ASSIGNMENT ON TRAVEL AGENCY

BUSINESS

BY
R.Indrajith.M.B.A.,
 How can you calculate the century of a
given year?
Divide the year by 100, drop the decimals and add
one. Adding one is necessary because the year 1 is
considered the first century, so the year 101 is the
second, and so on.

When calculating the first 100 years from 1 AD, the

first century starts in year 1 AD and ends in 100 AD.
The BC and AD are sometimes replaced with BCE and
CE, respectively, to denote common era. This year
numbering is the most common today.
 A travel agency is a private retailer or public service
that provides travel and tourism related services to the
public on behalf of suppliers such as airlines, car
rentals, cruise lines, hotels, railways, and package tours.

Four different types of agencies exist in the United

States:
 independent
 consortium
 regional
 mega agencies
 American Express and the American Automobile
Association (AAA) are examples of mega travel
agencies.

Independent agencies usually cater to a special or niche

market, such as the needs of residents in an
upmarket commuter town or suburb, or a particular
group interested in a similar activity, such as sporting
events, like football, golf, or tennis.
Travel agencies choose between two approaches. One is
the traditional, multi-destination, outbound travel
agency, based in the traveler's originating location; the
other is the destination focused, inbound travel agency,
that is based in the destination and delivers an expertise
on that location. At present, the former is usually a
larger operator while the latter is often a smaller,
independent operator.

Tourism and Sustainability in the 21st Century

I. Inventory and trends Leisure and tourism came into
being as a dimension of life in the 19th and 20th
centuries. The concentration of work processes in
industrial production, on the one hand, limited daily
and weekly working hours and, on the other hand, led
 to the social right to holidays and time for recreation.
Leisure time ceased to be a luxury for a few wealthy
classes and became an integral part of industrial work
processes. Work and leisure belong together. Friends
of Nature have had a major share in enforcing the right
to leisure time and especially in the organisation of
leisure time. They advocate meaningful leisuretime
and tourism development as an important part of
societal development in the 21st century. Expanding
urbanisation, which encroaches on the natural
environment, as well as rising standards of living in
the industrialised countries are major driving forces
behind global tourism. The trend towards travel to
ever more distant and exotic worlds is sparked off by
the quest for pristine beauty and communion with
nature, two things rarely found in modern,
industrialised societies. The distinguishing feature of
tourism is the movement to destinations away from the
place of regular work or residence. This implies
transport as well as the use of land on which other
people live and work. Tourists engage in their leisure-
time pursuits in other people’s living and working
environments. Excessive traffic volumes on routes
leading to tourism destinations have become a serious
issue both as regards the environment and the residents
of holiday destinations. This situation is compounded
by the worldwide pollution of the atmosphere by
greenhouse gases generated by traffic, which are a
principal cause of climate change. According to
 estimates, tourism accounts for more than 50% of the
total traffic volume and consequently of emissions.
Tourism activities require land and are thus prime
causes of rapid land consumption and shrinking areas
of unspoiled nature at destinations. Even now, the
densely settled continent of Europe shows signs of the
remaining natural environments being overstrained.
Hence tourism jeopardises that which it depends on –
namely the intact and unspoiled areas in nature it
wishes to utilise. Growing
2 consumption of resources, such as water and energy,
as well as generation of waste and contamination of
water are further consequences of modern mass
tourism. The growing strains are compounded by the
fact that the economic benefits generated by tourism in
the regions visited and for the local population are
dwindling. The lion share of income from organised
tourism remains with the tour operators or the
transport undertakings, whose headquarters are not
located in the destination but in the source countries.
Another share is channelled into imports of tourism-
specific goods and merchandise. Moreover, the quality
of working conditions in the tourism sector is
deteriorating. In particular, the hopes of development
countries of deriving growing foreign-exchange
earnings from tourism, have been dashed by this
development. One of the reasons why tours to
development countries are inexpensive is the
exploitation of currency and productivity differentials.
With many services (e.g. flights), it is obvious that the
low price originates from the fact that external costs
are not compensated (e.g. harmful impacts of traffic on
the environment and on people’s health). Big tour
operators and hotel chains use their strong market
position to bring prices in the tourism sector further
down. Very often, this happens at the expense of the
environment and of the people working in tourism.
People from industrialised countries can purchase
budget holidays because the individual tourist or the
tour operators do not pay the true or fair costs in the
destination countries. What we witness is the
exportation of strains on the environment and on
people into these countries. Moreover, the low prices
spoil all hopes of improving the prevailing
circumstances through tourism. Then there are the
threatened selloffs for the benefit of tourism in the
development countries. ”Ecotourism” is the slogan
under which entire regions are restructured for tourism
with the help of foreign investors, primarily in the
interests of affluent tourists. As a result, the local
populations are deprived of their means of production,
and are not infrequently, driven brutally from their
home regions. Communal management and ownership
rights developed over the centuries are abolished with
the stroke of a pen for the benefit of investors. The
jobs created by ecotourism cannot replace the
livelihoods of entire village communities, since, as a
rule, few people are needed and even fewer have the
 skills required for service jobs. II. Propositions and
demands Tourism needs intact nature, vibrant cultural
life, healthy environment and products and a fair
partnership between visitors and visited, which
ensures respect for the requirements 3 of the visited,
upgrades their quality of life and generates economic
benefits. As an economic sector, tourism is thus
directly dependent on sustainability.
The resulting demands as regards tourism and
sustainability in the 21st century are the following:
1. Tourism must contribute proactively to preserving
its own mainstays – nature and culture. This goes for
the tourism industry at the destinations, for the tour
operators and for individual tourists.
2. Tourism has to curb its consumption of natural
resources.
(a)No water-guzzling facilities in regions where there
is not enough water for the needs of the local
population.
(b)Lower energy consumption of tourism facilities and
services (e.g. air-conditioning) and/or shift to
renewable sources of energy (e.g. solar electricity).
(c) Prioritise the revitalising of old buildings over new
construction.
(d)No motorised sports in nature.
(e)Avoid waste generation and/or collect and recycle
waste
3. The strain of tourism traffic has to be reduced.
 (a) Ensure fair pricing in the transport sector by
internalising external costs (impact on health and
environment).
(b)Better planning of land use in tourism regions.
(c) Improve comfort, speed and connections in public
transport.
(d)Promote soft mobility at tourism destinations, in
particular with a view to meeting the needs of those
using public means of transport for access travel.
4. Tourism must help eliminate poverty, inter alia, by
promoting local, circular business flows, by improving
the quality of life in tourism regions and by providing
quality training opportunities.
(a) For every bed unit financed in a development
country, a water connection has to be financed for a
local household.
b)Cooperate with local providers as regards catering,
accommodation and programmes. (c) Fair wages and
social conditions in the tourism sector instead of the
currently widespread exploitation of poverty.
(d)Special protection for women and children to give
them a chance to benefit from tourism.
(e)Promote training in the tourism sector.
(f) No enforced liberalisation of the services sector.

