Policy, Planning, and Development for Tourism - Article Example

Topic: Policy, Planning and Development for Tourism Name: ID: Tutor: No. of Words: 2501 Table of content Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………2 Body…………………………………………………………………………………………3 Conclusions and Recommendations…………………………………………………………9 References……………………………………………………………………………………11 Introduction Singapore is an island country which is situated within the Asia continent. Singapore is re-known globally for its successful tourism industry. Following the fact that it is favorably located as a large trading port and it also serve as the shortest route between India and China, tourism activity started in earlier but it gained full potential and total attention immediately after independence. This took place from 1964-1965 when Singapore gained independence from the British colony. Thereafter, there was the formation of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) initiated purposely to cater for the tourism sector as the country’s chief economic booster. However, Singapore’s main attractions include its cultural food also referred to as culinary tourism or gastronomic tourism and its beautiful city as a tourism destination. This has demanded that the STB work on the necessary strategies and policies to ensure the sector always meets the tourists’ demand as well as guaranteeing continuous supply of tourism products. In accordance with the research work that has been carried out by various specialists, the entire tourism industry demands more than just offering the tourism product in order to boost the competitiveness of the industry (Hall 2008), meet the demands of the tourists market, ensuring local, national and international harmony and cooperation as well as sustaining the destination’s significance. This article uses relevant resources in order to establish the necessary requirements of a successful tourism industry as a comparative material to analyze Singapore’s tourism policy, planning and development. Body The STB was started in the year 1964 with the aim of promoting Singapore as a tourist attraction site, that is, making Singapore tourism destination a world class destination and the chief economic booster in the country. The government’s idea by that time was to come up with an organization whose responsibilities were to coordinate the hotels’ essence, airlines and travel agencies in supporting the whole outlook of the destination. The Tourism board that was formed began its work with a very small number of members of staff, that is, around 25 persons. In the same year it was a great pleasure that the country received 91,000 visitors. From 1964 to around 1978, the Board engaged projects that were encouraging development of infrastructure including building of hotels and restaurants, resorts and tourists attractions like the Jurong BirdPark site and Sentosa island resort. The building of tourism related infrastructure was mainly as a result of industrial revolution in Europe - an element of re-imaging urban centers and marketing the Singapore city (Chang 2000). Through the 1970s, marketing Singapore city as a site for conferences and other planed events was what the board actively engaged in so as to attract more visitors. The 1980s period predicted the execution of a Tourists Products Development Plan which was worth 1 billion Singapore dollars. The plan targeted at the saving of Singapore’s historic districts like China-town, Little India and the Arabs Street as well as the renovation of Singapore River. The board collaborated with the local tourism industries and worked towards the launching of a new master plan for national tourism. Starting from the beginning of the year 2003, the Singaporean Tourism Board called for a reassessment of its old strategies as well as the re-allocation of resources putting more emphasis mainly on the growth areas. This included spatial transformation of the Singapore city where developments and structuring was made while putting into consideration the demands of the tourism industry (Hall 2008). The whole activity resulted to the re-organization of the board’s past internal structure, and mainly made changes in the structuring of eight strategic tourism departments which have the duty to enhance growth in the different growth units. All the resources were also streamlined to enhance their being in the development markets, e.g. India and China. The board started and promoted marketing. They came up with the Merlion symbol as their marketing brand – a nice marketing strategy. In around 2004 the board initiated tourists guide training to its new employees as well as travel agent licensing. In the year 2005, the board’s vision was unveiled. The board aimed at maintaining tourism industry as the chief economic pillar in Singapore by setting goals on tourism receipts, visitors’ arrival numbers and employment plan. By 2015, they aimed at raising Tourism profits to S$30 billion which is a triple of the current year’s receipts, raising visitor arrivals by double up to 17 million as well as creating more 100,000 employments in the services industry. These targets have been driving the underway initiatives up to today where Singapore tourism industry is among the top globally. As at now, the Singaporean Tourism Board has put in place a highly sophisticated road network, communication network, and high class accommodation facilities. Besides, the entire office is networking with members from all over the world. As at now, they have over twenty Regional Offices spreading over the seven areas. The regional offices carry out the whole range of tourism roles from marketing the tourism products to promoting investments in the country. The board is also in collaboration with the other partners working within the industry so as to promote and advertise Singapore to consumers living abroad. This is with respect to the idea of Hall (2008), where it looks at cities as products to be re-imaged, promoted and marketed to suit the consumer needs. They also purpose to assist the tourism corporations in making appropriate investment plans as well as developing trading alliances. Last but not the least; the