The Tourism Industry Structures

Because it serves the primary purpose of bringing people together, transportation is the foundation of every sustainable industry. Airlines, airports, organizations that provide ferry and cruise services, automobile rental agencies, rail and train operators, and coach companies are the major actors in the tourism transportation industry (Sever, 2000). Each participant contributes significantly at a specific stage of the industry. For example, airports play a bigger part in international tourism when they deliver visitors to the host nation, especially in the modern world when time is of the essence. An airport should include facilities like stores and restrooms, as well as infrastructure and services (UN, 1996). Car-hire businesses are needed to enable visitors travel to short distances or road trips and the quality of service matters to the client.

Transportation is one of the basic requirements of people. The requirements vary considerably between different places, different industrial sectors and different social groups. A good transportation system is required to make sure that, the products / goods and people reach their destination safely on time at an affordable cost (Lee et al., 2009). Needs and expectations of commuters vary based on their social-economic conditions. In this context Public Transportation systems assume importance and faces challenges in catering to varied needs (Anderson & Wincoop, 2003).

Public transportation or Mass transit comprises all transport systems that transport members of general public at a set fare. It includes Airline, Railways and Roadways – Bus services, Taxi services etc. Public transport services are used all over the world, especially when people need to travel between states or cities and within the city. Public transport services, when used efficiently and effectively, can contribute significantly to the growth of the state, especially when the population density is increasing or high (Dunlop, 2002). In a developing country like India, for a basic requirement like transportation, people expect public transport system to provide safe and affordable transportation. In developing countries, a higher proportion of the population depends on public transport.

Measuring quality in service lacks rigidity as services are intangible. Measurements attached to perceptions on some intangible dimensions and measurements on tangible dimensions of service by individuals who receive services lead to a measure of quality from customers’ perspective, whereas service providers’ measure quality by considering dimensions which are, in their view, critical to the service (Albalate & Bel, 2008). Similar challenges are true with the transportation sector, one of the important components of service sector. Opinion on both tangible and intangible dimensions leads to perception of quality in transportation.

Three major transport facilities, which are essential for the development of tourism in our country, for example air transport, rail transport and road transport. Efficient transportation is a necessary in an economic cycle of tourism industry (Lohmann & Oliveira, 2008). Rail transport play significance role in the development of tourism industry, however rail transport is providing short distance traffic and in hilly and rural area (La Roca, 2009). There are also certain inherent conveniences that road transport provides point to point of tourism destination, which does not provided by rail transport in NE India. Currently, the visitors have a wide variety of options to pick from. For instance, different airlines provide regular, quick, and ‘on time’ flight to all Chinese cities. Some connect destinations aboard (Cho, 2010). High-speed passenger buses have been put into service for commuters between different ports. The railways are being improved continuously. The train is very comfort. All important railways stations now have huge and shining lights (Lumdson & Page, 2004). Likewise, the road sector, which is making the most spectacular progress and the all roads, are made travel smooth, comfortable and hassle free.

Relationships and coordination between these systems is crucial for the well-being of the sector. They have to relate well to maintain one another in business. For instance, travel agents secure business for tour operators and tour operators call upon the transport business to get the tourists to the destination (Scott, Gössling & Hal, 2012). Similarly, the hospitality industry must satisfy the consumers and ensure quality and customer satisfaction. Failure of one of the units means a breakdown of the whole system.

Road transport plays a very crucial role in tourism industry by social and economic development point of view. The Roads and Transport Development Association has on several occasion pointed to special reference to tourism industry that road transport should not be treated as a means of collecting revenues only (Anable, 2005). While starving road programmes of necessary funds. The public has reiterated this attitude by Public Accounts Committee, which has deplored the practice of under feeding funds while treating road transport as a “milch cow” for the tourism industry (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development., & ITF, 2015).

Tourists expect safe and comfortable travel from a given location to a given destination on time at a reasonable cost. From the Finding based on a research, it can be concluded that, commuters are highly dissatisfied about the cost involved in local travel (Faghri, A., & Hamad, 2002). Also, Discontentment is high about the safety and comfort levels of commuters during travel.

SERVQUAL indicates that, Gap between Expectation and Perception is highest for Reliability and least for Tangibles. The reason for this is, the Reliability has second highest average expectation level and Tangibles has the least average expectation level among the factors (Duval, 2007). This indicates that, visual appeal is not very critical for commuters of public transport services; whereas Assurance, Reliability and Empathy are Very Critical for customer satisfaction. Each of the five SEVRQUAL factors has significant influence on the GAP in the overall satisfaction of commuters. Consequently, progress in road transport industry for the tourism industry in NE India has however been slow, mainly for five reasons (Verbeek, Bargeman & Mommaas, 2011).

1) First, Taxation is rather heavy on the motor transport industry as a whole. Not only are taxes levied at various levels, but also their quantum is exorbitant. In an automobile undertaking taxation, starts from the beginning of the manufacturing process and continue even beyond the point of sale. As per survey, it was found that first price paid by the operator- purchaser 50 to 50 percent represents taxes alone. Therefore, it has to reduce taxes automobiles used in tourism industry (Hall, 2014).

2) The second factor behind the relatively slow growth of road transport has been mounting operating cost including tourism industry used automobiles. Now days, road transport industry in almost states have made the proverbial milch cow (Le-Klähn, Gerike, & Hall, 2014). Therefore, growth of the road transport for tourism industry is a problem to achieving a competitive edge thru people.

