12.2 - P2, M1 & D1

In this assignment I will be comparing roles and objectives of different agents of tourism development. I will then be explaining the consequences of differing roles and objectives of tourism development agents in a selected destination. Finally I will be recommend solutions to conflicting interests between different agents of tourism development

Agents of tourism are any individuals, company or organisation that develop tourism themselves or makes it happen in some way. The agents of tourism have roles and objectives to help. The main roles are: provision of travel and tourism resources, products and services, provision of finance, facilitation, marketing, conservation and finally protection. The objectives are separated into categories: political, economic, environmental and socio-cultural. Political objectives are to enhance the image of an area and  create an identity. The economic objectives are to create jobs, generate foreign income and economic regeneration. Environmental objectives are to preserve habitats and heritage preservation. Finally the socio-cultural objectives are to develop the community facilities. The agents of tourism promote cultural understanding and they maintain traditions or beliefs. However not all of the objectives apply to the agents.

I will be describing three types of agents that are involved in tourism development.

Private Sector Agents - Entertainment Companies

Private sector agents can often be single person operations or large, global companies. My Example of a private sector agent will be an entertainment company which is Walt Disney.

Walt Disney is a massive entertainment company and they have many roles for their company. They have

14 theme parks (including the water parks), 2 cruise ships and over 400 Disney stores worldwide.

Public Sector Agents - National and regional tourist boards

Public sector agents operate at national, international, regional and local levels.

Visit Britain is a public sector agent because it is a national tourist board.  

Voluntary Sector Agents - Registered charities

English Heritage 

The charity takes care of over 400 historic sites, monuments and buildings.

Roles

A.   Provision of travel and tourism resources

Visit England’s role of providing resources is through their website such as links to accommodation providers, transport providers and attractions within England. The other two agents do not provide any resources for tourists to use.

B.   Products and services

Disney and English Heritage offer products and services as one of their main roles. Walt Disney resorts and parks provide products and services for their guests by having different types of theme parks for everyone to enjoy and services to meet all types of customers. English Heritage role of offering products and services by being able to visit the different historical locations and learn about what they happened there. The differences between the two different agents is that the Disney agent provide man made attractions and were built for a purpose whereas English heritage attractions are historic and were not built specifically for tourists.              

C.   Provision of finance

The agents of tourism which have this role are Disney resorts and parks as they are always finding ways to get more money by attracting the visitors. The other two agents do not have the role

D.   Facilitation

Disney parks provide many different attractions for people to visit, not only do they provide the attractions they also offer toilets and restaurants for people to eat at. Visit Britain is another agent that provides facilities throughout their website and gives information on what to do when in Britain.

E.   Marketing

Visit Britain is an agent who's role in marketing is to promote attractions and encourage to go to the attractions, English Heritage also does marketing by promoting the locations of the historical locations, they also do marketing for people to got to Britain . Disney does not have a role of marketing because

F.   Conservation

At Animal Kingdom in DisneyWorld, the main focus is about conservation and there is a separate area where you can learn all about wildlife conservation with talks from people. Another agent which is keen on conserving is English Heritage as it their main role in the charity to look after the historic sites and make sure the sites are being looked after for years to come.  Both of the tourism agents make sure they conserve what they believe in and do so for the future and also for future generations to enjoy but are conserving different products.

G.  Protection

Disney promotes the protection of their parks by making the public know about the conservation program they display for the tourists to go to. Also, some of the animals need protecting at the Animal Kingdom park. English Heritage also has a protecting role as they look after they historic locations all over the UK. These two agents both have a protecting role by looking after what they care about most but the things they care about are different.

Objectives

A.   Enhance the image of an area

Disney’s objective is to improve the image of an area, for example DisneyLand Paris was meant to be in Essex, England but it was decided it would cause  loads of congestion and traffic to the surrounding areas. Instead it was decided that Disneyland would be in Paris therefore pinpointing Paris on the map even more than it already was. English Heritage also has an objective of enhancing the area, for example Stonehenge has been enhanced and in 2014, Barack Obama, the US president visited the site. The agents may have the same objective but with different intentions of enhancing the area where they are based or multiple locations.

B.   Create a regional or national identity

The Visit Britain tourist board creates an identity of Britain to attract visitors, the objective is to create an identity to promote that Britain is a lovely place to visit. The other two agents do not have an objective of creating an identity because they are just adding to the already existing identity.  

C.   Employment creation

Disney resorts and parks hire local people as an objective because the organisation want to help the local communities and give them jobs opportunities. English Heritage also creates job as an objective as they need tour guides, people maintaining the sites and people working in the admin side.

