina.kleinova@fem.uniag.sk, juraj.neomani@fem.uniag.sk

Abstract

This article maps the current state of tourism in the conditions of the Slovak Republic in term of new emerging tourist organisations called clusters, which opens up the issue of the application of destination management and marketing in Slovakia. The article is processed on the basis of summarizing and analysis of available information about the theoretical approaches to the existence of the destination management organizations, which are becoming an important determinant of a success of the tourist regions on the global market.

Keywords

Cluster, destination management and marketing, tourism, Slovakia

Introduction

In most advanced economies of the world, the tourism is considered as a significant sector of the national economy. In Slovakia is however, only tolerated industry, which is continuously overviewed and retracted whether by the automobile or any other industrial sector. Tourism in Slovakia is the industry, which directly in services (hotels, restaurants) employs currently more than 111 000 employees and its absorption capacity is many times higher. One working place in tourism can create up to 2.6 work places in other related sectors of the economy such as trade, transport and other services. Today tourism produces approximately 2.7% of GDP in Slovakia. According to an estimate by the European Commission this sector has the potential producing up to 12% of the Slovak GDP and so become one of pillars of the Slovak economy.

Tourism management system and support of its business environment is in the current conditions, trends, needs of the management industry in times of crisis and growing competitive pressures from abroad insufficient. It is ensured by the dysfunctional organisational structures and the lack of effective programming documents of the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic. [1]

In Slovakia, there are also associations of the tourism, but those really well-functioning could be counted very easily and quickly. Cooperate with competitors in business, find a common language between entrepreneurs and municipalities or between municipalities themselves as if contravene to the Slovak naturalness. Many argue that are waiting for the Law on Associations of tourism, which is said already for years. They hope that this law will determine the conditions for the establishment and funding of associations.

Results and discussion

The strategic objective of the development of tourism in Slovakia is increasing its competitiveness for a better exploitation of the potential with the intention of balancing regional disparities and the creation of new job opportunities. For the fulfilment of this objective have been defined five specific aims of the development in the tourism sector in SR [2]:

enforcement of the position of tourism industry in national economy,
increase of the attractiveness of Slovakia as a holiday destination,
increase in the volume of a residence of tourism,
improve the structure of visitors in Slovakia with the upgrading of the provided services,
support the creation of new jobs in regions with a significant potential for tourism.

The State policy of the Slovak Republic perceives and promotes tourism respect to four principles:

Tourism is a tool of support increasing competitiveness, structural changes in the economy and sustainable development with an intention to increase the share of foreign exchange revenue from active foreign tourism to GDP from the current 2.7% to 4% in 2013.

Table: Current state of tourism in the Slovak Republic

Source: Ministry of economy of the SR

Tourism is a tool for the development of employment and the flexibility of labour markets. The most visited area of Slovakia is north however the highest dynamics of development records the housing facilities in the Bratislava region. Simultaneously, we can allege that the overnights in the Bratislava region have short-term character with the fact that there is recorded the lowest average length of stay. We can say that in more than 11 million nights a year, hotels and restaurants create one working place at the approximate level of 110 overnight stays. For completeness it should be noted that the lowest average nominal salary in the economy had just staff in hotels and restaurants. However the Slovak Republic cannot be described as the country of “cheap labour”, despite of the fact that wages are substantially lower than in the countries of the Western Europe. The differences between the countries of the European Union and the Slovak Republic are reducing when the lower wage is combined with a high payroll tax.
Tourism is a tool of regional and business development. The current organizational structure of tourism in Slovakia is characterized by instability, opacity, uncertainly defined relations, competency and responsibility, as well as the outstanding resources for funding. For the current period is also characteristic an unsystematic approach to the issues of development of tourism. With the proposal of the Law on Associations of tourism it is advisable to lay the foundation for the improvement of cooperation and partnerships between businesses, local or regional municipalities and the State administration in the field of tourism, as well as the determination of the funding. The Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development wants to make the tourism in Slovakia more effective with the preparation of the new law. Preparation directly follows the accepted amendment of the Law 91/2010. The aim of the Law is the creation of a complex product of tourism, which will be competitive in the European environment.
Tourism is a tool for presentation and promotion of Slovakia. Policy of tourism promotion of the Slovak Republic on the domestic and foreign markets means support to the marketing of tourism of the Slovak Republic at the international, national and regional levels associated with the sales promotion of the tourism products. Creation of a majority of tourism products will be implemented in regions where the main initiators are primarily businesses in cooperation with local and regional tourism associations, higher territorial units and by public authorities. To created products and the identified target groups is necessary to create a suitable marketing communication of tourism in Slovakia, which fulfil the main objective the increasing of the informedness, building the positive image of the country and excitation of interest to visit Slovakia as a holiday destination.

