transport may require an overnight stay on the mode of transport (the cruise ship) or in serviced accommodation, and time is made available for visiting attractions and for sightseeing. The coach or cruise then travels to the next area. Eventually the tour returns back to the point of departure and the tour is completed. In recent years, cruise companies have introduced the concept of fly-cruises to offer more compact, time-efficient cruises. Passengers fly to a point of departure when they undertake a cruise or part of a cruise before returning by ship or aircraft. At a less organized level, the principles of touring are inherent in the activities of holidaymakers who undertake domestic driving holidays or tours in their destin- ation area. Therefore, transporting the tourist, the tour and travel in general are fundamental elements of the dynamic phenomenon known as tourism.
The movement of people, often in large volumes, requires spe- cific managerial skills and an understanding of logistics – particu- larly of how the transport system and its different elements are managed. For the transport sector, managing the supply of trans- port so it meets demand and operates in an efficient, timely and convenient manner is an underlying feature for transporting tour- ists. For this reason, this chapter and Chapter 6 examine the trans- port sector and the principal modes of transport by land, water and air. In each case the management issues involving tourists will be highlighted and key concepts associated with each mode of trans- port. However, prior to discussing land-based transport it is useful to examine a number of concepts that are used in understanding how tourist transport is shaped by government.
160 CHAPTER FIVE Transporting the tourist I: Surface transport
environment, the government may operate its own airline (a ‘flag carrier ’), to promote tourism development in a country. In con- trast, in a highly deregulated environment, the government may adopt a ‘hands-off ’ approach, wanting competition and the market to determine what services are provided. Whilst policy objectives may set the direction the government wants to pursue, govern- ments also have responsibility for the provision of infrastructure given the high capital costs of airports, ports and railways, roads, bridges and waterways. One example of this involvement is shown in Table 5.1 for Scotland, which has a devolved government for some transport issues. However, in recent years, govern- ments have tried to defray these high capital costs by encouraging private sector investment and leasing the asset to the developer for 20–25 years so they recoup the cost plus a profit, then the asset returns to the state. These changing approaches to transport policy have followed distinct phases in countries such as the UK, where Button and Gillingwater (1983) identified four eras, each of which had a clear impact on tourism development and provision. A fifth era that has developed since the 1990s can also be discerned:
TABLE 5.1 The scope and extent of the Scottish Executive’s* involvement in national transport planning and management in Scotland
● Aviation is a reserved issue for the UK government (though rail links serving airports are in the Scottish Executive’s remit)
● ScotRail franchise, costing £250 million a year
● Network Rail in Scotland, £300 million a year
● Direct funding to vital air services (Barra, Campbeltown and Tiree to Glasgow) and operation of 10 airports in the Highlands and Islands
● Ferry subsidies to the Northern Isles, Clyde and Hebrides services
● Provision of the Bus Operator Grant
● Encouraging ‘Smarter Choices in Travel ’
● International connectivity by air and the Air Route Development Fund, administered by Scottish Enterprise
● International connectivity by sea is a matter for the private sector
● Cross-border connectivity
– advice to UK government on rail franchises
– 148 short-haul fl ights per week day Scotland to London, of which 98 are London–Edinburgh/Glasgow
– promotion of rail as a more sustainable option and use of Air Route Development Fund to reduce reliance upon London-based connecting fl ights
*In 2007 the Scottish Executive was renamed the Scottish Government
Source: Adapted from Scottish Executive (2006) Scotland’s National Transport Strategy:
A Consultative Summary
1 The Railway Age , from the 1840s onwards, during which private sector investment was employed to develop land-based transport (except during the First World War when state control was exercised).
2 The Age of Protection , which dominated the 1920s and 1930s when road transport emerged and unplanned car and coach travel developed. Governments intervened to prevent excessive competition, which in the USA led to the 1935 Motor Carriage Act that protected the Greyhound Bus Operators by giving this one operator a monopoly on inter-urban bus travel.
3 The Age of Administrative Planning followed the Second World War, with the weaknesses exposed in railway companies leading to nationalization and a national passenger network to ensure national efficiency. The financial costs of large-scale nationalization led to major subsidies, which were restructured in the 1960s after the Beeching Report (the network was cut back considerably). In 1968, the Transport Act in the UK led to further reorganization of public transport with the creation of the National Bus Company (NBC).
