The ASEAN Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2012

The 2012 edition of the Asean Competitiveness Report for tourism, published by the World Economic Forum, is available online here.

It provides economic profiles of 139 countries, allowing cross-country analysis on how attractive a country is in terms of potential for development in travel and tourism, for making well-informed business decisions.

Reports

Deloitte have recently published a number of new reports:

• The Deloitte consumer review : the Games Consumer

• UK Budget 2012 - implications for Travel, Hospitality & Leisure

• Deloitte Football Money League 2012 - Fan power

Click here to  view

Driving Growth

To address a gap in research on the topic of foreign travel by the British, this new report by ABTA shines the spotlight on the UK’s outbound sector and dispels some of the myths that foreign travel by UK citizens negatively impacts the UK economy.

The report was launched at the ABTA Travel Matters conference which took place yesterday. Videos of the presentations and lively debates at the conference will be available soon. To get a feel of how it went go to Twitter #abta.

Download the report here

Report - More than a Game

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) was set up in 2004 to help find solutions to poverty in parts of the UK. They have since produced over 50 publications looking at asocial issues and seeking to harness the experience and dedication of grass-roots organisations into the policy formation process. In January 2010, they launched six new policy areas, expanding the CSJ’s overview into areas such as youth justice, mental health, older age and sport. 

This report is the second of those new areas to publish after Outcome-Based Government in January 2011, while the rest will be released over the course of the summer and autumn. 'More than a Game', seeks to examine the use of sport as a tool to engage and work with young people in deprived communities. Topics covered in the report are:

• Sport, disadvantage and social reform
• Governance and leadership
• Maximising the potential of coaching
• Access to facilities
• Overcoming the barriers – volunteering and sport
• London 2012 and the legacy

Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report

The 2010-11 Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum is now available online here.

It provides country/economic profiles of 124 countries which allows cross-country analysis in order to make informed business decisions on how attractive a country is in terms of potential for development in travel and tourism.

Travel Management Priorities for 2011: Insights into the Rebound is a new report by Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Part one of the report covers the Business Travel Market in 2011, Part two gives the survey results and  2011 priorities.  

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Reports

This report, entitled 'Backing UK Tourism: Destination Recovery,' is published by the British Chambers of Commerce in conjunction with Travelodge. Chapters consider the Current Situation, Problems in the Sector, Areas for Reform and Recommendations for Reform. Statistics and a number of case studies from the tourism sector are included. The Economic Impact of Hub Airports is another report by the BCC which may be of interest to those studying leisure and tourism.

Britain for Events report

This report is published by the Business Visits & Events Partnership - an organisation that cover the UK meetings and events sector. The Britain for Events report discusses the size and value of Britain's events industry, its characteristics, trends, opportunities and key issues.

Tourism 2023 is a report by nine organisations including ABTA, Thomas Cook and TUI, which gives four scenarios, a vision and a strategy for UK outbound travel and tourism. The four scenarios entitled 'Boom & Bust', 'Divided Disquiet', Price & Privilege' and 'Carbon Clampdown' discuss potential directions that the industry may move towards in the future. The document also contains a pledge signed by the contributing organisations; this is based on six principles which take into account the environment, employees, customers, communities, sustainable infrastructure and business value.

eventIMPACTS Toolkit

Providing guidelines for the evaluation of social, economic, environmental and media related impacts associated with staging major sporting and cultural events, the eventIMPACTS toolkit covering these aspects, aims to help create an industry standard in evaluating the impact of events. The toolkit has been created by a number of organisations including VisitBritain and UK Sport and is targeted primarily towards event owners, funders, sponsors and event industry employees across the UK.

Reports following research carried out using the toolkit,at a variety of venues such as the Tour of Britain Finale and IRB Rugby Union Junior World Championships, have been provided as detailed case studies.

VisitBritain's Business Plan

VisitBritain have launched their business plan which lays out their agenda of activities intended over the next three years. The 24 page document includes their vision and four-point strategy and also illustrates the environment within which the tourism industry operates. Financial information as well as KPIs are also included.

Find out more about VisitBritain in this video...

ABTA Travel Trends Report 2010

Learn more about 'glamping', 'chadventure' as well as 'voluntourism' - the new buzz words in tourism according to this new report. It gives a snapshot of travel trends for the coming year, covering a number of popular destinations. Some of the contents include Hotspots for 2010, Top Short Haul Destinations and Top Long Haul Destinations.

European Travel Commission

The European Travel Commission is a non-profit making organisation which has 39 National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) as its members. The role of these NTOs is to market and promote European tourism as well as domestic tourism within each of the member countries. The Reports & Studies section of the website is particularly useful for tourism research and includes a range of online reports, handbooks and market studies of countries worldwide. There are also archives of European Tourism Insights, the Research Highlights Newsletter and the Quarterly Reports. You will also find links to further online materials such as Tourism Trends and Market Insights, as well as to statistics, events, climate change and sustainable tourism. Some of the listed publications are for purchase only and will have 'saleable' next to the title.

