Analyze an evaluate the impact of volunteer tourism on host Essay - 1

Analyze an evaluate the impact of volunteer tourism on host communities 2 - Essay Example As identified by Sin (2010), we live in a world of â€Å"heightened responsibilities†. At least in the developed world, people are being bombarded; from almost all directions that they need to show have to exhibit great environmental friendliness, moral responsibility, ethical consumerism, eco-friendliness and concern for less privileged members of the society. Corporate social responsibility, ethical marketing, social marketing, charities, cause related campaigns are a manifestation of the same. Volunteer tourism also falls under the same umbrella (Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008, p. 43). Researchers and experts have welcomed this idea with great deal of optimism and energy since it appears that such approach towards tourism can emerge as a much needed catalyst for social change. It can build bridges, foster intercultural relations, generate employment, help less privileged in the underdeveloped countries and set them towards the path of sustainability while providing sa tisfaction to the volunteers. Most of the projects undertaken by the volunteer tourists fall under the umbrella of building, community welfare, teaching, environmental regeneration, business, cultural development, environmental protection, healthcare, journalism, research and others. Countries that most hosted volunteer tourists include Kenya, India, Italy, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Ghana, Honduras and China. This paper, however, is an attempt to review and analyse the concept of volunteer tourism in a critical light. Discussion Tourism is a lucrative industry since it has the potential to contribute to the national output of the host country, generate employment and open doors of foreign exchange. One of the most significant advantages of volunteer tourism is that it directs this tourism money and its economic impact to more deserving and underdeveloped destinations that would not have received the same from other forms of mainstream tourism. Wearing (2001) acknowledges the fact that in the case of volunteer tourism, the host communities are on the receiving end, the volunteers also receive a significant degree of intercultural experience, personal satisfaction, self fulfilment and inner peace. Quite understandably, a volunteer tourist who is working alongside local communities is likely to have much more meaningful interactions with the local community as compared to a tourist who is residing in five star hotels and visiting only elite locations (p. 58). Such interactions are not only helpful in promoting intercultural relations, but at the same time, they also allow people from developed countries to understand the problems of people from developing countries and empathise with them. Guttentag (2009), in light of the overwhelming evidence, acknowledges the fact that over the past couple of decades, volunteer tourism has emerged as a promising mass niche market within the tourism industry, which has been hailed widely to benefit the host communit ies as well as the tourists. However, the author highlights the fact that widespread enthusiasm and optimism regarding volunteer tourism has translated into an uncritical approach towards volunteer tourism,

Report on British Airways Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Report on British Airways - Case Study Example The oneworld members work on bilateral basis. They have code sharing and marketing alliances (BA fact book 2007). They sell tickets of one another offering more destinations to their passengers. The group eventually grew to eight members and 23 affiliates by 2001, and collectively served more than 200 million passengers in 133 countries with 566 destinations. Besides, BA has two fully owned subsidiaries also. These are BA Cityflyer which flies from London city airport to all destinations in Europe and Openskies flies to Europe and New York BA is a public company with 43,501 employees and an employee growth of 12.9% annually. The sales in financial year ending in March 2007 was $16,663.0M with annual increase of 12.5% and net income was $596.5M showing a growth of 131.7%. Martin F. Broughton is currently the chairman and Willie Walsh is the chief executive. The finances of BA are managed by Air Cargo Services. (answers.com; britishairways.com ). BA, though made a public Limited Company in 1985 but its stocks were retained by the government till these could be offered to the public. The opposition to privatization was opposed on the grounds of its huge debts and also by British Caledonian stating BA too large to compete with. 1. The ability to carry out expansion plans successfully received a blow when chaos occurred at Heathrow terminal 5 opening. Hundreds of flights were cancelled and thousands of bags lost. The staff was not trained to handle the new baggage handling system and software too did not work well. Later Willie tried to compensate somewhat for the debacle by surrendering his bonus. Nevertheless, it exposed the shortcomings of the expansion plan or may be the haste. Though, there was an apology from Willie Walsh, BA passengers are not going to forget or forgive the debacle for quite sometime (Webster 2008). 1. Staff survey in 1992, rated BA as poor employer despite the HRM initiatives. The staff stated that BA attracts, retains and develops committed employees (Hofpl 1992; Lundy & Cowling 1996 as cited in McCourt & Eldridge 2003: 37). 2. In mid-1997 BA faced a damaging strike due to its attempt to impose new payscales without negotiations with the employees (Walich, 1997 as cited in McCourt & Eldridge 2003). 3. Recently, in 2007 nearly 4500 ground staff refused to accept the pension plan and went on strike. They stated disparity between ground staff and cabin crew options. (Guardian 2007). 4. The environmental issues are also getting bigger everyday with people vowing to cut down on air travel for environmental safety. There are campaigns by Greenpeace and other organisations that aviation companies are not considering enough for environmental protection. BA is likely to lose more on this ground than other UK airlines (Timesonline 2008). The environmental and noise pollution issues raised protests on expansion plans of Heathrow airport to increase its passenger capacity. The chairman replied to Greenpeace that upgradation is good for environment since the queuing up of planes would be reduced and so the climate change gas emission (BBC News Channel, 2007). The organisation constantly undergoes reorganisation and resizing to be flexible and adaptive to changing customer and the staff has to mould. To help staff adapt itself to change, the