In the tourism of Slovakia, more precisely in its organizational structure from 2008 appear new tourism organisations called clusters of tourism, whose aim is to obtain for its tourist region or locality more significant position on the market, the higher number of visitors and overnight stays. Clusters of tourism with the aim of coordinating the development of tourism in some territory from one headquarters thus open an issue of application of destination management and marketing in Slovakia.

The formation of modern organizations of tourism has a number of reasons. As the key, we can mark changes of the conditions on the global tourism market – changes in the environment in which the entities of the tourism are operating as well as changes in consumer behaviour of the customer, who under the influence of globalisation became more demanding and more experienced. The existence of new tourist destinations carries with it the need to monitor and respond to the competition. On the other side the unique character of the tourism industry, which is typically with the predominance of small and medium-sized enterprises is already inherently destined for cooperation. Many barriers of the development as for example: the lack of specific know-how, information, finance in a particular territory helps to overcome just associating the actors of tourism into the common organisations.

The justness of the existence of modern tourism organisations which help targeted to develop industry in some territory, is in the 21st century already indisputable and confirmed with positive results in many foreign regions. Despite of all Slovak clusters are fighting with distrust and negative attitudes towards them. Often they are seen only as useless “younger brother” till now known associations of tourism. Especially the public sector is perceived them as a competitive element in the field of promotion of tourism. The cause is a low level of knowledge on the issue about destination management and marketing. [3]

In the region with tourist potential it is essential that such an organization works, which would initiate and manage the entire process of development of tourism. Also in cooperation with the private and public sector and with the local people. Taking into account the needs of visitors, the economic interests of the tourism industry but at the same time reducing the potential negative impact of the development of tourism on the people of the region.

On the management of the tourism destinations should participate businesses, civic and cultural organizations, public administration, municipals and citizens. Coordination of the interests of all interested is one of the conditions for a conflict-free development of tourism in destinations. To no less important suggestion of good functioning of the organization belongs creating a functioning financing model. It may be member contributions, the income from own business, from organizing events, from intermediation of accommodation and other services. Another source of revenues may consist of contributions from municipalities, regional governments, local fees, grants, loans and funds of the EU. [4]

In comparison with the abroad the prevalent forms of management and marketing of tourism in Slovakia corresponds approximately to the development phase which have passed the advanced foreign destinations in 50-70th years of the last century. This phase is characterized by simple cooperation activities focused mainly on promotional activities – common promotion of cities and regions, participation on exhibitions, the setting up of information centres. From approximately 90th years of last century foreign destinations use more advanced form of management and marketing – destination management and marketing. On the tourism market thus under the influence of the higher mentioned changes has become the fundamental competitive unit a destination as a whole. The process of building new, modern tourism organisations in Slovakia (destination management organisations – DMO, clusters of tourism,…) is currently necessary, without fundamental systemic changes Slovak tourist regions won`t be competitive on the global tourism market. [3]

In comparison with the competition we literally “slept” the arrival and use of modern tools for the development of tourism in Slovakia. Countries, which in the past held a large World or European sport or cultural events, they use them in favour of getting visitors to their destinations already for several years before their proceedings. Why is currently on the national tourism portal not established a specific tourist offer and promotion of the upcoming World Championships in Ice Hockey 2011 – Bratislava, Košice or European capital of culture 2013 Košice? The answer to this question can be found even in a non-functional organisational structure of tourism in Slovakia. [5]

The foundations of a modern and most advanced form of management of tourism in the localities and regions today stand on the organizations of destination management. Clusters such as destination management exist in Slovakia in many sectors of industry. Their range extends from the automobile production, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and plastics to the IT technology and tourism. [6]

All these initiatives created as associations of legal entities. The clusters focus mutual linked firms and suppliers in the related industries. They are unified by sub-contracting, the same purchasers, sales and common exploited technologies. Probably the best known is for us the automobile cluster – Western Slovakia, which originated in Trnava in 2007. Supports automobile industry through innovation and covers a number of firms in this field. The second oldest cluster is the Association of Košice IT Valley, in Detva became the first Slovak engineering cluster, in Galanta very prospective electronic cluster and in Nitra operates a Slovak plastic cluster. In the field of tourism also operates in Slovakia several clusters:

