An Introduction to Tourism Supply
This overview chapter on tourism classifies tourism supply into four basic
components: natural resources and environment; the built environment;
transportation; and hospitality and cultural resources. The basic elements of
natural resources and environment include air and climate, lands forms,
terrain, flora and fauna, beaches, natural beauty and water supply. The built
environment includes both the basic infrastructure - water supply systems,
roads, communication networks - and the superstructure - which includes
facilities built specifically for tourism such as airports, parks, marinas,
hotels and motels. Transportation includes items such as ships, airplanes,
buses, taxis, etc. Hospitality and cultural resources include the nature of
the people and the culture of the area that make tourism successful - such as
the history, literature, friendliness, courtesy and welcoming spirit.
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Goeldner, C. R., J. R. B. Ritchie and
R. W. McIntosh. 2000. Tourism Components and Supply. In Tourism: Principles,
Practices, Philosophies. New York, John Wiley and Sons Ltd.: 362-393
Hall, C. M. and S. J. Page. 1999.
The Supply of Recreation and Tourism. New York, Routledge. Second Edition:
89-130. This chapter situates the question of the supply of recreation and tourism
within the research agenda of the geographer. In particular the geographer is
concerned with studying: the locational characteristics associated with the
supply of different recreational resources; the patterns of demand and usage;
and the spatial interactions which occur between the demand for an supply of
the recreational resource. The research analysis has been approached in a
number of different ways: descriptive, exploratory, predictive and normative.
Research on supply is often concerned with a number of specific factors
including: an inventory of the quantity, quality and extent of the resource
base; the supply of recreational resources on the urban fringe; the production
process; international hotel chains; the concept of the urban leisure product;
the role of the public sector; and spatial analysis of the supply of tourism
facilities. Smith, S. L. J. 1998. Tourism as An Industry: Debates and Concepts. In The
Economic Geography of the Tourist Industry: A Supply-side Analysis. Dimitri
Ioannides and Keith G. Debbage (ed.), New York, Routledge: 31-52. This chapter deals with challenging subject of defining the tourism
"industry" and the tension between a supply-side versus demand side
definitions. No other industry uses demand-side definitions and the author
argues for tourism definitions that begin to use supply-side concepts. While
it is recognized that the tourism industry is unlike any other industry - it
does not produce goods in an industry wide standard manner - it posits that
the tourism industry's primary product can be conceptualized as an experience
involving all aspects of a trip. A hypothetical structure of the tourism
product is discussed and it includes five elements: a physical element; a
service; hospitality; personal choice; and involvement by the visitor. The
process of producing the tourism product involves four stages: the input of
land, labor and capital; the input of facilities (parks, hotels, museums,
etc.); the output of services (interpretation, souvenirs, accommodation,
etc.); and the final output of experiences (recreation, relaxation, memories,
etc.). The chapter also discusses Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSAs) that are
an important standardized method for measuring the impact of the tourism
industry. However, TSAs still define tourism using demand-side definitions.
Wilson, K. 1998. "Market / Industry Confusion in Tourism Economic Analyses."
Annals of Tourism Research 25(4):803-817. This paper looks at the issue of economic impact of tourism in light of the
considerable debate over whether tourism is in fact an industry or a market.
Given the economic definition of an industry, the author concludes that
tourism is in fact not an industry, and that industry-based tools of economics
are relevant to an analysis of tourism only under clearly stated assumptions.
In many instances the author argues tourism generates events which in turn may
be analyzed as market-based activities. For example, adventure, heritage, or
cultural tourism all generate events embodied in market activity. The products
provided in these markets will come from a range of industries where the tourism-based market demand for the firms' products may vary in size and
importance. Smith, S. L. J. 1995. Defining and describing tourism. In Tourism
Analysis: A Handbook.Essex, Longman Group Limited, Second Edition: 20-41 This chapter describes the challenges with describing and defining tourism.
In particular it focuses on defining tourism as a demand-side concept - from
the perspective of the person taking the trip or supply-side - from the
perspective of the business supplying the tourism product or service. A
history of tourism definitions is presented as well as the current definition
from the World Tourism Organization (WTO): "Tourism is the set of activities
of a person traveling to a place outside his or her usual environment for less
than a year and whose main purpose of travel is other than the exercise of an
activity remunerated from within the place visited." On the demand-side
tourism can be classified by such factors as length of stay, type of traveler,
type of trip, type of expenditure, transport mode or accommodation type. On
the supply-side, the tourism industry can be classified first by whether the
business (or the whole industry type) does at least a certain percentage -
usually 15% - of their business with tourists and secondly by the type of
tourism product (e.g. passenger air transport, camping, recreation and
entertainment). The Standard International Classification of Tourism
Activities (SICTA) is also presented which is a globalized system for
classifying and measuring tourism activity. It combines supply-side concepts -
the basic structure is based on establishments - and demand-side concepts -
establishments are selected according to the nature of their customers (e.g.
the percentage of tourists) Smith, S. L. J. 1994. "The Tourism Product." Annals of
Tourism Research 21(3):582-595.
An industry is characterized by a generic product and production process. For tourism to be considered an industry, it is necessary to show that such a generic product and process exist. This paper argues that they do exist, and presents a model that describes the product as consisting of five elements: the physical plant, service, hospitality, freedom of choice, and involvement. The generic production begins with raw inputs, progresses through intermediate inputs and outputs, to final outputs, or the tourist's experience. The model is potentially important contribution in the debate about tourism as an industry; it also formalizes the intuitive notion of many authors that tourism products are fundamentally experiences.
Smith, S. L. J. 1988. "Defining Tourism: A Supply-Side View." Annals of Tourism Research 15(2):179-190.
This paper proposes a supply-side definition of the tourism industry which is seen as being consistent with the definition of other industries. "Tourism is the aggregate of all businesses that directly provide goods or services to facilitate business, pleasure, and leisure activities away from the home environment." Two tiers of businesses are seen as being part of the tourism industry: one tier composed of businesses that serve exclusively tourists, and another tier composed of businesses that serve a mix of tourists and local residents. These tiers are operationally defined from several Statistics Canada data sources and the Standard Industrial Classification codes. A key strength of the proposed definition is that it permits both conceptualization and measurement of tourism in a way that is consistent with other economic activity.