4 The Age of Contestability characterized the USA in the 1970s and the UK in the 1980s. It was based on the principles of deregulation to achieve greater efficiency and to reduce public subsidies. In the UK, it led to the sale of state-owned assets (e.g.
the sale of the NBC) and the establishment of private transport providers such as British Airways, Sealink Ferries and Stena, and, in the early 1990s, to the privatization of British Rail.
5 The Age of Public –Private Partnerships has emerged in the UK since the Labour government entered power in the late 1990s.
It has seen continuity with previous policies of privatization and a greater emphasis on private sector expertise to manage transport infrastructure. Concerns for efficiency and renewed investment in infrastructure have led to complex solutions to harness public –private partnerships in redeveloping aged infrastructure like the London Underground. Where the private sector assesses the risk of investment as not justified in terms of likely returns, the state has had to reinvest using taxpayers ’ funds. Where competition is seen as beneficial, it is promoted, particularly in air travel. Even so, for the tourism sector there is a recognition that policy issues may be a key element of the drivers of change for transport and tourist travel. A recent study based on interviews with transport operators in Scotland ( Table 5.2 ) summarizes many of the key drivers shaping tourist travel and the importance of policy issues in each instance.
162 CHAPTER FIVE Transporting the tourist I: Surface transport
TABLE 5.2 Ten key drivers which shape transport and tourist travel in Scotland
Driver Comments
Uncertainty in future environmental policy and its application to tourism
The policy measures and approach of the UK Government towards environmental issues and transport remain contradictory, with different Departments pursuing divergent objectives (e.g. road growth, sustainability, economic growth and measures to address climate change). The result is uncertainty over two key issues as they relate to Scottish tourism:
1. How carbon taxation will be developed and applied to tourism . 2. Global warming and the impact of climate change debate and
measures on aviation.
The future of travel Will the demand for travel continue to grow unabated and lead to continued growth in Scotland’s inbound markets over the next twenty years as envisaged in airport expansions plans for Scotland ? OR:
Will there be a radical change in the nature and attitude amongst consumers to travel leading to constraints on inbound growth?
Infrastructure provision There is little prospect of major change in the future transport for tourism infrastructure in Scotland over and above large projects in the pipeline or commissioned. The rail network is expected to remain largely in its current form, with some airport expansion and additional connectivity to the airports by rail and trams. Road capacity will continue to grow at the margins with no major new road projects to provide alternative access routes to Scotland.
Road pricing The effect on Scotland’s major domestic market could be directly affected by measures which reduce the demand for car-based travel with a pay as you go road pricing scheme. Access to Scotland would be prohibitively expensive for car-based travellers from south-east England and the Midlands, unless new roll on roll off (RO RO) ferries are introduced (or overnight car-rail freighters) to reduce the access cost.
This would also impact upon car touring outside Central Scotland.
The public transport offering
A degree of integration already exists for tourist use in the urban-to- urban trips or intra-urban trips. Rural schemes remain limited due to the population base to cross-subsidize rural transport outside of the main tourist season.
The future of oil The long-term future of oil remains debatable and this adds increased uncertainty for the current road-based tourism travel patterns which assist in geographical dispersal of visitors across the country.
Air transport The sustainability of the low-cost model and its key role in developing new inbound markets to Scotland is increasingly being debated. This has had a direct impact on expanding inbound markets to date.
Direct fl ights are widely seen as connecting Scotland to its destinations more effi ciently as opposed to the London or Amsterdam hubs. At the same time, the environmental lobby is questioning the future role of air travel in UK travel.
One additional level of policy measure that is important in Europe is the role of the European Union and its attempt to develop pan-European policies towards transport provision. EU states have been slow to engage in rail competition following EU Directive 91/440 in 1991 that sought to separate infrastructure from operations. Sweden initially separated its operations from infrastructure, followed by the UK and Germany in 1994.
In the UK, the rail industry is managed by the organizations listed in Figure 5.4 . According to Page ( 2009), rail privatization has been followed by these developments from a tourism perspective which have sought to improve customer service for rail travellers:
● e-travel options (i.e. booking via the Internet or via Trainline.com)
● National Rail Inquiry call centre
● more approachable staff to help at stations for long-distance services
● clearer branding of the rail product offered by each franchise.
