Challenges affecting tourism industry in Sydney

Discuss about the Educational Travel and Sustainable Tourism.

Sustainability is gaining much attention these days as global warming is taking a toll on our ecosystem, thus affecting natural resources. The businesses are aiming for sustainability in order to expand their market and gain attention in the business world. Sustainability helps a business to grow beyond regular business practices and experience new innovative ways to nurture a business (Miller, Merrilees & Coghlan, 2015). The topic of this report is sustainability practice in the context of tourism and its related aspects, specifically an accommodation provider operating in Sydney – Tranquillity At Roseville. Tranquillity At Roseville is popular among tourists visiting Sydney and provides a wide range of facilities such as free wifi, free parking, non-smoking rooms, sports activities, laundry and ironing services etc. The rooms and spacious and comfortable equipped with a flat screen TV,  individual climate control, an iron with ironing board, a work desk and a closet. In this report, it will be critically assessed that how these tourism related practices are aligned with the principles of sustainability.

Sydney is one of the popular tourist destinations of Australia, attracting tourists from all over the world. The tourist accommodation providers of Sydney have always yielded a large number of revenue by providing accommodation to the pool of tourists flying there from different countries. But lately the accommodation providers such as Tranquillity At Roseville are facing several issues (Tarrant et al. 2014). These issues include economic issues, socio-cultural issues and environmental issues, which are affecting the accommodation providing industry of Sydney thus, lowering the amount of profit generated from the operations of these accommodation providers to the tourists. Tranquillity At Roseville is also being affected by these challenges in Sydney tourism sector mentioned below-

Demand: Over the years, the number of tourists visiting Sydney has been decreased tremendously. The reason can be lack of marketing of tourism programs which are mostly responsible for drawing tourists from all over the world. Tourists also visit a country due to attend particular events or office conferences (Bramwell, 2015). From the lowering number of visitors coming for official purpose, it can be assumed that the companies headquartered in Sydney are organising the conferences or meetings at some other country and Sydney is experiencing lesser number of official visitors. Generally, visitors coming for official purpose do not stay longer, it takes one or two days to fulfil their purpose, and then they leave Sydney. The accommodation providers are not being benefitted by the tourists who used to come and stay longer to explore the city with their family or friends. The less number of international and domestic visitors are making the accommodation providers in Sydney think about their source of earning in near future if the situation remains same (Carr, Ruhanen & Whitford, 2016). The number of people staying in tourist accommodations has drastically fallen, Tranquillity At Roseville is also being affected by the same.

Assessment of Tranquillity at Roseville with respect to sustainability

Infrastructure and product: Being the gateway to Australia, a vast number of people travel through Sydney. To drive demand and increase visitation, the development of new infrastructure and product is much required. According to a study it has been found that within 2020, the 6am-12pm noon flight seats and 4pm-7pm afternoon flight seats will be fully allocated and there will be a heavy flow of visitors passing through Sydney airport. The study also reveals that by 2035, the Sydney airport capacity issue will lead to mismanagement of old services and also the airport will be unable to take over new services due to heavy pressure of halting passengers. The airport capacity must be increased in order to handle such huge flow of passengers waiting in Sydney airport (Li & Hunter, 2015). Improvement in accessing transport modes in city is of much importance in order to ensure growing number of tourists. Tourists driving to Sydney and driving around Sydney should be satisfied. As cruise shipping is on a high at Sydney, Sydney Harbour Bridge should not create hindrance, thus new ship terminals should be made to put up with the situation.

Supply: Development of new tourist accommodations across Sydney is facing a hard time, hence, affecting the overall revenue of Sydney generated from the operations of these tourist accommodation providers like Tranquillity At Roseville. The possible barriers behind this issue are hereby.

Development Barriers such as-

• Competition with the usage of other lands,
• Tremendously high cost of lands,
• Longer development time frames leading to increased capital cost and investment payback period,
• Difficulty in securing finances,
• High and ever increasing construction costs.

Operational barriers such as-

• Lack of investment in tourism infrastructure,
• High fixed costs,
• Long term performance,
• Volatility of the revenue.

The business operations of Tranquillity At Roseville is greatly affected by all these above mentioned barriers, creating a big question mark in the accommodation providers operating in Sydney.

As the Tranquillity At Roseville is facing specific challenges in continuing its business operations seamlessly and maximizing their profit margin, Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) has certain criterion with which the situation can be assessed further. The criterion for the hotel industry which also covers Tranquillity At Roseville are followed hereby-

• Sustainability management system: is clearly documented; covers social, cultural, quality, human rights, economic, health and safety issues; includes consideration of risk management; monitors continuous improvement of sustainability performance (Conaghan & Hanrahan, 2010).
• Legal compliance: a list is maintained, consisting all applicable legal requirements; compliance with those requirements in shown through certificates or other documentary evidences.
• Reporting and communication: regular reports on sustainability performance; reporting, in internal and external communication material, of sustainability policies and actions.
• Staff engagement: staff involvement evidence; records of on-the-job training and courses including attendance levels; staff training and guidance materials; staff hold certificates.
• Customer experience: customer feedback system; recording of negative feedbacks and evidence of corrective measures taken.
• Accurate promotion: images provided are of actual facilities provided and experiences offered; sustainability claims based on past performance records (Levy & Duverger, 2010).
• Buildings and infrastructure: includes sub-criterions like compliance. Impact and integrity, sustainable practices and materials, access for all (including the ones with special needs).
• Land, water and property rights: documentation of land ownership and tenure rights, and also user and access rights for key resources; documentary evidence of consultation, communication, and engagement with local & indigenous communities, and also free, informed and prior consent from local communities (Lew et al. 2016).
• Information and interpretation: staff training in accordance to natural and cultural heritage of local area; knowledge regarding behavioural traits of local area is conveyed to visitors.
• Destination engagement: organisation attends meetings concerning sustainable tourism in that destination (as per the given context, Sydney).