Cluster Liptov – is an Association of legal persons established in the year 2008 with the vision to build from Liptov a European recognizable destination of tourism with the strategic objective of increasing the visit rate of the region Liptov till 2013. The cluster for its members and partners from the tourism industry in the region Liptov fulfils the role of official common marketing and organizational headquarters, coordinates the development of tourism at regional level by promoting tourism as a sector in the region. Founding members are the four most significant entities of the private sector from Liptov – Thermal Park Bešeňová, Aquapark Tatralandia, Jasná Nízke Tatry and Skipark Ružomberok and three cities Liptovský Mikuláš, Liptovský Hrádok and Ružomberok.
Cluster Orava – set on 10th June 2009. Since that date began to work as the next organization of destination management in Slovakia and common marketing headquarters for destination Orava. The effort of the Orava cluster is with own activities to get Orava on the map of the searching European destinations, to present Orava under the single brand home and abroad, to create competitive products of tourism and to encourage cooperation in the region. The aim of the association is to create a positive image of the region for the visitors, investors and citizens of the region, organize common marketing of tourism and territory of Orava, as well as mutual offer of quality tourism products in Orava. Among the founding members belonged Aqua Relax Dolný Kubín, Ski Park Kubínska hoľa, Ski resort Roháče and tourist–information portal of the region Orava. On 20th August 2010 cluster Orava became also a founding member of the Union clusters of Slovakia. Founding members were Slovak plastic cluster, first Slovak mechanical cluster, Košice IT Valley, cluster Liptov, cluster Orava and cluster Turiec.
Cluster Turiec – is another association in the north of Slovakia. Its founders have become cities Martin and Vrútky, travel agency Fatra Ski and ski resorts Snowland in Valčianska dolina, Jasenská dolina and Winterpark Martinky. Cluster develops activities leading to a substantial increase of informedess of Slovak and foreign guests about the potential of the Turiec region as a tourist destination.
Cluster Tatry – began to operate in February 2010. In conditions of the Tatras is for now the biggest step forward cooperation between business and municipal sphere with a aim of more effective marketing and development of the region. The founding members were Tatranské lanové dráhy, Aquacity Poprad and the cities Vysoké Tatry, Poprad, Svit a Štrba.
Cluster in Western Slovakia – was established in 2008. It represents a concentrated group of independent, regional interconnected companies and institutions associated with the potential to increase their competitiveness. The aim of the cluster is on the principle of partnership encourage and promote the development of tourism in the region, maintain the various sectors of the interdepartmental level and make available the cultural, historical and natural heritage. The founding members of this cluster are self-governing region Trnava and the city Galanta. Associate members are cities Sereď, Dolná Streda and Šoporňa.
Balnea cluster Dudince – originated in June 2008 as the first Spa cluster in Slovakia. Its members are city Dudince, a self-governing region Banská Bystrica, the Spa Dudince, hotels Hviezda, Prameň, Flóra and Park Hotel. The aim of the association is to learn people about excellent effects of healing water in Dudince and to come many clients to Dudince for the best services.
Cluster Smolenice – was created in March 2010 as the first Slovak village cluster in tourism. Its members have become municipality of Smolenice and almost everyone, who run a business in the tourism of Smolenice. The cluster yet operates only on the territory of the village Smolenice, enlargement on the territory of the other villages is in the plan, but the surrounding municipalities have not showed a great interest in tourism so far.
Cluster Košice – is the first urban cluster of tourism from June 2010. Generated marketing activities of the cluster of tourism use in particular a unique marketing brand of Košice – European capital of culture 2013.
Cluster of tourism wants to create also the city Nitra. Cluster would join the main actors acting in tourism in the territory of the city and its surroundings. This intent is part of a larger project within which shall be created also the Concept of the development of tourism in the city.

Currently, all the cluster initiatives of tourism organise various events and active marketing in order to support the attendance of the regions and the promotion of its members. Frequency of executed actions (participation at trade fairs, presentations at conferences) is on average once a month depending on the actual needs. Cooperation inside of the cluster initiatives is based on developing mutual confidence and the contacts of management of individual members, the exchange of information, common decision, solving problems and sharing of costs.

