The first travellers

 

4. Familiarization tourism

Familiarization trip is often called just FAM trip it is an opportunity for the people

who sell out holidays to get know our hotels and resorts better. It means that a business company sends its staff on educational tours to its branches or other business companies in other cities and countries.

The tour operator gets together with an airline, the relevant national tourist office and more of our hotels to construct a trip for the employees of the travel agencies that we are dealing with. They will be staying in hotels, which they will then recommend to their customers.

If a travel agency sends its travel clerks on FAM tours, it means that they will have educational visits to a tourist destination. There they will get familiar with local facilities, hotels, restaurants, and attractions. They will study a tour operator's or a local travel agency's practice.

The main purpose of travel clerks on a FAM tour is to get necessary knowledge from personal experience. When the clerks return home, they will know what to offer and to explain to their customers about the destination.

Now in the past this was really often seen as a chance for, basically, a cheap holiday. You stayed in a nice hotel, met a few people and had a good time. Not much work was done. It was considered a kind of freebie.

Organizations invest in fam trips in the hope of securing extra business. In the past, we simply saw fam trips as a kind of reward. These days, that's still important but we emphasize much more the learning or the "education" side.

Of course, we want people to have fun, but we need to see a return for our money. We want to make sure they go away with a good knowledge of our resorts and hotels. Any agency employee who comes on one of our fam trips is given a questionnaire to fill in while they are staying in the hotel, and we always ask for a report to be written afterwards. In that sense they're educational.

envolve, so we can't just use the same hotels or the same travel agencies year after year. Tour operators, transportation companies, such as airlines, but also coach companies and ferry operators and the hotels themselves. We actually charge the agencies something for sending people along, that way agencies themselves become more concerned about getting value for money. We don't charge much, mind, or we wouldn't get anyone who was interested.

Some experts say that FAM tourism is a part of incentive tourism. On the one hand, such a tour is an incentive to the travel agency staff selling holidays. On the other, it is a benefit to the tour operator which arranges them.

FAM tourism is very popular and will become even more popular in future.

 

 

3. Types of tours. Tourism is global nowadays. Tourist boom started in the 1960s.

In 1975 the United Nations established the World Tourist Organization (WTO). It emerged on the basis of the International Union of Official Tourist Organizations. The WTO is the international intergovernmental organization. The WTO broke down visitors into two separate groups: tourists who are overnight visitors and same - day visitors who do not stay the night. The purpose of the visit has to be for leisure, sports, business, incentive and familiarization tourism.

LEISURE TOURISM

Leisure tourism is also called pleasure tourism or holiday tourism. It is a type of tourism when a person is going on holiday and is not traveling on business. So the purpose of tourism in this case is recreation. This kind of travelers go to sea resort or holiday camps and stay at resort hotels. Leisure travelers enjoy organized entertainment and sport. In a resort hotel there are always swimming-pools, fitting-centres, tennis courts, discos. A resort hotel offers its customers contests, concerts, shows, animation programs for children.

SPORTS TOURISM

Sports tourism is a type of active holiday. The purpose of a sporting tour is to exercise and to keep physically fit. At the same time travelers enjoy natural surroundings, fresh air and clean water. Travelers combine action and relaxation during a sporting holiday. Very often sporting tours require preparation and special training. First the tour instructors will plan the itinerary, then train tourists how to use sporting equipment. Within sports tourism there is water tourism, mountain tourism and mountaineering, skiing. Sports tourism is popular all year round.

BUSINESS TOURISM

Business tourism is a travel for business purpose.

Business travelers are businessmen and government officials. They travel on different missions. They often travel to attend a convention. Convention tourism is a part of business tourism. It involves taking part in a conference or a seminar.

Business travelers often travel to attend an international exhibition or a trade fair.

There are tourist companies that provide business services. Those are fax, telex and telephone communications, secretarial services, answering service, business meeting arrangements. There are business facilities for business travelers at hotels, airports, on airplanes.

INCENTIVE TOURISM

Incentive tourism means that a business company offers holiday tours to its employees and covers all travel expenses.

On the one hand, the company does it as a reward or a bonus to a person for his successful work. On the other hand, the company does it as an incentive for the future. The company hopes that the employee will work even better in future and bring profit to the company.

Incentive tourism emerged in the 1960s in the USA. Later on it spread in Europe. But only large progressive corporations offer incentive tours to their employees. This type of tourism is still a very small part of international tourism. Most probably this type of tourism won't grow in future.

FAMILIARIZATION TOURISM

Familiarization tourism is often called just FAM tourism. It means that a business company sends its staff on educational tours to its branches or other business companies in other cities and countries.

If a travel agency sends its travel clerks on FAM tours, it means that they will have educational visits to a tourist destination. There they will get familiar with local facilities, hotels, restaurants, and attractions. They will study a tour operator's or a local travel agency's practice.