In case of Tranquillity At Roseville, all these criterion are imposed and the management tries to meet each of the criteria at their level best.

Tranquillity At Roseville is a popular accommodation provider in Sydney with vast number of positive reviews and feedbacks from their customers stating how their description matches with their offerings (Modica, 2015). As it is known, no business is perfect; Tranquillity At Roseville is having ceratin drawbacks as well.

Environmental management: Tranquillity At Roseville is careful when it comes to use environment-friendly tools to make the stay comfortable for the visitors. Energy efficient light at every room to minimize power consumption at the hotel is indeed a sustainable step (dos Santos, Méxas & Meiriño, 2017). Also the hotel is having separate power off button beside the door of every room, so that if the visitor leaves for the day without turning off any of the electrical equipments, a hotel staff can easily use that power button to switch off the power of that particular room. Also Tranquillity At Roseville has a well-structured garbage disposal system which is not connected to the sea, rather it recycles the garbage into fertilizers. With this water pollution can be prevented.

Criterion of Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC)

Interpretation and education: As most of the visitors come to Sydney for the first time for holidaying purpose, they do not have knowledge about the cultural and natural heritages of the city. Internet is helpful but not entirely as the importance of those heritages can only be conveyed by local guides well equipped with the knowledge about cultural and natural heritage Sydney is having. Tourists are also eager to know the brief history behind significant monuments (Dredge & Jamal, 2011). Tranquillity At Roseville has a well-trained group of guides who provide the tourists with immense knowledge regarding the significant places of Sydney. Thus, with the staff training program held by Tranquillity At Roseville, meeting the expectations of the visitors become easier.

Customer satisfaction: with the efficiency of management and staffs of Tranquillity At Roseville, customers are satisfied which generates a large number of positive feedbacks from customers’ side.

Working with local communities: Apart from local guides, local people and goods are not utilized properly. Most of the decorative as well as furnishing items of Tranquillity At Roseville are highly expensive and imported from Melbourne and most of the staff stays far from the place where the hotel is situated (Bricker, 2012).

Responsible marketing: Although the hotel is amazing, the description available online does not do justice to the hotel presentation. Also, the link between local attractions with the hotel is necessary too in order to make the customers understand the reasons to stay at Tranquillity At Roseville leaving all other hotels in Sydney.

Contribution to conservation: Tranquillity At Roseville is basically focusing on their own profit maximization, not overall enhancement of the facilities involved in the tourism sector of Sydney.

On the basis of the three weak areas of Tranquillity At Roseville, it can be said that the hotel needs to focus on responsible marketing to enhance the advantages they can provide to the visitors. The hotel description on internet should include special amenities rendered by the hotel and also highlight the key areas which satisfy the question ‘what makes Tranquillity At Roseville superior than other hotels in Sydney?’. Moreover, Tranquillity At Roseville should be thinking about flourishing the local market by buying local products and hiring hotel staff from local area, so that the local area could be benefitted from the business operations run by Tranquillity At Roseville. The local community is a crucial part of any business and it is the responsibility of the business to take care of the well-being of the local community people (Edgell Sr, 2016). Also, Tranquillity At Roseville should implement actions which can contribute to the conservation, which can include provisioning of physical, financial or in-kind assistance.

Conclusion

Tranquillity At Roseville is facing a lot of challenges in the current scenario of visitor-hotel ratio in Sydney. The concerned hotel is having some outstanding strength and also some serious weaknesses. Required steps should be taken by the management of Tranquillity At Roseville to overcome those weaknesses after assessing the situation thoroughly. This report highlighted the key areas to be improved and also preventive measures which can be taken to ensure seamless and sustainable operations (Ruhanen et al. 2015). Hence, with proper application of sustainable principles Tranquillity At Roseville can grow up in coming years with more sustainable implementations from their part.

References

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Modica, P. (2015). Sustainable Tourism Management and Monitoring. Destination, Business and Stakeholder Perspectives. FrancoAngeli.

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Dredge, D., & Jamal, T. (2011). Certification and indicators.

Edgell Sr, D. L. (2016). Managing sustainable tourism: A legacy for the future. Routledge.

Ruhanen, L., Weiler, B., Moyle, B. D., & McLennan, C. L. J. (2015). Trends and patterns in sustainable tourism research: A 25-year bibliometric analysis. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(4), 517-535.

Li, Y., & Hunter, C. (2015). Community involvement for sustainable heritage tourism: a conceptual model. Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, 5(3), 248-262.

Carr, A., Ruhanen, L., & Whitford, M. (2016). Indigenous peoples and tourism: The challenges and opportunities for sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(8-9), 1067-1079.

Bramwell, B. (2015). Theoretical activity in sustainable tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 54, 204-218.

Tarrant, M. A., Lyons, K., Stoner, L., Kyle, G. T., Wearing, S., & Poudyal, N. (2014). Global citizenry, educational travel and sustainable tourism: Evidence from Australia and New Zealand. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(3), 403-420.

Miller, D., Merrilees, B., & Coghlan, A. (2015). Sustainable urban tourism: Understanding and developing visitor pro-environmental behaviours. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(1), 26-46.