The main problems are considered by the cluster initiatives the insufficient financial resources for their operation, the overall low level of innovations in the services sector, inefficient use of resources of the Slovak Agency for the development of tourism but also the lassitude about the development of the sector of tourism from the state.

The Slovak Innovation and Energy Agency [7] developed a SWOT analysis of cluster initiatives operating in Slovakia:

Strengths:

synergy of knowledge of voluntarily associated members,
counterbalance of small and medium-sized enterprises against large enterprises,
bargaining power when buying and selling,
distribution of costs and more options in the field of research and development, advertising, presentations of enterprises at fairs and exhibitions, counselling, training of staff, legal services, logistics, distribution,
more flexible responses to market requirements,
support of the development of the region.

Weaknesses:

the current low informedness about the possibilities of the association of enterprises,
problem of selecting appropriate enterprises to cluster,
little experience with this form of organisation,
the mutual distrust of small and medium-sized enterprises, the distrust towards the cluster,
complicated state administration,
the lack of public support mechanisms,
lack of skilled worker.

Opportunities:

cooperation with universities (science and research, education, market surveys),
cooperation with secondary initiatives,
the possibility of obtaining support from the state and the EU,
the support from operating region (regional government, higher territorial unit),
lobbying,
availability of loans,
better option to get high-quality employees,
the increase of technology transfer, innovation awareness,
cooperation with other large businesses or clusters (domestic and foreign),
the possibility of establishing the common management of knowledge,
the creation of new and more stable jobs,

Threats:

disputes of the members inside the cluster,
imposition of information inside the cluster,
non-cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises,
issue of the implementation of the financial commitments incurred by the operation of the cluster.

Conclusion

Tourism industry in Slovakia is fighting in the long term with many problems. The initiative clusters of tourism endeavour from the 2008 after more substantial changes opened up the issue of the application of destination management and marketing in the practice of tourism in Slovakia. The strong and competent management organizations of tourism on the local and regional level may already in the near future considerably strengthen promotion of Slovakia as an attractive tourist destination for domestic and foreign markets.

References

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Labour Market Issues on Tourism Management: Case on Turkish Tourism Sector

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:13:04 +0000

Labour Market Issues on Tourism Management:

Case on Turkish Tourism Sector

Dr. BUHARA ÖNAL

Occupational Health and Safety Institute(İSGÜM)

Ministry of Labour and Social Security

İst. Yolu 14. km 06370 Yenimahalle Ankara

TURKEY

buharaonal@yahoo.com http://www.isgum.gov.tr

Abstract :

This article includes the labour market issues in tourism sector in Turkey. It is aimed to define infrastructure, planning and investment problems firstly and then to solve these problems.

Tourism sector is raising among the other sectors regarding employment issue recently in Turkey . In this context, coordination with public and private institutons, professional organizations, social partners and NGOs is emphasized to ensure social dialog and peace at work in the tourism sector.

Besides, this study explains in details Turkey Tourism Strategy 2023 which aims to evaluate all aspects of tourism sector particularly employment issue and to improve the conditions in the sector.

Key-Words: labour market in tourism, employment in tourism

1 Introduction

Regarding income of tourism sector in the world, USA is the first country and the others are Spain and France respectively. On the other hand, althogh Turkey has an important advantage regarding geographic place, climate and natural sources, it has failed to reach tourism potential of these countries and thus it remained in tenth level.

The main reasons of this failure are determined as inadequacies regarding infrastructure, planning and investment. The principal infrastructure problems are urbanization and transportation problems. Besides, environment problems are important as well.

World Economic Forum explained that Turkey can not compete in this sector because of health, hygene and transport problems and warned Turkey to protect its natural sources more.

However, it can be observed that Turkey would increase the tourism income in the recent years. It has dynamic young population who can be adapted to the tourism and special socio-cultural features, therefore is very attractable tourism center.

Turkish Statistical Institution informed that cost of labourforce in tourism sector increased recently; while cost of average labourforce per month in Turkey became 32%, the same cost in tourism sector became 48%. Despite it is estimated that informel workers are about 1.5 million, it is observed recent numbers of informel workers decreased and the enterprises recorded increased.

Tourism sector contributes country economy as a dynamic sector and its importance in the national income increases. Also it is very important regarding the employment. However the needs of the tourism sector should be defined to improve the sector; the most important one is the need of qualified personel. Since it is a sector which develops according to service qualification, qualification issue is very crucial issue in order to improve it.