In particular, a number of specific developments have occured on-board privatized rail services including:
● a redesigned team approach on long-distance services to remove hierarchical management and demarcation of duties
● greater information during service interruptions to keep passengers informed and to maintain satisfaction levels TABLE 5.2 (Continued)
Driver Comments
Urban gateways and tourism concentration in Glasgow –Edinburgh and rural areas
The continued concentration of tourism in the two main gateways as future cost of access and travel to the Highlands grows will be a key driver of the future geographical patterns of tourist patronage. Scottish Enterprise has already identifi ed their key destinations in Scotland, in part, refl ecting this spatial reality to focus future tourism infrastructure investment.
Monopoly provision in public transport provision
The potential of rail and ferry markets remain limited in terms of the innovation they can exercise in the tourism sector. This is due to the current franchise and tendering practices as well as their business models which offer only limited scope for tourism to feature in their transport offering. This is in spite of the overwhelming economic importance of tourism to the economy in the Highlands and Islands.
Access exists but it is not necessarily facilitating future growth; it is only accommodating growth within the stated business models of the transport providers.
Source: Pageet al . (2007)
164 CHAPTER FIVE Transporting the tourist I: Surface transport
● the introduction of packages to offer more on-board value in restaurant and buffet cars
● investment in new and refurbished trains
● more interaction with passengers to generate repeat business.
France established the RRF infrastructure authority in 1997 (although most of its responsibilities are delegated to SNCF) while the Netherlands implemented similar changes in July 2001, but poor management led to virtual re-nationalization.
To compete with air-based traffic and to address European air congestion, the EU proposed plans for a trans-European network (TENS) of high-speed road and rail links in Europe. A 1994 study by the EC/Union of International Railway Companies (UIC) fore- cast that with a TENS network in operation, rail may account for 23.5 per cent of the estimated 1.5 billion passenger kilometres which would be travelled in western Europe by 2010. This would require passengers to switch their mode of travel so that the car would account for 60.2 per cent of traffic flows, rail 23.5 per cent and air 16.5 per cent. Whilst the EU pointed to success in new high-speed operations (e.g. Spain’s AVE route from Madrid to Seville saw the share of air traffic drop from 40 per cent to 13 per cent and the Paris –Brussels THALY service led to a 15 per cent drop in car usage), these are the exception rather than the norm. These flagship projects are frequently used to justify additional investment, given that road and air congestion add 6 per cent to EU fuel consumption.
In 2003, the UK Department for Transport issued a White Paper (a discussion paper) setting out its proposed policy for airport devel- opment in the UK to 2033. This recognized that air travel had
The UK rail passenger industry structure FIGURE 5.4
• DfT – Department for Transport, responsible for government policy;
• RPC – Rail Passenger Council and Committees represent passenger interests;
• TOCs – Train operating companies, which operate passenger services and have a trade association representing them – Association of Train Operating Companies;
• ROSCOs – Rolling Stock Companies own rolling stock and lease to TOCs;
• PTAs – Passenger Transport Authorities in seven metropolitan areas specify the minimum level of service, administer subsides and co-signatories to franchise agreements;
• Network Rail (a not-for-profit organization) own and run the national rail infrastructure and directly manage major stations;
• ORR – Office of the Rail Regulator which manages competition franchises and the provision of services by the TOCs.
increased fivefold during 1970 –2002, from 32 million passengers to 189 million passengers. Their forecasts were for between 350 and 460 million passengers travelling; these forecasts are based on half the population flying each year, and 70 per cent of these flights being to overseas destinations. Strong industrial lobby groups such as the British Airport Authority, airlines and freight companies argued for the major economic benefits of air transport to the UK economy and the importance of expansion. However, the White Paper did not consider promoting rail travel for domestic trips as an alternative to air transport when much of the recent growth in UK airport usage has been promoted by low-cost airlines. Consequently, whilst the EU is avidly promoting rail travel as an option to road and air travel in the EU, the UK government has favoured air travel, although airlines are not required to pay for the full economic and environmental impact of their activities, since aviation fuel is exempt from excise duty. The progress report launched in December 2006 as a follow up to the 2003 White Paper on airport policy by the UK government highlighted the national prospects for air travel and the factors affecting demand that are focused on:
● trade and freight transport demand
● international competitiveness
● aviation’s direct contribution to economic development
● people’s aspirations to travel; the October 2006 Department for Transport Attitudes of, and Experiences Towards Air Travel study which underlined the strong aspirations of the UK population flying in the future given that 15 per cent had flown at least three times in the previous year. Affordability and rising incomes were seen as key drivers of these aspirations although 70 per cent recognized the impact of such activity on the environment (an increase from the same response to the question in 2002, where 62 per cent felt that air travel impacted upon the environment).
