Comparative analysis in management of tourism destination

Abstract

The term management of tourist destinations have appeared relatively recently, due to rapid development in an upward trend over the last years of the hospitality industry. This development of tourism is due to: information that reaches tourists faster, more efficient means of transport and with larger capacities, more and more diverse accommodation spaces, people working in tourism and, last but not least, local public authorities, which have seen in the development of this industry, economic profit, local welfare.

To find out how tourism management works, we have selected three cities in the world that have developed and presented their development strategies Hamilton in Canada and two cities in Europe, Vienna and Oradea. We will see what all these cities have in common and how they differ, but above all we will point out how each of them develops as a tourist destination, and especially how local authorities put forward new environmental protection methods, reaching out up to the development of an environmental impact tourism.

We aim to obtain a model that will result from comparing the three cities as top tourist destinations and which will be an idea of developing other cities, taking into account the uniqueness of each.

 

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Research and Results

 

1. Introduction

The most important elements of a tourist destination are: natural resources, attractive services, accessibility, promotion and information from the destination, and the most important element is the man, the man who leads to realize of special experiences, unique for each of the tourists, o that the tourist feels that the destination is specially made for him, for his own desires, these are often unspeakable, not uttered by the fear of not be good realized.

Studying the management of a tourist destination I want in this article to detail the importance of the human factor in its development, knowing that often the man involved in providing quality services for tourists, he also becomes a tourist in his turn when he goes to new destinations leaving home the comfort, and then the quality improvement of each person is achieved, because whatever we do, any training program, education, training we implement, if there is no personal involvement, then there will be no economic or social growth. Also related to the human factor is the involvement of the authorities, because they are made up of people and laws made by people, who have to work for the good of the tourist destination, for the added value and this can only be achieved by involving both the hospitality industry people, as well as from the public administration, which must create the legal framework for the development of economic activities.

 

2. Research and Results

I took to analyse three very different tourist destinations at first glance, which I will analyse from the perspective of the definition of the tourist destination and I will deal with the human factor as a priority, because this is a major factor. The three tourist destinations are the city of Hamilton in Canada, the city of Vienna in Austria and the city of Oradea in Romania.

From the point of view of natural resources, each of these cities has the following possibilities:

-     Hamillton is near the Niagara Falls, a rich area of flora, fauna, landscapes, and there are theme parks for sports activities and recreational parks in the city [1, 4];

-     Vienna is located along the Danube, whose banks are declared a national park and part of Vienna is located in the Vienna Forests, and there are other parks specially designed for recreation [2];

-     Oradea located on the Crisul Repede valley has many attractions in the surroundings: Bohodei Waterfall, Bulbuci Waterfall, Karstic Complex of Ponor Fortress, Keys of Hot Somes, Ponor Gorge, Oşelu Canyon, etc. [3, 8]

From the point of view of the anthropic resources in all three localities there are museums, memorial houses, monuments, etc. and we can conclude that from the point of view of natural and anthropogenic resources, each location has a multitude of possibilities of entertainment, recreation, and a good possibility to make offers in the hospitality industry.

However, the transport is not accessible because of the high costs, so for Hamilton and Oradea the economy is based on crossing tourism and tourism in nearby markets, while Vienna has great opportunities to make big amounts of tourism, being an affordable destination, and with lower transport costs, with many low cost airlines, highways, subways, buses, railways, high-speed roads, taxis, etc.

Information and promotion are currently being done on a large scale on the Internet, so when we want information about tourism in each town we will look for and will find the sites from where we get information there are:

-     Hamilton https://tourismhamilton.com/

-     Vienna https://www.wien.info/en

-     Oradea http://oradea.travel/?p=1722

By making a comparison between the three sites, Vienna has the most flexible and most well-

structured website with diverse information in many international languages for the tourism industry. Vienna is best known for its annual carnival in February, a well-known event that gathers tourists from all over the world, because besides the event as an event, they have the opportunity to reach this destination very easily, by plane, by boat, on road and/or rail Once there, tourists do exactly what they do all over the world posting on social sites pictures and information about visits made – promoting their destinations. Putting a search on one of the search engines with the phrase “pictures in the city ...” [10, 11, 12] resulted in the following:

-     Hamilton ~ 59,100 results (0,54 seconds)

-     Vienna ~ 369,000 results (0,67 seconds)

-     Oradea ~ 10,900,000 results (0,45 seconds).