2 Problem Formulation

Number of employees in tourism sector has increased as parallel of tourism investments in Turkey. Therefore, training and employment of employees become significant factors in this sector.

Recently training programmes have been improved according to the new legislation related to vocatonal training, so that qualified labourforce would be trained effectively. Professional standards in tourism sector have been published in 2010 and all training programs of personel in this sector were started according to the standards.

Regarding employment problems, approximately 100.000 employees recorded in tourism sector according to the legislation on Social Security. However, estimated number is higher than this, so national budget is affected negatively by informal sector which causes insurance and tax problems. Another important issue on employment is subcontractor, in this case common responsibilites are taken account.

Besides, extension of working hours of employees is another crucial problem for employment in tourism sector

Lastly, no participation of trade unions is one of the most important issue in torism sector in Turkey.

Vocational and technical training should be given according to the needs of labour market in tourism.

Scientific researches for required professions in tourism sector should be conducted in cordination with universities

Employment of labourforce should be increased and the relationship between training and employment should be strenghtened.

Active labourforce politics should be implemented effectively by supporting life long learning.

3 Problem Solution

Infrastructure

Projects on improvement of tourism sector should be conducted in coordination with Tourism Ministry.

Integration of transportation should be performed immediately.

Tourism Ministry, local organizations and related parties should be met tocomplete lack of infrastructural problems.

Architectural arrangements should be organized.

Planning

Planning should be included a tourism principle which supports economical development, is implemented physically, is community-orientated and sustainable.

To plan tourism investments, economical sustainability, culturel richness, employment quality, security, physical integration, resource effectiveness and environmental protection should be placed.

Strategic planning which includes participative and sustainable development should be realized functionally.

Investment

Investments and incentives should be increased in order to support projects as sustainable and applicable.

Burochrathic barriers should be eliminated.

Firms should be documented and accreditated.

4 Conclusion

Tourism sector is raising among the other sectors regarding employment issue recently in Turkey . In this context, coordination with public and private institutons, professional organizations, social partners and NGOs ensure social dialog and peace at work and more comprehensive researches in the tourism sector.

Turkey Tourism Strategy 2023 aims to evaluate all aspects of tourism sector and to improve the conditions and thus, it should be tried to implement effectively.

Economical and Social Committee which is established according to EU norms should be worked effectively.

References:

AĞAOĞLU, O. Kemal; “İşgücünü Verimli Kullanma Tekniklerinin Turizm Sektörüne Uygulanması,” Verimlilik Dergisi, Milli Prodüktivite Yayını No: 457, Ankara, 1992.

AYKAÇ, Burhan; İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimi ve İnsan Kaynaklarının Stratejik Planlaması, Nobel Yayın Dağıtım, Ankara, 1999.

BİNGÖL, Dursun; Personel Yönetimi ve Beşeri İlişkiler, Atatürk Üniversitesi Basımevi, Erzurum, 1990.

CAN, Halil; Yönetim ve Organizasyon, Adım Yayıncılık, Ankara, 1992.

DALLI, Özen; “Turizmde İnsan Kaynakları Planlama ve Geliştirilmesi,” I. Turizm Şurası, 20-22 Ekim, Ankara, 1998.

ERTAN, Hayrettin; “Otel İşletmelerinde İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimi Açısından İşgören Devir Hızı, Anlam ve Önemi (Bir Uygulama)”, Yayınlanmamış Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Balıkesir Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, 1997.

JIANG, William Y.- SUSSKIND, Alex M.; Human Resources Management: Challenges for the Hospitality and Tourism Industries, Edited By Richard Teare, Bonnie Farber canziani and Graham Brown, Global Direction, Cassell, 1997.

KAYNAK, Tuğray; Personel Planlaması, İ.Ü.İ.İ.E. Yayını, İstanbul, 1990.

KAYNAK, Tuğray; “İnsan Kaynakları Planlaması,” İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimi, İ.Ü. İşletme Fakültesi Yayın No: 276, İstanbul, 1998.

KOÇAK, Nilüfer; “Türkiye’de Turizm Sektöründe Çalışan Personelin Eğitim Düzeyi ve Turizm Eğitimi Veren Meslek Yüksek Okulları,” I. Ulusal Turizm Sempozyumu, 17-19 Eylül , Eğirdir, 1998.

