DVD for Impact of Tourism: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorderm - learningemall.com
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Tourism is Kenya's third largest source of income. Last year alone, more than half a million tourists spent their holidays here. But what don't the tourists see?
MASAI MARA: The Masai Mara is one of the best-known game parks in the world. All around the game park, mock villages have been built. Laden with baubles, the Masai embark on an aggressive sales pitch to the tourists. These fake villages are all that most tourists see while on safari. Meanwhile other Masai still live on their farms trying to maintain their traditional lifestyles, but are barely able to survive.
SAFARIS: Safari tourism is highly popular. Tourists come by the thousands in their 4x4 vehicles to take pictures in the game reserves. When a leopard is spotted tourists take part in a photographic feeding frenzy - a traffic jam forms in the bush. Meanwhile Lewa is a 5-star private game reserve unknown to the general public - a luxury safari park, frequented by American millionaires.
WINNING BACK RIGHTS: A few hundred miles away to the north are the ancestral lands of the Endoroi tribe - lands which the Kenyan authorities confiscated more than 30 years ago, to make way for a game park for tourists. Like the Masai, the Endorois want to be recognized as the rightful owners of the territory. And now they are - but only after a lengthy court case against the government.
Beautiful beaches, wonderful scenery and friendly people - Thailand seems the ideal tourist destination. But what don't they tell you in the holiday brochure?
The Thai tourist authority is pushing "ecotourism", which, in theory at least, doesn't damage the environment. Ecotourists take rafts down river, ride elephants in lush green spaces, visit Buddhist temples and tribal hill people whose lifestyles haven't changed for hundreds of years.
But critics say the hill people are treated like "human zoos". There are worries, too, about cruelty to elephants. But the most notorious problem is sex tourism - which includes men, women and children.
The Thai economy is now critically dependent of tourism spending - but how much has been lost in the rush to exploit the visitor invasion? And are local people getting their fair share?
Review
"Shockingly good, hard-hitting, thought provoking and excellent for promoting discussion." - Rachel Hanham, Burnlwood School
Brazil now actively promotes the Amazon to tourists to bring money and jobs to locals. But how will tourism affect this environmentally vito area? And what form will tourism take?
One option is "nature tourism". In the Amazon Ariau Towers, walkways give visitors a unique view of the rainforest and wildlife. But this is not necessarily ecotourism. Critics question the effects on the local economy and wildlife.
A more sensitive approach is taken at Mamiraua. Here a solar-powered floating lodge minimises visitor impact and trained local people work as guides.
Review
"An excellent resource." - G Davies, St Cyres High School
Gambia seems ideal for holidays. With plentiful sunshine and long, white beaches, tourism has become a major source of income. But tourism in a developing country is a double-edged sword.
Despite swelling numbers of visitors, little money ends up with local people. Holidays are run by foreign tour operators and tourists stay mostly in the foreign-owned hotels, eating imported food. Is community tourism - for example getting people to spend money locally - the best hope for the future?
Review
"Deals with conflicting issues of tourism in developing countries exceptionally well." - Simon Chapman, Warwick School
Majorca has given millions of people cheap' holidays and brought prosperity for Majorcans - but at a cost. There is heavy hotel development on the coast and there are outsiders buying second homes inland. There's too much traffic and not enough water.
Farming has declined, leaving people dependent on tourism. Traditional culture is disappearing.
The authorities have pulled down ugly old hotels and are promoting "sustainable tourism". But can such initiatives succeed?
Review
"Excellent video showing problems of mass tourism and more sustainable options." - L Bussel, Teesside University Business School
For 40 years the beautiful Island of Ruegen was behind the "Iron Curtain". The state controlled people's holidays and visitors came to Ruegen all year round because there were few other options. But when the Berlin Wall fell, people expected prosperity. In reality it's brought too much traffic, too much building and high unemployment. Now the island is looking for "sustainable tourism". What's the way forward - "quality tourism" or a less elite approach?
Antigua looks like paradise but not for the locals. It suffers from an over-reliance on tourism. This threatens the environment, culture and economy. Most tourist jobs are poorly paid and most of the hotels are foreign owned. Cruise ship holidays, all-inclusive hotels and a new holiday development all promise to make matters worse.
Review
"Recommended to all my colleagues." - P Hargreaves, Amersham & Wycombe College
The Lake District is one of Britain's most popular national parks. But is it in danger of being destroyed by too much tourism? Some view the area's expanding tourism businesses as "blots on the landscape" - others see them as vital to the local economy. Traffic congestion is a major problem. There's a battle over a bypass, and an ongoing dispute over motor boats using Lake Windermere.