Passing on Images, on the same search engine, I mention that the search was made in Romanian, it is observed that:

-     Hamilton information is about: Ontario, Niagara, Niagara Falls, Romanian Camp, Toronto, Quebec, Canadian, Cultural, Montreal, etc.,

-     Information are about: City Hall, the capital of Austria, Belvedere Palace, Schonebrunn Palace, Christmas, sights, photos, Hofbourg, cathedral, etc.,

-     Oradea information are about: tourist attractions, Bihor, Baile Felix, Unirii Square, Bihor Oradea, Oradea fortress, winter, visited, historical, centre, impressions, Bihor county, etc.

This information, pictures, is related to the human factor, the tourists, the locals from the respective areas and the local authorities who want to promote the tourist destination, thus bringing added value to the community.

Currently, in 2019, it is estimated that Hamilton is ranked 136th in the world with a population of 762,808 compared to 759,203 in 2018 and 89th in the world is the city of Vienna with 1,915,338 inhabitants estimated in 2019 compared to 1,900,547 inhabitants in 2018. On what place is Oradea we did not find the same statistics http://worldpopulationreview.com, it is passed that in 2019, 206,861 inhabitants, and in 2018 it had 221,861 inhabitants [13, 14].

If in the first two cities the number of inhabitants continue to grow, both in Hamilton and Vienna, Oradea has a steady decline over the past few years in the number of inhabitants. The first two must grow the number of jobs but Oradea must grow the number of inhabitants and this can be done by increasing birth rates, setting up immigrants and providing jobs to stabilize the population who no longer migrating to other places.

Another statistic shows that in 2018 the city of Oradea reached the figure of 459,210 overnight stays, a record for Oradea [16], the city of Vienna had 16,423,533 overnight stays and Hamilton town 4,500,000 overnight stays [15], which means that there were 2.07 overnight stays/resident in Oradea, 8.64 overnight stays/resident in Vienna, 5.92 overnight stays/inhabitant in Hamilton.

From this report, we can see that Vienna is better located on the tourist market as a destination, and the management of science can be worthy to follow, to increase tourism revenue and to have tourists happy.

In order to stabilize the population and to raise the standard of living, all three cities have each developed a strategic development plan for the following years in which visions have been created, general and specific goals have been set, they made primary analyses and SWOT analyses and in the final they develop the strategic plan for the management of the tourist destination. Most of the strategic plans do not differ, focusing on the development of leadership through the development of public-private partnerships, the development of marketing and especially the communication at all levels and the development of the tourist destination.

For the development of the tourist destination they will be involved in the increase of the number of accommodation places, the increase of the accommodation quality, the offer of tourists’ expected experiences by involving the locals in the area of tourist attractions, by offering cultural, historical, ecumenical events, especially among young people, who are most involved in the computer area and forget to socialize, organizing holidays for families, increasing the business segment, and conferences and meetings.

The cities of Vienna and Hamilton have a well-developed transport network, but Oradea has to develop this important network, because if the tourist arrives hard at the destination, he does it once, but not many times.

Hamilton and Oradea need to improve and increase their number of quality accommodation and to make those programs that are attractive to families and young people and having a rich natural area can also develop exploration tourism, set in which they will take into account environmental protection and, implicitly, it would be good to develop these routes in the newest form of tourism, ecotourism.

The city of Oradea has been massively involved in the green energy area, transforming the old power factories into new factories using solar energy, thus reducing pollutants and having a cleaner air, which should happen in cities Hamilton and Vienna, both of which have progression and are working to implement green energies.

 

Contributo selezionato da Filodiritto tra quelli pubblicati nei Proceedings “3rd International Conference Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth. Challenges, Measures and Solutions - 2019”

Per acquistare i Proceedings clicca qui.

 

Contribution selected by Filodiritto among those published in the Proceedings “3rd International Conference Inclusive and Sustainable Economic Growth. Challenges, Measures and Solutions - 2019”

To buy the Proceedings click here.