New-fangled league: Cruise, Medical, Film, Wedding and Spiritual tourism
Shivgit Dhaliwal
1.Abstract
Tourism is an age old activity associated with civilized nations. Thus, tourism literature too has a long history. This paper critically exam the positioning of a New-fangled league of tourism products in India. The creation of New- fangled tourism products like medical tourism, spiritual tourism, religious circuits, wedding tourism, cruise tourism, caravan tourism and film tourism has served to widen the net of this sector. Inbound tourism is booming and the country is going all out to lure more travelers from around the world. Contrary to perceptions across the world that tourism in India is still
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• Foreign tourist arrivals in the country have increased substantially during the past decade motivated by both, business and leisure needs and are further expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 8 per cent during 2010-2014. Visitor exports are a key component of the direct contribution of the sector.. By 2021, international tourist arrivals are forecast to total 11,149,000, an increase of 6.1 per cent pa generating expenditure of INR 1,344.7 billion (US$ 30.3 billion). The country has received 3.3 million foreign tourists during the period January to June 2013.
2.2 Brief:
New-fangled league of tourism refers to how a specific tourism product can be tailored to meet the needs of a particular audience/market segment. Locations with specific products are able to establish and position themselves, as separate niche destinations. Purely through image creation, which helps destinations to differentiate their tourism products and compete in an increasingly competitive and cluttered tourism environment. Theoretical literature has paid little attention to the role and positioning of New- fangled league of tourism products.
“Future tourism success for most destinations is closely tied to NOT being labeled as ‘too touristy’... unless a place’s appeal is actually derived from its deliberate reputation for ‘excess’ (e.g. Las Vegas, Cancun, theme parks). This is the real message from many travelers’
In “The Ugly Tourist” by Jamaica Kincaid, tourism is thought as a disgusting and an extremely harmful industry. In her perspective, it allows first world citizens to escape and marvel at the simplest and most ordinary things. Although there is some truth in what Jamaica Kincaid describes to the reader, I believe there is a prejudiced view towards the tourist themselves. Kincaid’s essay about the ugliness and affects of being a tourist contrasts everything I’ve experienced being a tourist in Italy and Greece.
In this section I will explain the different development in the tourism industry since the 1960’s and what the effect it has on the travel industry.
In a sense the circulated images that cities use for promotion, leads tourists to believe that these representations are absolute thus ingraining potentially false beliefs about a destination. Also, Morgan and Pritchard (1998) argue that there is a powerful force behind the media promotion of tourism images. They claim that images are social products that function ‘to reinforce ideas, values and meaning systems at the expense of alternative ways of seeing the world’ (Morgan and Pritchard 1998:5). By exposing the restrictive power of tourist images one can look critically at promotional material that permeates our everyday lives.
As mentioned by Rimmington & Morrison (2009), the assistance from different parts of the world presents a new and diverse outlook for future research including theoretical innovations and revelations, cultural and environmental aspects, tourist destination and other ecotourism and recreational aspects of tourism and hospitality industry (Brotherton,
Tourism plays a vital role in economic development in most countries around the world. The industry has not only direct economic impact, but also significant indirect and influential impacts. There is agreement among experts that the travel and tourism sector is the fastest growing of global economy. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism receipts surpass US$ 1 trillion in 2011, growing about 3.8%up from 2010 (WTO, 2012).
According to Kotler (2000), “positioning is the act of designing the company’s offering and brand image to occupy a distinctive place in the target market’s mind”. In today’s highly competitive global marketplace, a product will not thrive or survive without a clear competitive distinction (Kotler, 2000). The same goes for tourism destinations, which is why it is crucial to position a destination efficiently and effectively in comparison to competitors.
The efforts to promote tourism in India were made in 1945 , a committee was setup under the Chairmanship of Sir John Sargent. The development of tourism was taken up in a planned manner in 1956 , but it was only after the 1980’s that tourism activity picked momentum. A National Policy on Tourism started in 1982, a plan was made to achieve sustainable growth in tourism , a National Action Plan was prepared for promotion of tourism.
The study of the tourism phenomenon is a relatively recent addition in academic to achieve a goal. Five main academic disciplines in tourism research have been identified by Jafari and Ritchie (1981) which are economics, sociology, psychology, geography, and anthropology. A survey that conducted by Sheldon from North American tourism and hospitality researchers showed that journal from wide variety of disciplines were published and referenced included economics, business studies, marketing, psychology, anthropology, and geography. Despite the diversity of disciplines impacting on tourism studies, Pearce (1993) suggests that a greater tolerance for eclectic and diverse approaches to investigated the pre-paradigmatic study areas, such as tourism.
The Indian hospitality industry has emerged as one of the key industries driving growth of the services sector in India. It has evolved into an industry that is sensitive to the needs and desires of people. The fortunes of the hospitality industry have always been linked to the prospects of the tourism industry and tourism is the foremost demand driver of the industry. The Indian hospitality industry has recorded healthy growth fuelled by robust inflow of foreign tourists as well as increased tourist movement within the country and it has become one of the leading players in the global industry.
Marketing teams have developed “the dream vacation” for just about everyone, whether your interests lie in adventure travel, cruising, or wine tasting, your imagination and perhaps your budget is pretty much your only limitation. Alongside this ever-increasing number of vacation destinations, a large body of research on the “tourist machine” also grows. Over time, the focus of tourism research has shifted somewhat from the basic sort of anthropological or sociological questions such as “why do people choose the destinations they do” and “how do the natives of these tourist destinations feel about their “guests”” to more of an environmental and cultural impact approach. The impacts commoditization on tourism. Commoditization, in terms of tourism, is the “packaging” and sale of an idea or story. What I mean by that is that what is being turned into a commodity is an “experience,” not a tangible product.
In this writing I am going to spread the light on the travelism in India. India is the one of the most beautiful country in the world. This country is known for its culture, multi languages and for its traditions. India welcomes 5 million tourists every year. There is lot of tourist attractions in India. It comes in the best tourist countries in the world.
Tourism in a free market economy can exploit natural resources as a means of a profit accumulation, and therefore has been described as the commercialisation of the human need to travel. The notion of unlimited gain has led to exploitation of host communities, their cultures, and environments. (Walker, 2011)
According to Hudson (et al., 2009) many destinations sell themselves by revolving around the same concept, namely the destinations’ icons which have as main focus the physical characteristics of that destination (for instance nature or sea, sun, and sand) (Hudson et al., 2009). In addition, the messages conveyed to the audience are generic, meaning that the idea of escape and discovery is at its core (Hudson et al., 2009). However, in order to differentiate on the market place, some destinations have changed the focus, meaning that rather than making use of the physical attributes a destination has, the experiences a destination could provide to consumers were instead regarded. As a consequence, it could be argued that consumers’ emotions became the target, as the conveyed messages of the offered experiences have the aim and also a direct influence on potential consumers’ emotions (Hudson et al., 2009). The term used to describe the new marketing approach is called ‘experiential marketing’, being a ‘relatively new marketing orientation proving a contrast to traditional marketing’ (Hudson et al., 2009) (which refers to the initial approach marketers applied, namely high focus on a destination’s physical attributes) (Hudson et al., 2009).
The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry
A major reason for rising interest has been the increasing evidence that tourism development leads not only to positive, but also has the potential for negative outcomes at the local level (Lankford & Howard, 1994).