Review
"Definitely very useful." - Penny Spooner, Fairfax School
This is a film about the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. It's a beautiful place but is its beauty also its biggest threat, attracting more tourists than it can sustain?
NATIONAL PARKS: Snowdonia is the second largest of Britain's national parks. The national parks were established after years of campaigning by an act of parliament in 1949. The basic idea was to protect the countryside so everyone could enjoy it.
THE VISITOR CENTRE: The jewel in Snowdonia's crown is Mount Snowdon - the biggest mountain in England and Wales. On top of the mountain is a brand new visitor centre. Some people think it's wonderful. Others think it has ruined the mountain.
TOURISM: Tourism is vital to the economy of Snowdonia. It once had a slate industry but this is now mostly defunct. Agriculture is the only other significant industry in Snowdonia, but it provides few jobs.
TRAFFIC: But with tourism comes traffic, congested narrow roads and the pressure to build more car parks. Buses ease the problems, but the Welsh assembly government has actually axed services. Some people argue for a radical approach - closing the park to all traffic.
WELSH HIGHLAND RAILWAY: The Welsh Highland Railway is one of Snowdonia's outstanding new tourist attractions. Steam enthusiasts love it, but residents in the village of Beddgelert, one of the main stops along the line, are up in arms. It's too noisy and dirty, and instead of easing traffic problems, it actually increases them, by attracting more visitors.
HOLIDAY HOMES: Another problem in Beddgelert and across Snowdonia is the growing numbers of holiday homes. Around 50% of Beddgelert's houses are owned by people from outside. Local people can't afford to live in the area any more and are moving away.
WELSH LANGUAGE: A major knock-on effect is the threat to the Welsh language. Snowdonia is the heart of Welsh-speaking Wales, but as more young people move away, the language is bound to suffer
THE BIGGEST THREAT OF ALL? But the National Park's ex-ecology officer, Rod Gritten, says there is a much bigger problem facing Snowdonia: climate change. Hundreds of years of intensive grazing has robbed the mountains of their trees and soil erosion is releasing carbon into the atmosphere, increasing global warming. Radical action is needed now, argues Gritten, before it's too late.
The Snowdonia National Park is an area of spectacular natural beauty, but it's also a business and so is marketed. Marketing text books talk about the marketing mix - the "four Ps" - but how do these apply to a national park?
PRODUCT: The first P is for product. Snowdonia's main product is the countryside experience - timeless, free of charge. But there other attractions here, too, which are part of the product - for better or worse.
ATTRACTIONS: Attractions include the Snowdon Mountain Railway, the state-of-the-art visitor centre on top of Snowdon and the Welsh Highland Railway - a magnet for railway enthusiasts and casual tourists alike.
GREEN BUSINESSES: But there are also a growing number of smaller, "green" businesses which are capitalising on the area's environmental appeal. These include Treetop Adventure and Hafod Elwy Hall Hotel, which aspires to be sustainable in every corner of its operations.
PLACE: The next P in the marketing mix is P for place. This isn't the place as in the scenery, but place as in how you get there. 50 years ago most people came by train - but the car now rules, with millions driving here every year. Is there a chance they might be tempted back to the train?
PROMOTION: Wales is promoted by means of TV advertising produced by Visit Wales, the Welsh tourist board. But the main marketing tool used to promote Snowdonia is one of the oldest - leaflets in the tourist information centres. But the internet and social networking are now becoming more important.
HOT SPOTS: You promote places to make them popular but what about places that are TOO popular? The hot spot of Beddgelert village, for example, is overrun with tourists. The council seems eager to spread tourism around - but is it a good idea to promote the parts the tourists don't reach?
PRICE: The last of the four Ps of the marketing mix - price. With price, value for money is key. Does Snowdonia deliver more for the same money than the Lake District, for example? Exchange rates can have a big impact on prices, too, from the foreign visitor's point of view.
BUT IS IT WORKING? But who is marketing Snowdonia exactly? And is it working? The council wants more QUALITY tourists - but is Snowdonia delivering quality customer service, food and accommodation? And is the area's precious environment threatened by over-marketing?
Without happy customers a business can't survive. But how do you make them happy? How do you keep them happy? This film visits the Dickens World theme park and the upmarket MacDonald hotel chain to find out.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: A friendly smile and open body language are vital to customer service -- but it's also important to realise that every customer is different and have different needs. First impressions are critical.
THE WEBSITE: But these days customers often get their first impressions from a company's website. The key to a good website is make it accessible and easy to use. The hotel's website adds extra value by providing visuals of the building and its rooms.
COMPLAINTS: Handling complaints is an essential part of customer service. It's important to apologise - even if it isn't the company's fault. You need to stay calm - even if the customer isn't. You have to listen to the customer - so you can understand what they're complaining about. And you must take responsibility for the problem and deal with it.
DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS: In theory the customer is always right - but what about difficult customers or people who complain in the hope of getting something free? Hotel concierge Neil sees difficult customers as a challenge: "If you can change a bad situation into a good situation you're doing your job properly."
INTERNAL CUSTOMERS: Customers can be inside the company, too - in other words, members of staff. Happy customers inside the company will mean happy customers outside the company. Staff will provide better service if they feel valued and their morale is high.
KNOW THE PRODUCT: You can have the best smile in the world, but if you don't know what you're talking about it, it won't help you. Whether it's a hotel or a theme park, staff have to know their product to give customers good service.
COMPLAINTS ARE OPPORTUNITIES: A complaint may be less a problem, more an opportunity - to turn unhappy customers into happy ones. But companies can also learn from complaints. You can pick up trends in the things going wrong and anticipate problems in the future.
STANDARDS: To maintain levels of customer service businesses set standards and then monitor how well they meet those standards. This means questioning their customers and using mystery shoppers - people who pose as customers and go undercover to test out how well the organisation is performing.
THE WOW FACTOR: But it's not enough to have happy customers - businesses want to do things to surprise and delight customers: the "wow" factor. Health and safety and data security are integral to good customer service, too.
TEAMWORKING & TRAINING: Underpinning customer service in both McDonald hotels and Dickens World theme park is a system of close-knit team-working. Everyone has an important part to play. Training is essential - not just in dealing with customers but in all aspects of the business. In the hotel mentoring plays an important part in training new staff.
WORD OF MOUTH: Good customer service is all about people telling their friends, which in turn creates new customers. This can often mean the difference between the success and failure of a business.
The MacDonald chain of luxury hotels serves business and leisure customers across the UK. People are integral to their success. This film goes inside one of its hotels to discover what they do.
SERVICE IS EVERYTHING: There's premium on customer service. Guests have to be greeted with a smile. One of the first people you're like to meet is Neil, the concierge. He's virtually a "personal organiser" for everyone who visits the hotel, taking on everything from arranging trips to the airport to finding parts for a 1933 Ferrari! The receptionist is in the front line, too, checking people in, dealing with angry customers, but also the occasional celebrity.
STILL WAITING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS: Giuseppe, the head waiter, has been in the restaurant business for over 30 years. He prides himself on the confidence his customers have in him. But things aren't what they used to be, he reckons - and many guests fall below his standards. They don't know what to wear, what to order or even how to eat their food.
THE CONFERENCE BUSINESS: Long gone are the days when big hotels relied on selling people a bed for the night to make their money. Now the big market is the corporate market, hosting things like conferences.
Conference and banqueting manager James has to meet the whims of his business customers - and take it all with a smile.
TRAINING: Human resources manager Fiona says you can train someone to lay a table but not to be good at caring for customers - it's all a question of choosing the right people.
THE MYSTERY SHOPPERS: Colin and Wendy are mystery shoppers who visit hotels undercover to check they're keeping to their standards. A lack of nibbles in the bar or newspapers which they order but don't turn up and Colin and Wendy marks the hotel down.
HIGHS AND LOWS: Working in a hotel is a bit like being on stage. The highs come when you meet your goals, the lows when you fail to make a customer happy. For the receptionist, drunken guests are the biggest problem. Working in the hotel and catering industry takes lots of energy and the ability "to talk to anyone".
THE OTHER SIDE OF HOTEL WORK: By no means all hotel workers find their jobs satisfying. A foreign hotel worker describes experiences of outrageous sexual harassment and bullying. She says she would never let her child work in the industry.
Behind the Victorian facade of the Dickens World theme park state-of-the-art systems are at work. You might not see them, but without them Dickens World wouldn't have a business.
It all starts at the front desk with a "point of sale terminal". This runs Gamma software specially designed for leisure attractions.
More than simply a source of tickets, the system also collects valuable management information.
Then when you get inside you find a 4D cinema complete with 3D pictures and real gusts of wind. There's a haunted house complete with ghosts, too, and both attractions are controlled by computers.
Dickens and other characters make appearances - courtesy of computer-controlled animatronics.
But the star attraction is the Great Expectations boat ride.
Computer-linked sensors play a key role in making sure the boats are kept far enough part.
The theme park's restaurant and shop also depend on computers, with the system telling them when to reorder and what the most popular purchases are.
But perhaps the most vital information Dickens World's systems collect is marketing information - the facts it needs to save itself from financial disaster.
Tourism is a huge global industry. It's having a major impact on the economy, culture and environment of many different countries. These four films explore important examples from across the world.