Singapore Tourism Board is promoting the development of both bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements to meet the demands of globalization process. Culinary tourism, as stated, is one of the most widespread tourist attractions in Singapore. Singapore has developed as a new world tourist destination competing with thriving countries like Australia (Boniface 2003). Singapore being an island that is linking powerful trading countries like China and India has its citizens hailing form diverse communities. This diversity in a special way promotes a multi-cultural foods and wide range of leisure experiences. Generally, this diversity of cultures and experiences is the common consumer demand in the current world. Besides, Singapore sufficiently avails wide food tourism commodities not leaving out the food and beverage festivals, farmers’ markets, hawkers ‘services, restaurants etc. In addition to advertising Singapore, the Singaporean Tourism Board also strategizes, regulates, and help the advancement of tourism industry. A recent main concern that Singaporean Tourism Board has been actively engaged was in the advancement of the industry of food and beverage. The Singaporean International Culinary Exchanges (SPICE), a derivative of the STB, carried out a product study on the food from Singapore and found out that people who do not live in Singapore so far have no clear idea concerning Singaporean food. In Singapore, hawkers stand has been a foundation, so that trying to excite people about their dining scenes, whether hawkers stand or high-end cookery’ as they get out of Singapore has been one of the main objectives. SPICE initiated two projects recently, Singapore Takeouts and Global Chef Exchanges. The two projects represented a mutual agency endeavor between the STB and the Office of Commerce and Industry (Hall & Mitchell 2002). So as to better support all restaurants within Asia including that of Singapore, the STB cooperated with the Restaurant Magazine to build up “Asia’s 50 Best” record in combination with magazine’s top 50 Restaurants record (Hall et al 2003). It is also evident that Singapore uses its unique dishes as one of its marketing strategies. This is because food can be used as an identity for a culture or country (du Rand & Heath 2006). Fields (2002) also explains that an image is created around a unique trait of a destination. Singaporean government cooperatively engages in promoting the local, national and international brand schemes as another of marketing strategies. Local hawking is allowable by the constitution which promotes rural tours, buying directly from the garden etc as a local strategy (Hall 2003). The government of Singapore has engaged in several activities to support gastronomy in Singapore. Its desire to be a world class tourist site intrigued it to build and advance its infrastructure ranging from attractions to accommodations and hotels. Singapore is famous as a food paradise providing wide selection of foodstuff. This has indeed played a major part in Singapore’s envisage to becoming world class destination. Singapore also has Culinary Education strategy underway. Building an institution that trains catering ,hospitality and culinary education. Marina Bay Sands and Sentosa are Singapore’s great tourists resorts at the island margins which attracts a huge percentage of tourists. Singapore holds national and international food and beverage festivals which have acted as a development strategy and this has also greatly promoted many food and beverage destinations in Singapore. The events might have generated or created images and reputation for Singapore through major destination marketing strategies such as differentiations, localizations or diversifications. These events have in a great way acted as a differentiating factor of Singaporean destination from other destinations. They have created an opportunity for people from different states to taste and like Singaporean dishes that are different from theirs (Hjalager & Richards 2004). Upon Singapores seperation with Malaysia in 1965, it has developed free-market economy. Its government has created an export-oriented economic policy. The Singaporean government has also adopted capitalism theory, but combining with authoritarian social controls. Physical infrastrucure and averagely skilled labor force in combination attracted so many tourists for Singapore in 1960s. As a result of rising pressure on labor market, Sinapore established a modern infrastructure which was combined with its high-skilled labor force to develop into a monetary and commercial hub of the region.Meanwhile the government developed important policies to promote continuous foreign investors attractions. In 1961, Singapore established Economic Development Board to attract foreign direct investments. Besides, the EDB built Jurong Industrial Town as well as factories to act as manuifacturing sites for the multi-national corporations (Getz 2007). The government announced tax deductions to corporations who would lower their production by 20%. Apart from this the government owned investments in places where private investirs lacked specialty. Due to this, nationalized corporations rose up in the monetary and transportation areas. The government also catered for labor conditions, thinking that positive working conditions would attract more foreign investors. At first, the government formed principles of employment to solve employees – employers problems. By 1972, theNational Trades Union Comission was formed as the only national labor union which will be catering for employment and salary problems (Ritchie & Crouch, 2003). The EDB together with Minister of Trade ranked Singapore to be “Total Business Center,”. During the same time, government expenditure on infrastructure supporting the advancement of IT industry was as large as tripple the spending of FDI. In 1986, the EDB put in place the Enterprise Bureau to promote the growth of local businesses. Singapore furthered state technological researches by liasing with other high education schools in US, Europe and Australia. In 2006, National Research Foundations was formed to advance, coordinate and execute