Tourism is defined by the globe Tourism Organization as travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. In particular, holidaymakers are people who "happen to be and stay static in places outside their standard environment for more than twenty-four time and not several consecutive calendar year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the area frequented" (WTO, Ottawa Seminar on Travel and Travel and leisure information, 1991).
Business travel and leisure is a therefore part of the wider travel and leisure industry, that may be represented as a spectrum, along which the business reaches the high quality, high produce end.
The terms "business travel and leisure" and "business travel" tend to be used interchangeably, but actually a difference exists as mentioned by Swarbrooke and Horner (2001). The first one, in fact, identifies the all areas of the experience of the business enterprise traveler and is much more focused on those people behaving as "tourists", e. g. spending at least one nighttime away from home. At this proposal, Davidson R. (1994) gives the following definition of business tourism: "Business tourism is concerned with people venturing for purposes which can be related to their work. As a result, it presents one of the oldest kinds of tourism, man having travelled for this purpose of trade since very early times".
Business travel underlines the motions of business travelers from one place to another one, including also those who make day outings for business purposes. Clearly, the boundaries of these two definitions are not so clear and specific and frequently there's sort of overlap between them.
There are other explanations of business tourism. IMEX, for example, speaks about business tourism as the provision of facilities and services to the exhibitions, business incidents, incentive travel and corporate hospitality.
Generally speaking, business travel refers to all the journeys associated with the traveler's occupation or business pursuits. There may be various motivations at the base of business travels. They could be necessary in order to perform the task or they can enable the employee to learn how to do their job better; in other conditions, they could be a sort of reward for a job well done. The major forms of business travel and travel and leisure are represented in Body 1.
Figure : Typologies of business travel and tourism
Source: Business Travel and Travel and leisure (J. Swarbrooke, S. Horne)
These categories are not exhaustive, but could be subdivided into other classifications.
In greater detail, the sector includes, as advised Davidson and Deal (2002):
Individual business travel: refers to the transfers created by those people doing a job that requires travels, such as journalists, politicians, talent-spotters.
Meetings: carries a vast range of happenings, such as conferences, training seminars, business presentations and product launches, total annual meetings, placed by companies and organizations in order to aid communication with and between their employees, customers, stakeholders, etc.
Exhibitions: they could be trade fairs, trade shows and consumer shows and they are events for customers and sellers in specific trade sectors. In these events, businesses take parts with their sales staff in order to display their products to prospects, who attend to buy and obtain expert information about the goods, usually from the manufacturers.
Incentive vacations: includes the journeys that employees obtain from their companies as a prize for receiving a competition related to their job, e. g. production bonus and they are being used by organizations to motivate their employees. Usually, they can be found in companies with high income such as automobiles and financial service. Certification for incentive travel is based on obtaining agreed goals (sales goals).
Corporate happenings: include staff and customer entertainment that companies lengthen to their most valuable customers or potential clients at prestigious sporting and ethnical events. This is a form of entertainment that companies use as a means of fabricating goodwill and building relationship with VIP customers and leads. Close links can be found between the corporate and business vent section and the catering industry.
In the situation of individual business travel, the vacation spot is usually fixed, as the traveler must go where the customer to be went to is based or where the condition must be solved, where in fact the contract should be signed. It's the only non discretionary sector of business travel because the destination is not chosen, but determined by the thing of the task.
All the other instances, that may be named business tourism, are discretionary. This means that the organizers have a selection over the destination of their occasions. These areas are "the prime focus of marketing activities by locations and destinations, because decisions about where in fact the events happen are available to effect" (Rogers, 1998). Attendance to these occasions takes the form of group travel, with colleagues travelling jointly.
Frequently, an alternative solution term used to spell it out the business travel and leisure sector is the MICE industry, the acronym for appointment, incentives, conventions and exhibitions.
There are some key characteristics of the business enterprise industry as depicted by Business Tourism Partnership in England, that can be extended to the overall corporate travel, like the following:
business travel and leisure is year-round, peaking in Spring and coil and Autumn but still with high degrees of activity in the summertime and Winter season, thus sustaining long lasting, full-time career.
it matches the leisure travel and leisure sector, counting on much of the
same physical infrastructure, and taking business to places such as seaside resorts which would in any other case be dependent upon a relatively short Summer season with regard to their economic health insurance and prosperity;
investments in business travel and leisure facilities lead to the regeneration of urban and interior city areas, many of the opportunities in a destination's infrastructure designed mostly for the business tourist (hotels, travel and communications facilities, restaurants, attractions and amenities, even conference auditoria) provide benefits which can be enjoyed by the leisure holiday and the indigenous society;
it is elastic, being significantly less affected by economic downturns or
by disasters than leisure tourism and other sectors of the national economy;
business tourism stimulates future inward investment as
business people see the attractions of an destination while going on business or even to attend a meeting, exhibition or incentive, and then return to establish business businesses there. They are able to also become unpaid 'ambassadors' for a vacation spot by interacting to colleagues as well as others their positive impressions and favorable experiences;
the top quality of personal service demanded by the business holiday requires more labour-intensive service suppliers, which in turn results in higher degrees of job creation;
research suggests that around 40% of business travelers will give back with their own families as leisure people to destinations they may have enjoyed going to on business;
business travel and leisure is sustainable, offering higher added value with
fewer negative environmental impacts than mass leisure travel and leisure. Furthermore, discussion and incentive guests are jointly as a
group, so that it is possible to see and educate them about
the neighborhood where their event has been held in order to
maximize the satisfaction of their stay but also to minimize any disruption and possible trouble to the local resident
population. It is very much harder to control, in the same way,
the impact of individual leisure travelers on the destination.
The business travel sector (physique 2 represents the general structure of the industry) depends on a considerable number of stakeholders, providing facilities and services because of this market.
Figure : The framework of business travel and tourism
adapted from Swarbrooke and Horner (1996)
Private companies, both small and large, are the key consumers and providers of business travel services, although they aren't the sole types of organizations active in this market. In fact, associates and employees of the general public administration also have to travel frequently and members of associations are important clients in the meeting sector.
Moreover, an important difference is accessible between business travel and travel and leisure. There are actually two sizing: the client and the consumer.
While in the leisure travel market, the buyer coincides with the end consumer, in the organization travel market the individual who travels is rarely the person who is spending money on the trip. This depth is important because players in this industry must treat their initiatives not only toward the satisfaction of the demand, so the customers, but also towards the end consumers. A large percentage of the business travelers is composed by managerial and sale staff who've the power to make decisions or even to effect the decisions used by others. They have the specialist to negotiate on behalf of their companies.
The general population industry can be considered as both dealer and intermediary. Many convention centres are had in reality by local specialists and destination marketing organizations are almost always supported via a combination of general public and private sector.
As respect the suppliers and intermediaries, there are different players in the industry: vacation spot marketing organizations, carry providers, accommodation and catering providers, suppliers of leisure and recreation facilities.
As a great many other market sectors, business travel is influenced by the talk about of the nationwide economy. At the same time, this sector comes with an impact on the overall overall economy of the destinations to which the tourist make their trips.
