Business Travel and Tourism

John Swarbrooke, Susan Horner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138142725
• eBook ISBN: 9781136423062
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

'Business Travel and Tourism' provides a comprehensive, international overview of business tourism from both a theoretical and practical perspective. With the use of case studies from around the world, 'Business Travel and Tourism' explores a broad range of issues, including: * The global business tourism market * The design of business tourism facilities * The role of the destination in business travel and tourism * The social, economic, and environmental impacts of business tourism * The ethical dimension of business tourism * The marketing of business tourism products * The impact of new technologies on the business tourism market * How to organise successful conferences, exhibitions, and incentive travel packages Case studies include Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong, Amsterdam RAI International Exhibition and Congress Centre, Hilton, Page and Moy Marketing, Lufthansa, Air France, and Legoland UK. 'Business Travel and Tourism' is the first text to offer a comprehensive overview of the growing but neglected area of business tourism. With the use of a wide range of up-to-date case studies and major practical exercises to help students to broaden and deepen their understanding of this area of tourism, it is an invaluable text for all students on travel and tourism courses at degree and BTEC/HND level, or those taking tourism options in leisure, business studies, hospitality management or geography.

Part One The Context

DOI: 10.4324/9780080490601-1

These seven chapters set the scene for the later chapters and give the reader an overview, from a global perspective, of the world of business travel and tourism.

We begin by endeavouring to define business travel and tourism and recognize that it is an umbrella term that covers a variety of very different forms of business-related tourism.

In Chapter 2 we look at the historical development of business travel and tourism, noting that it has a long history but, also, that it has probably grown more in the last century than in the rest of recorded history.

The third chapter examines the market for business travel and tourism in terms of segmentation and the geographical pattern of demand, for example.

The supply side of business travel and tourism is considered next in terms both of producers and intermediaries, as well as professional bodies and the trade media.

Chapter 5 looks at the role of destinations and attempts to develop a typology of destinations from the point of view of business travel and tourism.

The penultimate chapter in this part of the book explains the macro-environment in which business travel and tourism organizations operate.

Chapter 7 describes the economic, social, and environmental impacts of business travel and tourism, distinguishing between those that are positive and those that are negative.

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780080490601-2

As you are reading these words, tens of thousands of business travellers worldwide are beginning or ending their trips. At the same time, thousands of major conferences and exhibitions are taking place globally, while hundreds of incentive travel programmes are being enjoyed in your country.

In other words, business travel and tourism is big business. It employs millions of people around the world and is the core of the tourism market for many leading destinations.

Yet, this massive phenomenon of our age has, to date, received scant attention from governments, academics and researchers. Perhaps this apparent lack of attention is because business travel and tourism is notoriously very difficult to define and place within clearly identified boundaries.

What is Business Travel and Tourism?

Rob Davidson, in his ground-breaking book on business tourism in 1994, attempted to define business tourism as follows:

Business tourism is concerned with people travelling for purposes which are related to their work. As such it represents one of the oldest forms of tourism, man having travelled for this purpose of trade since very early times. (Davidson, 1994)

The terms ‘business travel’ and ‘business tourism’ are often used almost interchangeably but the authors feel there is a qualitative difference between them.

Business tourism is the broader term which encompasses all aspects of the experience of the business traveller. Furthermore, using the standard interpretation of the term ‘tourism’ or ‘tourist’ this term seems to focus on those business people who are true tourists, in other words, those who stay away from home for at least one night.

Business travel on the other hand seems to focus particularly on the movement of business travellers from place ‘A’ to place ‘B’. It also seems to include those who make day trips for business purposes, and are therefore not true ‘tourists’ in the conventional meaning of the term.

However, it is clear that there is great overlap between these terms.

In this book the authors will tend to use what they see as the broadest term of ‘business tourism’ where space limitations prevent the use of ‘business travel and tourism’.

A Typology of Business Travel and Tourism

The broad definition of business travel and tourism on page 3 is simple but it embraces a variety of different forms of business travel and tourism, some of which are illustrated in Figure 1.1. The typology in Figure 1.1 does not claim to be exhaustive, but it does cover most of the major forms of business travel and tourism.

Figure 1.1 A typology of business travel and tourism

Each of the fifteen categories in Figure 1.1 has a number of subdivisions. For example, an individual general business trip could involve:

• a salesperson trying to sell his or her company’s food product to a new customer
• a computer consultant visiting a client to sort out the client’s problem
• the senior manager of a major multinational corporation visiting a branch factory
• a business person visiting a government department to apply for an export licence.

It is clear, therefore, that business travel and tourism is a diverse, complex field.

However, this book will focus on the main areas of meetings, conferences, conventions, exhibitions, training courses, product launches and incentive travel. We will therefore, now, define these terms, to ensure that we all understand what we are talking about.

Meetings, Conferences and Conventions

According to Davidson, a meeting is:

an organised event which brings people together to discuss a topic of shared interest. [It may] be commercial or non-commercial … may be attended by 6, or many hundreds … it may last from a few hours to a week … [What makes] a meeting qualify as part of business tourism is that it engages some of the services of the tourism industry, and (is usually) held away from the premises of the organisation running it.

(Davidson, 1994)

The terms used to describe meetings tend to vary depending on the size of the event and where it is held. A small gathering is a meeting but a large meeting is usually called a conference in the UK, a convention in the USA and a congress in much of mainland Europe.

Exhibitions

Davidson defines exhibitions as:

presentations of products or services to an invited audience with the object of inducing a sale ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of exhibits
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part One The Context
• Part Two The Development and Management of Business Travel and Tourism
• Part Three The Practice
• Part Four The Future
• Part Five Case Studies
• Part Six Glossary of Terms
• Select bibliography
• Index