Zidan Luo
ASSGN#5
ASSGN#5
In past a decade, human society has achieved many substantive breakthroughs. In particular case, tourism industry emerges to be more competitive than ever before, and we have seen a proliferation in the promotion of tourism destinations. Also, tourism tends to affect everybody in the community, and tourism planning makes all people get involved in the planning process. In the context, textbook mainly describes what is Master tourism plan, and benefits of Master Tourism plan bring to the Winnipeg, Canada. With such a success in Winnipeg, cities really should develop their master tourism plan. These reasons are easy to understand.
In the first place, according to the textbook, Master tourism plan is able to put cities into a very competitive position in the global market. In other words, Master plan is a starting point of journey to expand a city’s tourism industry. In this case, it is able to reflect new realities in the tourism industry and offers workable and efficient solutions to grow tourism exports for cities in such a long -term period. In this case, if a travel destination area wants to obtain tourism as a long-term economic activity, master tourism plan will serve as a function to preserve and enhance these special factors such as natural scenery, historical building that may make it different from all other destinations. It is also true that Master Tourism plan serves as a basic guideline for development of tourism enabling the decision-makers to agree on the principles for the direction for the next decade. In this sense, its projection is based on a careful assessment of possibilities within the country as well as the market trends abroad. Last, a city should have a Master Tourism plan for the reason that the purpose to have a Master tourism plan is to avoid the negative physical, human, marketing, organizational and other impacts that can occur when planning is not practiced. As a result, a Master tourism plan plays a key role in cities’ tourism industry and thus create a positive impact toward local society.
However, not every city in the world has its own master tourism plans in that there are some barriers occur. First of all, many business people are against tourism planning in principle, especial those who are in developed countries. In this case, it is very true in the parts of the Asia-Pacific area, Europe, and North America. The reason is that tourism of those regions has existed for many years without formal regulations and planning. Under this situation, business people believe tourism has already succeeded with a formal plan, and they are skeptical of the ultimate value of tourism plan, viewing it as an encroachment. What’s more, the second barrier for a city to develop its master tourism plan is the high cost. The reason is that an effective tourism plan depends on detail resource analysis and market research, which is an extremely expensive process. Because of the high cost, governments are generally required to fund. Therefore, private business people believe that money is better to use on investment of marketing and promotion of the destination. Furthermore, complexity of tourism and the large number of government departments whose activities affect tourism, can also be a barrier of developing tourism plan. The reason is that the policies of departments are not coordinated well and sometimes have direct conflicts with each other. So it is very different to make a good tourism plan. In addition to that, tourism is an activity that cuts across many other industries, including hotels, resorts, airlines, car rental agencies, campgrounds, commercial attractions and restaurants. Of course, retail shops, banks, and municipal governments are also part of tourism. Lastly, a barrier to tourism planning includes seasonality of business activities and relatively high ownership turnover. Besides, a destination area may just have a very few large and a multitude of smaller business. Therefore, it is such a challenge to develop a tourism plan.
According to the page of 128, the master tourism plan does have many strength. For instance, such plans encapsulate broad based strategic directions and identify key issues and initiatives that affect product development, enhance the visitors’ experience, increase community engagement and partnership and ultimately grow visitations and expenditures. Also, there are some other advantages stated below . Say, it creates opportunities to fundamentally increase tourism activities and initiatives that will drive economic growth; it evolves its tourism research platform to capture and report on tourism economics, delivering relevant information for its own use as well as that of stakeholders and industry partners. In specific case, research will include visitor profiling, tracking and satisfaction/experience survey, enquiry tracking conversion studies and analysis, economic impact analysis and so on, indicating its sense of complexity . Furthermore, the master tourism plan provides unique characteristics of Winnipeg, placing a huge attraction to travelers. For example, according to the master tourism plan, Winnipeg is a city if vibrant entertainment, offering a rich and diverse array of entertainment experiences in sports gaming, sports events and cultural festivals; Winnipeg is a city of heritage. It provides the opportunity to explore where others have been and hear authentic stories that distinguish an area. Its authenticity adds real value and teaches others of its importance. Effective tourism advertising and market promotions is also a reason that indicate strength of Master tourism plan for Winnipeg. In other words, it uses great design and compelling storytelling to deliver key messages that influence visitor attitudes and persuade customers to purchase a destination or product. A mix of traditional and digital marketing such as printed resources, radio, television, online search, social media, website and search engine optimization through Google+increase the tourism economy by converting leads into visitors.
Yet, it seems that the master tourism plan for Winnipeg is tended to emphasize too much about its destination management instead of marketing. In other words, this plan describes a lot in highlight the objectives and specifies the activities, programs and other steps required to achieve them. For instance, as I mention above, the master tourism plan mainly illustrates its importance in economy development in a destination. In this case, Winnipeg possess extensive local knowledge, expertise and resource to implement events in all kinds of field that related to tourism industry, such as gaming, entertainment, cultural events, sports events and so on, thus playing a less role in marketing.
By and large, tourism planning process carry a greatly weight in every destination where are interested in tourism. Although developing a tourism plan may be hard, time-consuming, costly, it is essential in today’s changing tourism environment, thus leading a successful tourism industry in destinations.
References:
Tourism Winnipeg.(2016). The Master Tourism Plan For Winnipeg 2016-2018 Retrieved from: http://tourismwpg.uberflip.com/i/632760-master-tourism-plan-for-winnipeg-2016-2018
Republic of Botswana Ministry of Commerce and Industry Department of Tourism. (May 2000). Botswana Tourism Master Plan. Retrieved from : http://www.ub.bw/ip/documents/2000_Botswana%20Tourism%20Master%20Plan.pdf