CHINA: High up in the Himalayas, a poor Chinese community has called itself "Shangri-La" and is looking to tourism to boost its economy. Visitor numbers are climbing as people from all over the world come in search of the fictional utopia -- but both the wildlife and culture of the region are under threat.
USA: Alaska's sleepy fishing villages all but died when the gold rush ended 100 years ago. Now they're being overwhelmed by hordes of cruise ship tourists. Tourism has revived the economy of the area, but critics fear the impact on Alaska's environment and culture.
NEPAL: Every year 300,000 people come to Nepal to trek in the famous mountaineering country of the Everest National Park.
But with them come deforestation, soil erosion and piles of rubbish. The government is imposing bigger fees on the mountaineers - but will this solve the problem?
AFRICA: Gorillas are under threat - and many of their problems are caused by humans. But in the heart of Central Africa, ironically, tourism is helping to keep them alive. Eco-tourists pay high prices for expeditions to see this endangered species. Visitor numbers and the time spent with the gorillas are tightly controlled.
DUBAI: Dubai once depended on income from its oil. Now tourism in this desert kingdom is booming. But what about the cultural price and the impact on the environment? Developers have built a ski-resort in the desert, complete with 6,000 tons of real snow. Is this the face of modern tourism?
Lucia, a farming community on the slopes of the Andes, were forced to abandon their traditional way of life because of laws brought in to protect the cloud forest where they live.
THE ECO LODGE. Before, they were destroyers of the forest. Now, they have learned the skills of conservation and sustainability. They have built a lodge for tourists. It is a stunning place, a treasurehouse of bio-diversity.
MARKETING. But ecotourism is also a business. This is perhaps their biggest challenge, to MARKET themselves in a competitive tourism business.
A DROP IN THE OCEAN? Eco-tourism is seen as the model for sustainable tourism, but how can projects like this make a difference when so much of the rain forests are still being destroyed?
The film charts the radical changes that IT has brought, through the experience of tour operator Sunvil Travel and Internet-based travel agency Expedia. While Sunvil uses computers to put its customers' holidays together, Expedia does everything on the web. Its website allows you to book your hotel room or seat on a plane with "e-tickets", so you don't need a physical ticket - you rely on IT. What does the future hold - increasing standardisation of holidays and complete elimination of the human element? What about the effect on holiday destinations?
Review
"A good introduction to e-commerce." - RJ Verroll, Sussex University
How do you market holidays? The starting point is the brochure, backed up by Wand newspaper advertising. Public relations is important?but exposure on TV is unreliable.
54% of holidays are sold through travel agents ?but that share is dropping under pressure from call centres and the Internet.
Few products can vary in price like a holiday, and the endless re-packaging and re-pricing is essential to the marketing mix.
The big tour companies market sun, sea and comfort but independent operator Sunvil takes a different approach. It markets countries and cultures. And what about the social and environmental impact?
Review
"Sets students to think about the subject." - J Allan, City College, Norwich
In this case study in business change Avalon Travel, a tour company, faces a decline in its traditional holiday trade. It's also threatened by the Internet. Staff debate two ways forward.
Manager Peter thinks they should get into e-commerce by buying a travel company which already has major expertise in the Internet.
Director Barbara, on the other hand, believes Avalon should diversify out of the travel business. She argues for buying up a keepsake manufacturer. Which option should they take? Is there a third way?
Review
"Really good stuff, good points for discussion. Realistic and useful." - Jane Paradine, Yordleys School
This demonstrates the systems in a large hotel. The hotel's booking system shows the rooms available and helps maximise income from the rooms, discounting prices when things are quiet. For each guest the system records a guest history, with details of their likes and dislikes.
When a guest feels a room is too hot, staff use a building management system to turn down the temperature. A housekeeping system records details of a defective lamp to be reported for repair. But while all these different systems bring efficiency, do they really improve the quality of a guest's stay? Or is it all a bit too impersonal?
Review
"Good video showing many aspects of the use of information technology." - D Jones, Jhe Chofford School
Case studies of leisure businesses in Britain's most popular national park. These include a "green" hotel, a booming garden centre, an animal park, and an industrial heritage site museum. They all seem successful, but what's been their impact on the area? Are they damaging the environment? Or are they an important source of income for the hard-nressed oeoole of the Lake District?
A travel firm sets out to improve its approach to customer care . Secret filming captures where staff go wrong. Role play exercises demonstrate how to get it right. But what about thetour guide with his own eccentric approach to suctomer care? And can even the best techniques make up for a shoddy product or a poor holiday? The film ends with a draatic confrontationbetween the boss of the frm and a member of staff who claims their customers are being short-changed.
Review
"Useful in bringing real situations to life." - Linda Whiter, Seevic College