Word: tours
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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These days, thinking big is the travel and tourism industry's mantra. Airlines are coalescing into huge agglomerates that coordinate flights, share revenues and set fares jointly. Hotel groups are on a cross-border takeover binge; ditto tour operators. Travel agents, pressured on every side, are restructuring their businesses and forming large entities with muscle power of their own. Cruise lines, car-rental firms and rail and ferry companies are racing to consolidate into giant groupings with global ownership, reach and resources. "In a competitive environment, you've got to link up with partners if you don't want...
...savannah with more conventional operators. Major travel companies, hotels and airlines have jumped on the bandwagon with scores of environmentally friendly initiatives. "Consumers are currently very sensitive to the environment, and you've got to take that into account," says Jacques Maillot, CEO of Nouvelles Frontieres, France's largest tour operator. "If they want a green label for tours...
...Tour operators have taken a different tack. An increasingly contentious wave of mergers and takeovers since 1997 has left 80% of the British package-holiday business in the hands of just four companies. Hotels started an era of frenetic consolidation slightly earlier. In 1997-98 more than $25 billion worth of property changed hands, including the purchase of Inter-Continental by Bass Hotels & Resorts and Marriott's buyout of Renaissance...
Travel agents, by contrast, are fighting for their future in an increasingly hostile environment. Both tour operators and airlines have cut agents' commissions from 10% to 7%. Agencies' core business is also under pressure from the Internet and its ability to reflect modern lifestyles. Until recently, most people splurged on one major vacation. Now many Americans and Europeans are taking several short and often impromptu breaks throughout the year. Travelocity, the world's largest online travel-booking site, advertises last-minute deals, while Microsoft's Expedia travel website offers comprehensive guides for spur-of-the-moment business travelers. One agency...
Guided and trained by GTZ, Germany's technical-aid agency, and INRENA, Peru's natural-resources institute, the Matsiguenkas hope to profit from tourism without destroying their own fragile way of life. Contact between tourists and themselves is kept to a minimum; photography is curbed; and tour-group access is limited to certain locations and times of year. The operation is run by a small group of Matsiguenkas, some technical advisers from GTZ and a hired administrator who collects payments. Profits go entirely to the Matsiguenkas to be used as they choose. So far, that has been mostly for medicines...