5. Tourism depends on partnership between visitors

and visited, between North and South.
(a)An open mind for the concerns of the local
population and for the region visited. (b)Contributions
by tourists to local projects relating to nature, culture,
health, and education.
(c) Cooperation with local tour operators and local
NGOs. (d)Code of conduct for tour operators and
hotels (e.g. no child 4 sex tourism, fair working
conditions, respect for human rights).

6. Tourism policies must emancipate themselves from

pure marketing and strive for skilful, sustainable
destination and transport management in the interests
of the population and the environment.
(a)The Agenda 21 for tourism.
(b)Promotion and marketing of sustainable tourism
destinations.
(c) The development of criteria and indicators for
sustainable tourism as well as the systematic
acquisition, supply and publication of data on the
social and ecological development of tourism regions.
(d)The promotion of quality labels for sustainable
tourism destinations
(e) Ensuring the involvement of civil society in
tourism projects.
(f) Definition of the reception capacity of destinations
arrived at through democratic procedures.
(g)Land use planning for compact destinations.
(h)Information programmes for consumers on
sustainable consumption and life styles in the context
of leisure and tourism.
 (i) Sustainability criteria for public subsidies to
tourism. Friends of Nature call upon (a)the tourism
industry to assume responsibility, in compliance with
the above demands, for the tourism regions they
market and utilise as well as for the resident
population; (b)tourism regions to frame local tourism
development with a view to prioritising the quality of
life of the local population and to preserving natural
and cultural assets; (c) individual tourists to respect the
interests of the local population and of the natural
environment in pursuing their leisure-time activities,
and to travel in a sustainable manner; (d)governments
to add tourism to their sustainability agenda;
(e)international and nation