This assignment will be focused on the nature of travel and tourism environment by giving the example of a Famous UK tourist destination (Oxford) while reflecting the learning outcomes.

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Introduction

Tourism has now become a globally developing industry within last few decades. It is the main industry of generating foreign income rather than the export and import industry. Lots of studies have been done on travel tourism industry since it becomes an important industry in every country of the world. This assignment will be focused on the nature of travel and tourism environment by giving the example of a Famous UK tourist destination while reflecting the learning outcomes.

History of travel and tourism

The history of the travel and tourism industry can be divided into four stages: prehistory, transport, interwar period and tourism take-off. It is stated that the very first stages of the development of tourism started during the industrial revolution. In prehistory stage, gradual increase in wealth, the extension of the merchant and professional classes, the effects of the reformation and the secularization of education stimulated interest in other countries and the acceptance of travel itself as an educational force (Leonard and Carson, 1997).

In the railway age, the invention of steam trains and steamship transformed the travel opportunities. This is called transport stage. In this stage, an enormous new market of tourism is created in a short time through the introduction of organized tours, travel packages, poster and brochures. So it is clear that the tourism was started to take off through the help of transport development.

However, the First World War in 1914 interrupted the flowering age of railway and the same way to the travel and tourism. In other way, since wars are the improving stage of forming new technologies, the expansion of road and considerable investment in aviation had occurred. With the more development in transport and transport related infrastructure, a new design of tourism which is called leisure tourism was introduced.

Then, it moves to tourism take-off stage, it is from the period of 1945 to present time. In this stage, the major growth is occurred in most industrialized and developed countries though it takes the major role in developing countries.

The Structure of Travel and Tourism Industry

The travel and tourism industry is composed of hospitality industry as a part, transport, destinations and attractions, support services and public sectors. The hospitality industry includes accommodation sectors- hotels, motels, villas, chalets, guest houses, camping sites, caravan sites, and holiday camp, catering sectors- restaurants, BOB and so on. The transport sectors support tourism with air transport, sea transport, railways, and road transport, e.g. Coaches and car hire.

Attractions can be of two types; man-made and natural attractions. The natural attractions are the landscapes, mountains, beaches, forests and etc. Man-made attractions consist of theme parks, ancient monuments, Archeological sites, Museums, galleries and so on. The other support services can be divided into two sectors of public and private. The private sectors will be insurance services, couriers, guides, financial services such as banks. The public sectors will the regulatory bodies of the industry such as national tourist organizations, local tourist information center, regional tourist organization, UNWTO and etc. All these sectors combine together and produce services and facilities for the intermediaries- tour operators, travel agents and tourists.

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Figure-1 The Structure of Travel Industry

The Function of government and government sponsored bodies and international agencies in travel and tourism industry

Government involves in an important role in tourism industry since it is main body to imply the economic policy, law and security of a country. The involvement of government is of two ways- direct and indirect involvement. The main functions of government in tourism industry are to raise the foreign revenues, promoting the industry, to create a stable business and leisure environment for the industry, to build up secure environment for both tourists and local people.

Firstly, ...

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