The Tourism Industry Within the Service Sector

Report on the tourism industry in the service sector.

This report is going to focus upon the tourism industry within the service sector, looking at, the tourism product, the business operations cycle, the service concept, and then the idea of the service concept will be applied to the tourist attraction Alton towers.

Section 1 : The key differences between a tourism product and a manufactured product.

The tourism product is defined by many as an intangible product to the customer, a service/ experience the customer can only have once purchased this is stated in Middletons definition, the tourism product "may be defined as a bundle or package of tangible and intangible components, based on activity at a destination. The package is perceived by the tourist as an experience available at a price." (Middleton & Clarke, 2001) In the most basic form the tourism product is a service and not a typical tangible product, "the purchase of a package tour is a speculative investment, involving a high degree of trust on the part of the purchaser". (Holloway, 2002) This means that the tourism product is almost a promise of an experience to the consumer. The five characteristics of service sector industries are Intangibility, Perishability, Heterogeneity, Inseparability, and Lack of ownership. With the tourism product being a service the more tangible and the more personal to the customer the product is the more appealing the product is. If the customer feels that the tourism service is intangible and that the purchase has a lack of ownership then the purchase is not as attractive