Sport England Strategy 2008-11

A new report has recently been published by Sport England which sets out its strategy for community sport in England, in the run-up to the Olympics. Following extensive consultation, Sport England aims to develop a new community sports system to ensure they support the growth in the numbers across communities playing sport, to spot and encourage talent at an early stage and to provide all those taking part in sport with a quality experience. The new strategy also highlights the roles played by the three key bodies in sport - the Sport England, Youth Sport Trust, and UK Sport.

A Sporting Future for London

With the hope that the Olympic Games will become a catalyst to encourage participation in sport by all sections of the community and help tackle issues such as obesity, ill health and crime, a new report by the Greater London Authority sets out how the Mayor of London plans to achieve these goals.

New publications

Research Highlights have published their latest newsletter which includes a special feature on climate change and tourism as well as market studies on China, India, Russia and Japan.

The Euromonitor Global Trends Report considers forecasts for North America, UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Following the recent National Tourism Summit organised by VisitBritain and DCMS, the final report has been published which provides a detailed view of the current state of the British Tourism industy including a SWOT analysis and a 10 point strategy for Britain. VisitBritain's latest newsletter provides details of conferences, events and tourism trends containing statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority.

Frommer's list of top destinations for 2009 has now been published and is available online.

The new Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice is available online; articles include:

• Is Wellington environmentally friendly?
• Engaging Auschwitz: an analysis of young traveller's experiences of Holocaust tourism
• Edward Lear landscape painter and Italy
• Moving with the times: visual representations of the tourism phenomenon

Also includes book reviews and conference reports.

Destination World news carries a feature article on customer loyalty.

Tomorrow's World, Consumer & Tourist

VisitScotland in collaboration with Glasgow Caledonian University have produced Tomorrow's World, Consumer & Tourist a report on sport tourism. This has been inspired by the forthcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014. With a focus on sport tourism in general, research carried out has resulted in many charts and tables of statistics based on research carried out in Scotland with comparisons made with the UK and Europe. Issues discussed in this paper include who the beneficiaries of sport are, self-improvement, charities and volunteering.

New Papers

Two new papers have been developed by Sabre Travel Network and PhoCusWright and are now available here. The publications are entitled:

• Best practices in travel business intelligence
• The changing role of travel management

These are based on two years of research and interviews with corporate travel managers and buyers, as well as detailed reviews of travel data management systems from travel management companies, GDS providers and third-party developers.

The Center for Hospitality Research have produced an article entitled 'Using tourist travel habits and preferences to assess strategic destination positioning'. It considers how consumer preferences and patterns of consumption can be used to reveal the status of a particular destination in its life cycle. The Plog destination life cycle model has been applied to consider the destination positioning of Costa Rica.

The Canadian Tourism Commission has produced a toolkit entitled Experiences. It offers advice to those wishing to offer an experience as a tourism product. It discusses the difference between a tourism product and a tourism experience, research methods to identify potential customers and ways to position/communicate the product. There are also best practices from the industry outlined in case studies including Canadian Mountain Holidays, Nimmo Bay resort, Uncommon Journeys and Lighthouse Picnics.

Registration may be required to access some resources, but access is usually free.

Before, during and after: London 2012

This paper by DCMS forms a legacy plan which sets out in detail what they hope will be achieved by holding the Olympics in London, including regeneration and its aims
to engage all sections of the community. There is a chapter which explains how the legacy will be delivered across Great Britain with tips for employers, local government and the public on participation and taking advantage of opportunities created by the upcoming event. An illustrated time-line is included to show the activity programme upto 2012. Results to research carried out on the awareness of and attitudes towards the Olympic Legacy and its aims, are also shown.

With the Beijing Olympics also now underway, the official website is a one-stop info point. Here you can find out the latest news, schedules, live results, details on athletes, sports and venues. Also includes videos, photo gallery and an educational section.

Tourism Report

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to oversee the expenditure, administration and policy of the DCMS, which is the government department responsible for UK sport and cultural projects in the UK. The DCMS provides VisitBritain with funding for marketing the UK abroad. The Committee has recently published a report which voices their concerns on the quality of support provided by DCMS to VisitBritain and in particular their decision to reduce future funding to VisitBritain. The proposal to introduce 'double British summer time' is also discussed as well as other issues regarding tourism in the UK including the Olympics 2012. For further clarification, here's another document which sets out the details of the funding agreement between DCMS and VisitBritain.