Tourism Operations and Management

Book excerpt: Tourism: Operations and Management is a comprehensive textbook, designed especially for undergraduate degree/diploma students of hotel management and tourism studies. The book explores core concepts of tourism and explains them through numerous examples, illustrations, tables, and photographs. Beginning with an introduction to the travel and tourism industry, the book goes on to discuss various types of tourism; tourism infrastructure like accommodation, food and beverage, telecommunications; tourist transport (air, road, rail, and water); Indian and international tourism organizations. The book explains how to set up travel agencies and tour operations and their role in the tourism industry. Key topics like tourism product; tourism marketing; customer service skills; economic, environmental, socio-cultural and political impacts of tourism; and planning, managing and developing a tourist attraction are discussed at length. The emerging trends in tourism like GDS, e-ticketing, web marketing are explored. Chapters on travel formalities and regulations; airline geography; and itinerary planning enhance the readers understanding of the practical operational aspects and make the book useful for practitioners as well. Students of hotel management, hospitality, and tourism studies will find this book useful for its coverage of the key concepts of tourism operations and management explained through industry-related examples, formats, and photographs. With its practice-oriented approach, the book would also be useful to practitioners like travel agents and tour operators.