D.   Revenue generation

The only the agent of tourism who's one of the most important objectives is bringing money in, Visit Britain and English Heritage do not make an aim of getting money, but the money they get is through contributions and sponsors, go towards the running of the organisations.

E.   Economic regeneration

Disney is constantly being regenerating by also linking another objective which is employment creation as it creates a multiplier effect for all of the resorts and parks creating a positive economy in the host destination. The other two agents of tourism do not have an objective of economic regeneration.   
  

F.   Habitat and heritage preservation

One of English Heritage’s main objective is to preserve not only the history and culture of the site but also the surrounding habitats for the future generations to enjoy. The preservation is also important because it will still carry on teaching people and adding to the history of the site.

G.  Environmental education

At some of the Disney parks they teach the people about the environment , English Heritage teach the visitors about the environment by hosting talks at each site they own. These two agents of tourism educated the public on the environment but send the message across in different ways.

H.   Regeneration

Disney is constantly thinking of ways of being regenerated, the most recent regeneration was in 2013 and they changed Downtown Disney into Disney Springs to increase revenue.

English Heritage is also another agent of tourism that has an objective of regenerating but do it to keep tourists keen in learning history and not another way of getting money out of tourists.

I.     Development of community facilities

English heritage is the only agent of tourism that makes sure community facilities are constantly being developed to help the locals and they can receive a positive impact from tourism. The other two agents do not develop or create community facilities meaning that English Heritage is an agent of tourism that cares about the surrounding communities of the tourist attraction they have.

J.    Promotion of cultural understanding

Disney promotes cultural understanding by the Epcot theme park and the culture of 11 countries with the world.Visit Britain also promotes the cultural of the attractions and actives in Britain. Also the English Heritage charity promotes cultural by having speeches about the historic site and have notes around the place talking about the history of the culture.

K.   Maintaining traditions or beliefs

English Heritage is the only agent of tourism that maintains tradition and beliefs because it adds towards the history of the site. The objective of keeping the beliefs would improve the visiting of the site, otherwise it would not be attractive towards tourists and the people working on the sires are able to retell the stories about the sites. The other two agents do not maintain traditions or beliefs as they are mainly interested in the purpose built tourist attractions. Visit Britain promotes historic attractions for people to visit via their website.

Bimini Bay Resort Project

Merit Work:

Bimini Bay Resort is in the Bahamas and is currently under a threat due to

A massive company who are based in Malaysia and are planning on bringing half a million visitors to the smallest island in the Bahamas by building a casino and hotel. This development was approved in 2014, but is causing a rift in the community as some support whereas others are campaigning to stop the resort being created. The same company are now creating a ferry service which goes from Miami to Bimini bringing in 1,500 daily at a very fast speed, this service will damage the coral environment as well as the extra damage from building the new  the cruise pier which will help bring in extra people.Some people are for the Malaysian company to build as they are offering 300 jobs to the locals and will benefit them in the long run, however the people disagreeing wonder if the 300 jobs will actually materialise for the local community and think they will just hire people from all over the world rather than helping the locals. The resort when built will generate lots of income for the island and help them build additional facilities in the future and improve the infrastructure for both tourists and citizens. The developers of the casino have got many objectives which can be categorised into: economic, environmental, political and socio-cultural. The political objectives the company have: is to enhance the area of Bimini and to create an identity of being a destination where nature and man-made go hand in hand and create a wonderful place to go on holiday. Resort World also want to create 300 jobs for people working in the casino and the hotel and create revenue from the tourists. They are keen to have regeneration as an environmental objective because it will help rejuvenate the sleepy tourist destination. Finally, the socio-cultural objectives they want to have are: maintaining traditions or beliefs and promotion of cultural understanding. They would maintain the traditions of the local people and promote the cultural of the island.

Distinction part:

The conflict situation could be resolved by having a meeting with the local people and some of the workers from the Malaysian company including the CEO or a figure related to a CEO to talk about the problems that has raised during the planning of the holiday resort. The problems that they could discuss could be the way of building without harming the ecosystem, create more jobs for the local people and help the island grow. 

The local people and the government should write out a detailed plan and questions they want to ask the opposite side such as why they have to build a pier and bring in larger ferries when they could just use more smaller boats or use the airport more . 

The company who are Resort World, are building the casino can give local people the jobs as working as a builder rather than bringing more builders from other locations. As said above, they are creating around 300 jobs so they should give or at least offer half (150) of the jobs to the local people to resolve some of the occurring conflict. Another way the casino owner can resolve some of the conflict is by funding the marine biology workers to regenerate and protect the damaged coral.