OLALI, Hasan- KORZAY, Meral; Otel İşletmeciliği, Beta Basım Yayım Dağıtım A.Ş., İstanbul, 1993.

ORAL, Saime- KURGUN, Osman Avşar; Otel İşletmeciliği ve Otel İşletmelerinde Verimlilik Analizleri Kanyılmaz Matbaası, İzmir, 1997.

PAKSOY, Mustafa; Avrupa Birliği İle Bütünleşme Sürecinde Türk İşletmelerinin Yönetim Sorunları ve Çözüm Yolları, Yaylım Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 1998.

PALMER, Margeret-WİNTERS, Kenneth T.; İnsan Kaynakları. Çeviren: Doğan Şahiner, Rota Yayınları, İistanbul, 1993.

SEYMEN, Oya; “2000′li Yıllarda Konaklama İşletmelerinde Stratejik İnsan Kaynakları Planlaması ve Bir Model Önerisi”, Turizm İşletmelerinde İnsan Kaynakları Yönetimi, Hafta Sonu Semineri VII, Nevşehir, 2001.

The tourist values of the Poznań Agglomeration

Peter Odrakiewicz — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:12:35 +0000

The tourist values of the Poznań Agglomeration

Adam Lewandowski

PhD student of the University of Economics in Poznań

Faculty of Economics

Poland

adam_lewandowski@op.pl

ABSTRACT

In 2010, we celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the reinstatement of local government in Poland. According to the provisions of the law, the citizens of towns and communes became rightful members of local communities who perform public tasks in their territories on their own behalf and on their own responsibility. In the general opinion, these two decades of self-government in Poland were a period of progress in the development of technical and social infrastructure, the development of the local economy, increasing standards of public services and a considerable improvement in the quality of life of the citizens. This progress is especially visible in big city areas, such as the Poznań Agglomeration, which is one of the leaders in the socio-economic changes in Poland. The agglomeration is made up of the city of Poznań, the capital of the Province of Greater Poland, with a population of nearly 600,000, surrounded by a group of towns and communes, most of which are part of Poznań County.

The Poznań Agglomeration is a city community of a new generation, living and developing beyond its administrative borders. It is a place of residence, work and rest shared by a million people. This is a common space, a common environment and infrastructure. This is also solving problems together and common care about future. This is an area where cooperation is a precondition of progress and development, cooperation which allows the local population to gain competitive advantage in Poland and abroad.

Is the Poznań Agglomeration a good place for the development of services in (business, cycle) tourism and sport?

There is a lot of evidence for this thesis. The main arguments are special territorial conditions, the diversified tourist and sports facilities as well as the potential of the citizens of the Poznań Agglomeration: their diligence, creativity and innovative character.

In recent years, big cities have been creating common development policies and implementing integrated strategies and plans which concern, among others, public transport, communal economies, social services and common promotion. This is also the case in the city of Poznań, which, along with its neighbouring communes, has become a municipal community of a new generation during the last 20 years since the reinstatement of local government in Poland, a community living and developing beyond its administrative borders. The city of Poznań, the County Council in Poznań, the communes of Poznań County and the towns of Szamotuły, Skoki and Śrem decided on the establishment of the Poznań Agglomeration. The Poznań Agglomeration is one of seven most urbanized areas in Poland, apart from four other agglomerations (Warsaw, Cracow, Łódź, Wrocław) and two conurbations (Upper Silesia and Tricity – Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot). The formalized Poznań Metropolis Association has already been established this year.

The Poznań Agglomeration is a place of residence, work and rest shared by a million people, with a big potential for tourism development. Also the outskirts of the region have considerable scenic, recreational and specialist values.

Is the Poznań Agglomeration a good place for development of services in the areas of (business, cycle) tourism and sport?

In terms of tourist traffic services, the collective accommodation facilities which are situated in the communes of the agglomeration are overshadowed by the city of Poznań. It is the city where the biggest hotels are, whereas the communes usually play only a supplementary role in tourist traffic services, which are oriented towards staying in Poznań.

There are 125 tourist facilities with approx. 10,500 beds which are available all year. Within the borders of the city of Poznań, there are 65 facilities offering nearly 8,000 beds. More than 500,000 people use the city’s accommodation facilities every year.

The communes which are part of the agglomeration are now rather places of one-day rest for the local population (with no accommodation). The accommodation facilities develop the most dynamically in the communes adjoining Poznań. Recreational tourism is supplanted by business tourism, and former tourist and recreational facilities are adapted to conference and training functions.