On the basis of these factors which were seen as shaping demand, revised projected demand forecasts were produced for air travel to 2030 under two assumptions:
1 Unconstrained demand , where demand would rise from 228 million passengers per annum (MPPA) in 2005 to 490 million in 2030.
2 Constrained demand , where there is an assumption that by 2010 passengers will be paying for the effects of climate change,
166 CHAPTER FIVE Transporting the tourist I: Surface transport
providing forecasts of traffic increasing from 228 MPPA in 2005 to 465 million MPPA in 2030 (although these assumptions make no allowance for temporary short-term interruptions from incidents such as terrorism or a pandemic).
For one part of the UK such as Scotland, the implications were that traffic is forecast to grow to:
● 20.2 MPPA in 2030 at Glasgow
● 6 MPPA at Prestwick in 2030
● 5.3 MPPA at Aberdeen in 2030
● 1 MPPA at Inverness by 2010
and it also outlines the effects of alternative assumptions on con- strained demand to 2030.
But there have been many criticisms of what amounts to the largest airport expansion programme since the 1970s, in an era of increased concerns for the environment. The ECI report also ques- tions many of the Department for Trade’s assumptions in The Future for Air Transport (2003) as, if restraint is applied to UK trav- ellers, will growth migrate elsewhere? Interestingly, it questions the argument that growth in air travel is inevitable since it is the con- sequence of growth in GDP. Whilst income and GDP growth affect the demand for air travel, it does not mean aviation is a key driver of GDP. There is a broad relationship in that as GDP growth increases, the number of passengers travelling by air increases, but the rela- tionship isnot direct, and can be altered by policy intervention.
ECI point to the potential impact, if air fares rose, to reduce overseas travel for UK residents and the positive benefits of add- itional spending on UK domestic tourism. The consequences might be a net increase in regenerating many destinations through new investment, reducing the UK tourism deficit by spending on outbound trips. The deficit was estimated to be £15 billion in the red in 2002 by DCMS inTomorrow’s Tourism Today, which may have risen to £17 billion in 2005. Tourism’s overall impact on GDP in the UK was only 1.4 per cent when the next contri- bution is calculated (based on a House of Commons calculation in 2003), which would be even lower if fares paid to all carriers were excluded. In simple terms it equates to UK residents spend- ing £2.32 abroad for every £1 spent by overseas visitors.
Consequently the ECI report criticizes the aviation industry for having a negative effect on UK tourism, running contrary to popular opinion. If one accepts this argument, then further expansion
in air travel cannot be justified on the basis of the economic boost it provides to UK tourism. But the current rhetoric in UK govern- ment policy towards air travel is that growth will continue, so this in itself is not likely to benefit UK tourism in general, but even if outbound domestic travel was deterred, it does not necessarily follow that all discretionary spending would automatically convert to domestic tourism (Figure 5.5). Therefore, even within the EU, member states are pursuing their own ideological stance towards transport policies affecting tourism, in spite of other policy object- ives aimed towards sustainable economic activity.
This discussion of policy issues illustrates that government pol- icy can directly affect the supply of transport services in its use of regulation–deregulation measures. Notable entrepreneurs in the transport sector have responded to the opportunities afforded by transport policy changes (e.g. the deregulation of the bus industry and railway system after 1985) as the rise of Stagecoach as a global transport operator in the UK has shown (also see the case study later in Box 5.1 on Megabus.com). The rise of Virgin and easyJet as
Car parking at this beach resort illustrates the management issues associated with accommodating the impact of the car and domestic tourism
FIGURE 5.5