national research and invention strategies (Jenkins &Dredge 2007). The STB has been determined to understand possible ways of attracting clients. Through conducting interviews to get feedback from their clients, employing specialized personnel to access the comfort of its customers as well as involving their citizens in making important decisions especially those concern the local affairs. Singapore has received positive feedback from a number of visitors. Singapore tourism industry has tried to conserve the dignity of their culture despite global influences to degenerate. This conservation is part of the unique traits of the city-state. Infrastructural developments in Singapore seem to be flexible to accommodate future demands. The two resorts at the margin of the island are an example of a uniquely designed destination that is not too rigid for future reconstructions. Singapore has not been criticized for any negative impact on the location or appearance of its sites; instead, it is praised for its best shopping, arts and entertainment streets. Similarly, Architectural designs and styles are not negatively criticized by her local community (Alexander 1979). Among the strategies that Singapore has put in place to enhance sustainability of its destinations include: the constructing of resorts in consideration of the ecological factors like water, breeze. This guarantees continuous supply; the construction of durable infrastructure that assures maximum protection of tourists; Singapore is also located in a favorable geographical location that is not venerable to natural calamities. Transport and communication infrastructure is another major sector that is developed for leisure and efficiency. The construction of the destination followed the right principles of a good site design (Hall 2008). This shows that Singapore has a portion of acceptance from both the local as well as the international communities. Conclusion and Recommendations Singapore has been able to move higher and get closer to the summit because its community, the government and the Singapore Tourism Boarded have cooperated and worked towards following the appropriate steps in developing their industry. Making and implementing logical policies, strategies and good management. In spite of these, Singapore is experiencing a stiff competition from other tourism industries from both the neighboring and far countries. This include countries such as Hong Kong, China, Italy, and Australia etc. In actual sense, tourism is not and it is not supposed to be the only business in Singapore. As expected, there are other finacial and social activities that are taking place alongside the tourism industry .These activities include textile industry,assembling industry etc. Similarly for the sake of a healthy business there has to that healthy competition (Hall 2008). It could be also important therefore that Singapore has the concept of a destination during the process of establishment of the forces impacting management, planning, policy making and the development of tourism destinations. The influence of global scale on national planning policies is increasing, emphasizing the fact that within the globalised world all sites exist in only one market place. In order to improve or maintain its competitiveness as the only tourist destination in Singapore as well as to sustain the demands of the customers (Crouch 2005), Singapore can purpose to compare its qualities with the other competitive tourist destinations in the world and try to improve on what it does not have. Forming more management boards to manage different sectors so as to ensure division of labor as well as make work easier and manageable for each department would be an important action to embark on. If Singapore could be able to ensure that each and every organ in the industry performs its due responsibilities accordingly also could be significant to both the tourism industry as well as the state’s economy. Singapore may in another way purpose to conserve its total traditional markets as well as improving its multiplex malls and boutiques which is a competing factor for Hong Kong. Transportation system in Singapore is quite rigid in comparison to the efficient and cheap means of transport in countries like Australia and Hong Kong, for instance, Disneyland Express and the Speed Boats of Hong Kong. Reference List Alexander, C (1979), 'The Timeless Way', in The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, New York, vol 1, no. 15, pp. 3-18. Boniface, P (2003) Tasting Tourism: Travelling for Food and Drink, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate. Chang, T (2000) Teeming cities - taming places, Location Analysis, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 35-54. Douglas, N; Douglas, N & Derrett, R (2001) Special Interest Tourism. Queensland: John Wiley & Sons Australia. du Rand, G.E. and Heath, E (2006) Towards a Framework for Food Tourism as an Element of Destination Marketing, Current Issues in Tourism, vol 9, no. 3, pp 206-234. Fields, K (2002) Demand for the Gastronomy Tourism Product: Motivational Factors, in A.M. Hjalager and G. Richards (Eds.) Tourism and Gastronomy, London: Routledge. Getz, D (2007) Event Studies: Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Hall, CM 2008, planning destinations: competition and cooperation, Tourism Planning: Policies, Processes & Relationships. Harlow, UK, Pearson, vol 11, no. 5, pp. 191-226. Hall, M and Mitchell, R (2002) The Changing Nature of the Relationship between Cuisine and Tourism in Australia and New Zealand, Fusion Cuisine to Food Networks, vol 8, no. 12, pp 122-151. Hjalager and G. Richards (2004) Tourism and Gastronomy, London: Routledge. Jenkins J &Dredge, D (2007) Tourism Policy & Planning, Wiley. Keller, K (2008) Strategic Brand Management, Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity, 3rd ed, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Education Inc, vol 3, no. 5, pp 201-228. Ritchie, JRB & Crouch, G (2003), Conceptual and theoretical perspectives, The competitive destination: a sustainable tourism perspective, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK, no.7, pp. 9-59. Read More