Number of accommodations in the Poznań Agglomeration (2009)

Source: Strategy of Development of the Poznań Agglomeration

In most of the communes, tourism develops independently – there is not one cohesive concept. Besides, in most of the communes, it only satisfies the needs of the local population. Tourism as a distinctive feature occurs in Kórnik and Puszczykowo. The communes of the agglomeration publish brochures and tourist maps. Internet portals of the towns and the city usually have sections devoted to their tourist values and infrastructure, they are also promoted at tourist fairs (through the associations PLOT[1], WOT[2] or the County Council). In recent years, the communes have taken many actions aimed at the development of tourism and recreation in the region. The most frequent initiative was marking out of cycle and walking trails. The existing sports facilities were extended and new pitches were built. A number of inter-communal associations were established, which was of great importance for the development of tourism in the area. New hotels and sports halls are planned to be built in near future[3].

The Poznań Agglomeration is quite diversified in terms of its tourist values. Most of its communes have a broad spectrum of cultural, natural, recreational and specialist values. The tourist attractions include the Old Market Square and the Town Hall in Poznań, Malta Lake, the castle and the arboretum in Kórnik, the palace in Rogalin, the Citadel, Zielonka Forest and others. The agglomeration also offers many cultural attractions with the Malta Theatre Festival as its flagship. Other events are: the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition, the waiters’ race, Saint Martin’s birthday or local events, like commune days.

The tasks of the Agglomeration are financial support and expert help for the member communes and creation of a common tourist product. The strength of the Agglomeration is the possibility to take advantage of its big population potential. The tourist policy of the agglomeration should base on a product which will be attractive both for the local residents and visitors.

The most popular form of active tourism in the agglomeration is cycle tourism, in which almost one third of the population are engaged. The biggest problem is lack of a cohesive network or cycle lanes in towns. This is of great importance because most people set out on bike trips from their places of residence. There is a sufficient number of cycle trails, but they are not marked cohesively.

Forms of inter-communal cooperation in the Poznań Agglomeration in the area of tourism:

Source: Strategy of Development of the Poznań Agglomeration

Business tourism

Poznań is mainly a place of business tourism, which includes all kinds of business trips, meetings, trips to conferences, fairs or study tours. Apart from the above elements connected with sightseeing, this is a dynamically developing and highly profitable branch. The Poznań International Fair is an extremely important element here.

Functional areas in a tourist city

Source: Competitiveness and cohesion of the Poznań Agglomeration

The importance of business is growing at present. Its development is a consequence of globalization. International meetings help develop business and they contribute to the economic and social development of individual countries. For many cities where business meetings take place, this is a key element of the local economy which means jobs for many people. Business tourism is an industry which activates different environments (hotels, catering, trade and services, cultural facilities) and engages large human resources for serving the visitors. This is a very important factor in the economic development of towns, regions and countries. All over the world, the number of foreign business trips is constantly growing. The Poznań Agglomeration has very good conditions in the sphere of business tourism, especially fairs. Business tourism is not only business trips but also taking advantage of the attractions of the destination place. Apart from the hotel and the airport, business tourists take advantage of local cultural and sports attractions, they discover the history and sights of the places they visit. In many cities, walking trails are marked out, such as the Royal-Imperial Route in Poznań or the Town Tourist Trail in right-hand bank Śrem.

The most popular place on the Poznań route is the Old Market Square with its enchanting tenement houses, fountains, the Town Hall with butting billy goats or the parish church. Other attractions include museums and churches: the Górka Family Palace housing the Archaeological Museum, the Museum of Musical Instruments, the National Museum, the Royal Castle with the Museum of Applied Arts. In the evenings, the city’s rich cultural offer includes performances and concerts, for example in the Nowy Theatre, the Musical Theatre, the Polski Theatre, the Great Theatre or the Poznań Philharmonic. In the city, tourist can also go on walks and plays sports, for example in the Sports-Recreational Centre on Malta Lake. It is worth to visit the Wilson Park with the Poznań Palm House and the Citadel Hill – a large park with an exhibition of weaponry and sculptures by Magdalena Abakanowicz, a world-famous Polish sculptor.