The main purpose of travel clerks on a FAM tour is to get necessary knowledge from personal experience. When the clerks return home, they will know what to offer and to explain to their customers about the destination.

FAM tourism is very popular and will become even more popular in future.

 

2. Carriers in tourism.

Like most service industries, tourism is labour-intensive; that is, it employs a high

proportion of people in comparison to the number that it serves. The range of jobs is also very wide, from unskilled, like a dish washer in a restaurant, to semi-skilled, like a waiter or a chambermaid, to skilled, like a travel agent or a tour operator. In addition tourism generates many jobs that are not usually considered to be within the industry itself-jobs in construction, manufacturing, and merchandising.

A majority of the jobs in tourism have one common feature: contact with the public, including both the positive and negative aspects of dealing with ordinary human beings. Anyone who has chosen the career in tourism should enjoy working with people and be tolerant.

In many jobs in which it is necessary to deal with the public, language skill is necessary or desirable. The degree of language skill may vary according to the location of the job.

The tourist industry differs from many others as it employs more women than others kinds of business. Women are found at all levels, many successful travel agents have been established by women.

There is a great variety of jobs in tourism:

• the travel agent,

• the tour operator,

• the tour guide or conductor - a person who is in charge of a tour or an excursion,

• travel writers,

• free-lancers - people who work for themselves.

• consultant - a person who offers his experience and knowledge in particular field to individual customer on a fee basis,

• social Director - a person at the resort hotel or on a cruise ship who is in charge of the activities to amuse and entertain the customers,

• front-desk employees - hotel personnel who work at the registration, information and cashier's desk.

But Г d like to speak about travel agencies and tour guides, because I think it will be my future profession. TRAVEL AGENCIES.

Travel agencies are retail tourist companies, which work directly with the public. Travel agencies are often called shops where customers buy different tourist products. Travel agencies sell tour operator's tour packages and individual tourist services. Among tour packages are inclusive tours, charter inclusive tours and inclusive tours with an excursion. Travel agencies also sell coaching tours and cruising tours.

Travel agencies form groups of tourists to take part in ready-made prepaid tours. They also make individual travel arrangements.

Among separate tourist services there are air tickets, train tickets, boat or ferry tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, sightseeing tours, services of a guide or a guide- interpreter. Travel agencies also offer travel insurances and theatre tickets to their customers.

There are large travel agencies, which are members of a chain. They branch out and have outlets within a city, a region, a country or all over the world. Very often they have got a word "Group" in their names, for instance, Barry Martin Group or Blue Heart Travel Group. Usually such travel agencies act as tour operators as well.

THE TOUR GUIDE

The tour guide handles tour groups. He shows tourists round a city, a sight, or a museum. The tour guide conducts sightseeing tours or tours of museums and exhibitions. The tour guide is also called the tour conductor.

The tour guide accompanies tourists during a local tour or during the whole travel. He or she caters to the needs of tourists. During a travel the tour guide deals with all the problems.

The tour guide speaks the language of the tourists perfectly well. He or she usually translates well from one language into another.

The tour guide knows a lot on history, geography, art and culture. He or she knows ail sights in the destination. The tour guide answers a lot of questions.

The tour guide is an easy-going person. Tourists always tip their guides if they like them. Tour operators are tourist companies, which develop and put together tour pacfcages.

Tour operators do market research. They promote their tours and advertise them. Tour operators publish colorful brochures, booklets and travelogues.

Tour operators sell tour packages wholesale to travel agencies or sometimes direct to the public.

There are tour operators, which also act like travel agencies. They produce and self their products themselves.

There are independent tour operators. But among tour operators there are major atrfines and shipping companies.

There are large tour operators, such as Thomas Cook and Sons Company or American Express Company. Thomas Cook is the oldest tour operator in the world.

THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE ABOUT TRAVEL

There are relatively few travel writers, but they fill an important place in publicizing the industry. Some of them work full time for magazines or newspapers. Others are free-lancers: they work for themselves and sell their articles to any publication that is interested in them. There is also a small industry involved in writing and publishing travel guidebooks.

Tourism is an industry that is still growing rapidly. It provides people with a variety of occupation that require different kinds of skills. No matter what aspect of industry one may work in, the final result of the effort should be satisfied customer who remembers his trip and his holidays with pleasure.

 

1. A resume and an interview.

If you want to get the job the first step to your wish Is a resume. The information gimn by the candidate in these papers will be helpful !n assessing the candidate's suitability tor the pod.

From the candidate's point of view, this paper Is the first Impression the firm will obtain of him or her and therefore it is important that candidate completes the paper dearly end carefully.

this document should include the following information:

• your name, address end telephone number