TOURISM II BTR204

PECIAL INTEREST TOURISM - Travelling to pursue a passion or interest

Develops your ability to manage different types of travel products, with a particular focus on special interest tourism. This course builds an understanding of opportunities in such things as business tourism, festival tourism, cultural tourism, environmental tourism, tourism for certain age groups, etc.

Gain an understanding and appreciation of:

  • Cultural tourism
  • Environmental aspects of tourism
  • Events & Festivals
  • Health Tourism
  • Adventure Tourism & much more...

Student Comment (M. Soares, Angola):
"This has given me insights into world wide tourism, and it helps me to understand how we can develop our tourism without too much damage."

SPECIAL INTEREST TOURISM - ONLINE - DISTANCE LEARNING

This distance learning course develops your ability to manage different types of travel products, with a particular focus on special interest tourism. This course builds an understanding of opportunities in such things as business tourism, festival tourism, cultural tourism, environmental tourism, tourism for certain age groups, etc.   Enrolments accepted from all countries.

Gain an understanding and appreciation of:

  • Cultural tourism
  • Environmental aspects of tourism
  • Events & Festivals
  • Health Tourism
  • Adventure Tourism & much more...


Student Comment (M. Soares, Angola):
"This has given me insights into world wide tourism, and it helps me to understand how we can develop our tourism without too much damage."


COURSE STRUCTURE

There are ten lessons in this module as follows:

Course Aims

  • To analyse tourism industry, to determine the various sectors which service tourism and travel.
  • To differentiate between different types of tourism on a variety of bases, including:
  • demographics, geography, economics, and culture.
  • To compare a variety of different accommodation services provided in the tourism industry.
  • To describe the operation of heritage and cultural tourism, including: historical, architectural, indigenous, and artistic attractions.
  • Evaluate the tourism potential of events and festivals.
  • To describe the management of passive natural tourist attractions, including wilderness areas, beaches, rivers, wildlife etc.
  • To describe the operation of different types of tourism facilities that have a significant focus on health and fitness, including Health Resorts, Walking Tours and Cycling.
  • To describe a variety of other types of special interest tourism, including food tourism, senior tourism and sex tourism.
  • To plan and manage the number of visitors to different types of tourism facilities and develop appropriate contingency plans.
  • To plan a package holiday incorporating a variety of accommodation and attraction options.


WHAT YOU WILL DO IN THIS COURSE

The course is more than theory, but it offers you choices in what practical tasks you undertake and how you undertake them, for example: you might do some or all of the following:

  • Visit travel agencies or information centres
  • Search the internet
  • Write to a government travel authority/department
  • Visit a local or regional tourist centre
  • Study travel pages in a newspaper for both articles and advertisements
  • Visit a library, bookshop or news stand and look at travel magazines
  • Conduct interviews or surveys
  • Attend Events


Duration:  100 hours


The Tourism Product

The tourism product is defined as "attractions" plus "the tourism industry". Attractions are commonly divided into two main groups:

a) Natural - including natural sites and natural events

b) Cultural - including cultural sites and cultural events

Natural Attractions

  • Topographic sites, eg. mountains, beaches, valleys, caves, canyons, volcanoes, reefs.
  • Climatic sites, eg. hot places, cold places, humid places, dry places.
  • Sites defined by location, eg. central or accessible sites, isolated or difficult-to-access sites
  • Sites that feature certain plant or animal life, eg. forests, jungles, grasslands, meadows, deserts, zoos, botanic gardens
  • Hydrological sites, eg. lakes, rivers, streams, waterfalls, mineral springs.
  • Natural events e.g. eclipse of the moon, tidal changes, seasonal occurrences such as mating, animal and bird migrations, volcanic eruptions, rainy or dry season, and changes in sea that might attract surfers, for instance.

Travel to natural attractions has a very long history, and has probably occurred since humans first developed a sense of aesthetics, may even earlier. Travel to these destinations was often arduous, and required determination, courage, a level of fitness, and sufficient wealth to allow the traveler to purchase food, labour, accommodation, transport and other materials for long periods. Today's traveler, on the other hand, can reach most destinations easily and quickly, and services and facilities are usually readily available at the site or nearby, and he or she need not be fit or wealthy.

With travel to natural sites easier than ever, and travel more generally affordable, the main concern in developing and maintaining natural sites is manage tourism in order to avoid damage to very attraction that draws people there. This issue is discussed further in the lesson on environmental tourism, but it is a significant issue for all kinds of tourism that attracts travelers to places where they can enjoy the sights, smells, sounds and delights of nature.

 

Cultural attractions

The main categories of these are:

  • Prehistoric sites - eg. Stonehenge, cave paintings
  • Historic sites - eg. museums, ancient monuments, graveyards, heritage-listed buildings, sites of significant events
  • Religious sites of significance - eg. Cathedrals, mosques, holy sites.
  • Contemporary cultural displays and events - eg. museums, art galleries, modern architecture, theatre, festivals, fairs, exhibitions, international sporting events (eg. World Cup or Olympics).
  • Rural attractions - farms, wineries, mines, agricultural regions, agricultural technology or museums
  • Retail attractions - large shopping malls, small specialist shops, markets, fashion houses, craft fairs or shows
  • Recreational attractions -resorts, theme parks, golf courses, casinos, sports events.
  • Cultural events eg. festivals

 

Tours

Tours can be defined according to the variety of services supplied or according to the duration (half-day, day, week etc).

Package tours are excursions or holidays which "package" a variety of services together to make a single "combined" trip. Commonly they combine such things as transport, accommodation and meals. They may also include the provision of a tour guide and/or leader. Tours can be long or short in duration and distance. They may be a one-day or overnight package, or they could be a period of a month or more.

Packaged tours typically include:

  • All transfers between airports/harbours/stations and hotels
  • Twin share tourist and first-class accommodation with private facilities, as specified
  • Cruises
  • Rental cars
  • Entrance fees to attractions
  • Insurance
  • Theater tickets and reserved seating / or similar according to tour type
  • Insurance

Wholesalers

Not to be confused with a tour operator, a tour wholesaler essentially puts two or more services into a package, to be sold either directly to a traveler or through travel agencies. When creating a package the tour wholesaler picks what they believe to be the most attractive services to the market they are trying to service. Rarely does a wholesaler own any of the services they are packaging, although they may employ their own managers/escorts. Wholesalers often have access to bulk purchasing thereby obtaining discounts on the services purchased.