One of the biggest attractions in the vicinity of Poznań is, undoubtedly, the palace in Rogalin, which was built in the 18^th century, with a French garden and the Rogalin Scenic Park surrounding the place. Another attraction of Rogalin is a group of famous old oaks named Lech, Czech and Rus. In the neighbourhood, there is also the castle in Kórnik with a coach house and the Wielkopolski National Park, which protects a postglacial landscape and many species of birds and animals.

However, what is the most important in business tourism is the number of facilities which have services for business tourists in their offer. The Poznań Agglomeration has well developed hotel facilities and a big potential for development. Thanks to the Poznań International Fair and the hotel facilities, the city has a strong position on the map of Poland. Admittedly, the number of hotel guests in the area of the whole agglomeration usually declines abruptly with the end of the fair events season. This is why it would be beneficial if conferences and congresses held between the fair events filled these gaps and if the Poznań Agglomeration became not only a place where fairs are held but also a conference centre.

Cycle tourism

Cycling is a very popular form of tourism in the Poznań Agglomeration, popular despite the barrier which is lack of cycle infrastructure in the city which would enable safe and convenient access to green areas. Cycling is so popular mainly because of the valuable natural and recreational areas which are situated in Poznań and the neighbouring communes.

Since the early 1990s, the Poznań Agglomeration has been the leader of cycle tourism in Poland. Greater Poland Province was the first region where an inventory of cycle trails was made; most of these cycle trails were marked out on local initiatives. Thanks to this inventory, the marking system was put in order and unified. New trails are still marked out and old ones are modernized in the agglomeration area, for the benefit of cyclists and the development of tourism in the region. The present recreational and tourist offer, based to a large extent on the existing park lanes and forest tracks and linked together with a relatively simple marking system, is surely sufficient for the majority of the residents of the agglomeration. However, to make the development of cycle recreation and tourism permanent and to attract also cyclists from outside the agglomeration, it is necessary to create a hierarchical system of cycle trails and invest in new projects. The trails network must be complemented by an accompanying infrastructure adapted to the cyclists’ needs. What is very important is a proper hierarchy of the cycle infrastructure and its division from the point of view of individual group of users. The expectations of people riding on bikes are diversified: starting from the willingness to relax on bike in green areas through cultural tourism to even competitive cycling. In some communes, however, there are barriers which hinder the development of tourism. In most cases, this is lack of tourist infrastructure, lack of big tourist attractions or handicaps caused by the presence of protected areas. Cycle tourism is very popular in the Poznań Agglomeration; unfortunately, what it lacks is a cohesive and well organized network of cycle lanes and trails.

Sport

Sport is an important element which also influences the development of tourism. The communes of the Poznań Agglomeration have been investing in sport for many years. There are over 1,500 sports and recreation facilities of different types in Poznań and the neighbouring communes. Some of them host international sports events (Malta Sailing Regatta, the City Stadium in Poznań, Wola Hippodrome), others are available to local residents (artificial ski slope, indoor swimming pools, tennis courts, sports halls, pitches). Thanks to the access to this diversified sports infrastructure, one can play almost all sports disciplines in the Poznań Agglomeration. There are more and more swimming pools and aqua parks built. The City Stadium in Poznań was expanded for the EURO 2012 football championships. There are many sports clubs which are also successful in the international arena. The Poznań Agglomeration has a significant position in sport both in Poland and in the world.

The Poznań Agglomeration is a structure of communes which pursue common interests: the development of transport and tourist-recreational infrastructure and the promotion or building of a common development strategy. Nearly one million of people and their needs influence the bloom of the city of Poznań and other communes, also in terms of tourism, entertainment, recreation, culture: the Old Market Square, cafes, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, galleries or sport: the stadium, the pitches, the areas around Malta Lake. The asset of the Agglomeration is also a large number of historical buildings: churches, manor houses, palaces. Poznań and its vicinity is also an important recreational centre: the ski slope which is open all year, the possibility to play water sports on the lakes or the Wielkopolski National Park with its numerous tourist trails.

Ilustrowany Atlas Aglomeracji Poznańskiej, 2010, Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Poznań
Konkurencyjność i spójność aglomeracji poznańskiej. Główne problemy funkcjonalne i przestrzenne, 2009, Centrum Badań Metropolitalnych, UAM Poznań
Motek P., Kossowski T., Bogacka E., 2009, Sport w aglomeracji poznańskiej, Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe
Strategia rozwoju Aglomeracji Poznańskiej Metropolia Poznań 2020, 2010, Centrum Badań Metropolitalnych, UAM Poznań
www.aglomeracja.poznan.pl