CC BY
1
UDC 338.48
Juraev A.T., PhD Murodov F.B. student
Bukhara State University Uzbekistan, Bukhara
THE MAINTENANCE OF COMPETITIVENESS OF TOUR OPERATORS IN DEVELOPING DOMESTIC TOURISM
Annotation: This article is intended to show the essence of tour operators in domestic tourism together with providing particular guidelines in an attempt to extend the opportunities in establishing sustain activity in the area.
Keywords: domestic tourism, tour operators, tourism sustainability.
In this globalized era, tourism appears to be one of the most important industries. In light of recent advanced technologies and other changes, the chance of travelling is increasing at an unprecedented rate, creating a comfortable and appropriate atmosphere to have a nice trip. Furthermore, a new generation of consumers always seeks different and new experiences which can be more suitable to their individual needs and demands. The complication of the demand caused by high bargaining power and the number of opportunities and segments to present corresponds to a more specialized offer based on synergies among primary resources, infrastructures, firms, residents and tourists.
The growth of international tourism has contributed to the increasing domain of tour operators in Uzbekistan, especially, it can be seen in the changing structure of domestic tourism, which means that previous unarranged travels by local residents are becoming regulated tour packages. In this case, the essence of local tour operators cannot be replaced by other means.
Tour operators are those who package the visit and from a destination together with complete ground services. They offer these services themselves as some even own one or additional ingredients of a tour package - buses or hotels. In general, domestic tour operators operate at intervals the boundary of the home country and provide a mixed variety of desires of individual and cluster travelers. They promote tour packages each through their own office and different retail travel agents. In fact, they are contributing to the cause of national integration. If we pay attention the term itself, a tour operator is an organization, firm or company who buys individual travel components, separately from their suppliers and combines them into a package tour, which is sold with their own price tag to the public directly or through other means. They can provide these services themselves as some have their own cars and coaches, hotels and other travel related services or can obtain these from the other suppliers. That is why they are called manufacturers of tourism products. [1]
In considering the case of Uzbekistan in terms of the significance of tour operators as well as the fields of their activities, basically, tour operators who offer tour packages on culture, history seems to appear to be one of the most main sellers.
If we look at some numbers, it is obvious to see the increase in the number of travelers coming to Uzbekistan. Let's comprise last years: in 2017 the number of foreigners entering Uzbekistan consisted of 2847,9 thousand people, in 2018 this figure went up to 6433 thousand people, clearly, this indicator is split by different travel purposes, such as education, tourist, work, treatment, visiting relatives and service. It is noteworthy that the number of people who visited with the purpose of travel and service consisted of 458.1 thousand and 52.5 thousand people, respectively. [2] Clearly, it means that the trend of visiting our country is increasing year by year. Thus, in order to improve these figures, we need competitive tour operators, so they should form different kinds of tour packages which are appropriate for the needs and demands of individuals, at the same time, they should apply particular sustainable ways to achieve success in their field.
Tours operators play a key role in the industry of tourism and hospitality. They are those who form tour packages and promote them and then sold them to tourists. They should form their products in such an economic way that they can provide their customers with cheaper prices, since they buy services from suppliers such as hotels, airlines in large portions and in turn take huge discounts from them.
And in turn, a successful business will need to develop suitable products for the market, price them correctly, promote them effectively, distribute them to the final customer and evaluate the results of the total program. This is marketing. It is not to say that there is only attending travel fairs and making brochures. These are simply a part of the sector of promotion that is simply an area of the selling method. In the following lines, there are particular marketing ways so to sustain and develop the activities of tour operators:
Establishing sustainable management function: Some tour operators employ staff specifically in a marketing role. Others can have the selling perform alone undertaken by the manager or director. In either scenario, there should be clear goals for the establishments. A marketer cannot simply come into a business and make it more profitable. They should take into consideration of comprehension of the philosophy of the company, what the goals are directed to, in which fields the interests lie and so on.
Assessing customer needs: A tour company can only achieve its goal if it can produce or supply what is demanded by consumers. Organizing cheaper trips on weekends can be more suitable for students, thus tour operators must provide what tourists want.
Converting customer purchasing power into effective demand: it means that one needs a very carefully structured marketing plan.
Being competitive: Competitive advantages can be generated by competitive activities, orientated to doing the same things that other rivals do, but in a better way, and also doing different things to other competing companies. On this occasion we need to pay attention to the formula below in order to comprehend competitiveness:
value services & facilities experience gained
effort cost effort required
According to the past perspectives, value for money has often been an expression when buying a service - measuring the variety of services or quality of services against the cost for those given services. Nevertheless, current theories claim that this does not wholly describe a tourist's way of thinking. As the formula above shows, the tourism services offered have to be combined with the feelings and sensations obtained from undertaking travel with the given company. These then are measured against not only the cost of the trip but also against the efforts the tourist had to go to arrange and undertake the trip and the obstacles or impediments they came across. If the services were poor, the experience unrewarding, the price high or the trip difficult to organize or undertake then you will not be a competitive business - no matter how wonderful the trip was described in an advertisement or a brochure. To compete successfully, aimed business needs to offer to the market greater value than other rivals for the same effort on the part of the tourists - or the same value for less effort.
In a word, tourism is largely liberalized on the demand side. If there would be an ideal competition among all suppliers of business connected merchandise, competition would be high and significant structural amendment would occur compared with today's scenario of the business on the planet market. So it seems to be reasonable to take into consideration the ways above in an effort to increase the growth of domestic tourism. Moreover, different preferable options for trips in an affordable and pleasant way for travelers can be primary fuel to improve the current trend of tourism in Uzbekistan.
Recourses:
1. https://www.scribd.com
2. http://www.regproject.net/competitiveness-tourism
