By Staff Reporter
The travel and tourism industry is one of the worst-hit industries as of now albeit the biggest and the fastest grown industries in the world. We are still witnessing the continued interest of people preferring to spend their spare time on travel, in a modified way though! An enormous opportunity for travel agencies, tour operators, hoteliers, cruise liners and so on still persists to cater to the needs of this emerging demand.
The terms travel and tourism are often used side by side and are closely linked. However, there are differences in the industries and the activities between the two that set them apart, we need to know ….
Tourism is the act of traveling to a different location for either business or pleasure for more than one consecutive year. Travel refers to moving from one location to another. It can be long-distance, short-distance, overseas or domestic travel and can cover a wide variety of different travel purposes.
It is completely comprehensible that many find it difficult to figure out the distinction between both the terms as there seems to be a significant overlap. Many of the businesses and service providers seem to cater both travel and tourism.
Components of Travel Services
Travel agency
A travel agency sells or arranges transportation, accommodations, tours and trips for travelers
Online travel agency (OTA)
An OTA is a travel website that specializes in providing travel services to customers including flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, activities, and packages. These websites have in-built booking systems that allow users to instantly book.
Tour operators
A tour operator will combine tour products and travel services together to offer packaged holidays to the customers. Usually, a packaged tour will have a combination of air travel, accommodation and entertainment.
Destination Management Companies (DMC)
DMC’s represent destinations and help promote a particular destination as an attractive one by creating a long-term travel and tourism strategy.
One of the sectors and components within the Travel and Tourism industry is
Transportation. It includes Airlines, Car rental, Water transport, Bus & coach, Railways, Spacecraft and so on. Hotels, shared accommodations, camping, bed and breakfast (B&B), cruises, timeshare accommodation come under Accommodation. Restaurants, shopping, museums, theme parks fall under Food and Beverage sector.