3) The third factor, the development of road transport has been handicapped by various restrictions on the movement of tourist vehicles (Sacks, 2002). The Motor Vehicles Act 1933 which regulation road transport special for tourist vehicles through a system of permits and licenses, has been used by various regional authorities more to obstruct the movement of traffic than to facilities it (Hall, 2013). Until lately, permits would be granted to tourist vehicles in only One State. If a tourist vehicle wanted to go to a neighboring State, not only would be have to pay an additional tax (often a stiff one), but the time and delay involved in securing this other permit could be most frustrating (Khadaroo & Seetanah, 2007).

4) The fourth factor is the unsatisfactory condition of many roads and road-link (mostly over bridge) over which tourist vehicles, trucks etc have to operate. Here again Governments step-motherly attitudes towards the road transport industry has been most conspicuous (Le-Klähn, & Hall, 2015). Of the total revenue derived from the industry, hardly 40 percent is spent on road development (including road maintenance). In other words 60 percent that belongs to the Road development Fund is diverted to other uses while the road system continues to suffer from weak culverts, missing bridges etc (Testa, 2004).

5) Finally, there is the obnoxious levy or entry tax in a majority of the state. The detention of tourist vehicles/trucks at various check post for hours together and the corrupt practices. Such detention involves, is an additional burden on the operator the committee said in 1969 that 30% of the total running time was lost because, of the these stoppages (Everett, 2006). Successive committee set up by Govt. of India has pleaded for the abolition entry- tax, but their recommendations have been ignored (Khadaroo & Seetanah, 2007). Therefore, road transport development for the tourism industry, the following points are need to infrastructure development in tourist vehicles special reference to India (Automobiles used for tourism industry)-

To reduce cumulative duty and taxes on transport vehicles at least 40%,

Exempting ancillaries and components and original equipment from any excise duty,

Normal and Uniform excise duty on automobile spares used as replacement of parts to be levied,

To reduce excise duty and taxes on tyre at least by 40%, (Atmanagara, 2009)

To reduce excise duty and taxes on fuel at least by 40% of the present price,

Bank credit for vehicles, which are used in tourism industry to ensures extension of loan of concessional rates for all operators, etc.

Another important change in the transport system is the application of the GPS tools. This system allows an unlimited number of GPS receivers located anywhere in the earth’s surface and in view of the GPS satellites to accurately determine position, velocity and time. The all weather function ability and worldwide coverage of GPS allow its users to obtain the accurate second - by – second three dimensional Position, Velocity and Time (PVT) information on a regular basis (Gibson & Bentley, 2006). Consequently the applications of GPS have proliferated across all means of transport in different ways (Hook, 2002). For the transport planner, route identification and representation in a systematic manner in a GIS is always based on the GPS data, as it is generally difficult to track the path based on street name or the landmarks.

Both active and passive GPS helps in tracking the passengers’ routes. Active GPS is user dependent where data is entered at the required points. It consists of a GPS antenna/receiver connected to a Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) that allows the users to enter the data and use accordingly. The Passive GPS has the same components but the only difference lies in its independent nature where the data received by the antenna automatically and stored. In both of the cases, information can be recorded from once every second to multiple seconds of the position and time of the GPS (Ygnace et al., 2001). Position is recorded as the latitude and longitude of the positions where the GPS antenna receives the signal and is recorded to the nearest 1/100,000 of a degree. Simultaneously, the time at which each record is observed, is recorded in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which used to be known as Greenwich Mean Time.

Current commercially available GPS antenna and recording systems are capable of providing position accuracy to within about ±10 m. Thus GPS can provide very accurate data not only on the location of origin and destination of each trip, but also on the time of departure and arrival, and the route taken (Guiver et al., 2007). It requires an accurate GIS map of the region, on which to overlay the information, in order to able to determine more details about the origin, destination and route taken. To obtain, all these data, the GPS device can be attached to a hand held computer or PDA and the respondent can enter information during the travel episodes. Later on, all of this information can be downloaded and mapped accordingly (Faghri, & Hamad, 2002). Such household travel survey can provide an overview of the socio – economic and psychological pattern of movement to figure out the trend and orientation of passenger movement and to identify the strength of routes and places.

The ubiquitous location finding ability provided by GPS has already had major impacts on vehicular travel. Operational vehicle travelling and navigational systems are demonstrating that drivers value the features offered by this system (Fearnley, Bekken, & Norheim, 2004). For public transport operations, the location information provided by GPS can be used as the input for algorithms to predict the arrival time of individual vehicles at downstream stops (Faghri, & Hamad, 2002). This provides the basis for displaying arrival times on variable message signs at the stops. In the public transport context, GPS is used to provide Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data. AVL is commonly implemented along with automatic priority systems for public transport vehicles that aim to reduce the delays they experience at traffic signals.

In this context, the structures in transportation come in a big way. Tour operators, transport operators and the tourism promotion Government of India agencies in different states should integrate their approach and bring about a large-scale movement of people from one region to the other in comfortable connections within the Country (Khadaroo& Seetanah, 2008). In most places, for the development of tourism industry by tourist vehicles, the concept is primitive than we shall be out of the race in terms of economic globalization.

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