Tourism Supply – II: Sectors

1. Tourism Supply – II: Sectors 1.Carriage by air 2. Hotel and motel accommodation 3. Air tour operation 4. Controls on supply

2. 1. Carriage by Air • Passenger air carriers measure output by passenger seat kilometers(ps/km), with supply as available seat kilometers andconsumption as revenue seat kilometers. • The costs of a passenger-carrying airline can be divided into 4 broad groups: > Airline-related (FC) on average 10 % > Route-related (SFC) 27 % > Flight-related (SFC) 45 % > Passenger-related (VC) 18 %

3. 1. Carriage by Air • Airline-related costs are inescapable FCsuch as administration, reservations, marketing and group services. • Route-related costs are incurred as soon as the decision to service a particular route is made, > the cost of aircraft (financing and depreciation), maintenance, and station costs(providing check-in, offices and ramp handling)at online airports. Route-related costs are therefore relatively fixed(semi-fixed costs orSFC).

4. 1. Carriage by Air • Flight-related costs are variable to the route but fixed as soon as the ‘go’ decision is made to operate a flight. > flight and cabin crew, fuel (usually the largest item, at around 30 % of costs to most airlines), airport and air traffic control charges. • Passenger-related variable costs include > meals, baggage handling and ticketing. > Since sales commission is directly related to airfares, it is more logical to regard the airline’s return as a net price, leaving passenger-related variablecosts at around 7 - 9 %.

5. 1. Carriage by Air • In the short run, scheduled airlines are committed to operating licensed and advertised services, so that passenger-related costsare the only variableones. Clearly then, the desired supply is that fixed by capacity on each flight. • Enterprisessee the highest revenue oryield from the flight, by using some of the following tactics: 1.Setting market prices for airfares in such a way that TCs are paid for by a relatively low number of passengers (typically with a load factor of 55 – 60 %). Given market segmentation, further seats can be sold at progressively lower prices, down to standby fares at (VC) level; all will be profitable (MR>MC).

6. 1. Carriage by Air 2.Ensuring that seat configurations in various classes create the optimum yield on each flight. 3. Selling each seat at the highestpossiblefare, by closely identifying the constraints on market segments and using them to cut into consumers’ surplus. Additionally, international airlines use currencyfluctuations to concentrate selling in those countries whose currencies have appreciated relative to their home currency

7. 1. Carriage by Air- the marketplace for “full-fare” air services FareD S P1 P2 Q1 Q2Output

8. 1. Carriage by Air • A ‘normal’ market equilibrium at airfare P2would fill capacity, quantity Q2of seats. • However, published airfares are held at P1, selling only Q1 seats and giving the airlines a load factor of (0Q1 / 0Q2) * 100 • Remaining capacity (Q2 – Q1) can be cleared at discount fares down to ( P2 ). • airline’s revenue is P1Q1 + P2 (Q2 – Q1 ).

9. 1. Carriage by Air • Why should airlines not simply fix fares at P2? 1.because P1Q1 probably gives greater revenue than P2 Q2, with small savings in (VC) 2. airlines have the option of expanding revenue still further with discount fares in marginal markets. Even deregulated, competitive air markets in the USA have rarely produced single-level lowairfares.

10. 1. Carriage by Air – charter airlines • However, charter airlines operate de facto with a flight as a unit of output rather than passenger seat or ps/km. • A flight will only be guaranteed given a minimum prebooked load factor (say, 90%) and therefore minimumguaranteed returns. Flights may otherwise be canceled or consolidated.

11. 1. Carriage by Air – charter airlines • While the ‘normal’ fares must be lower, to guarantee a high load factor, flight-related costs in essence become variable. • Supply in the form of flights, can then be much more readily adjusted to market needs > provided alternative uses can be found for aircraft and crews, and > provided station-manning is flexible. For this reason, most charter airlines contract out station-manning, and rely heavily on cross-leasingof aircraft.

12. 1. Carriage by Air – charter airlines • Charter airlines can therefore offer a dynamic response flexibility which scheduled airlines cannot, and which can serve recreational mass tourism needs well. • Disregarding volume and actual fares, mass leisure tourism demands high seasonal flexibility, which charter airlines can provide.

13. 1. Carriage by Air – Change in supply and cost • In the long run, airlines vary supply through route changes and through fleet and systemalterations linked to cost changes. • Costs per unit of output (available ps/km) change > with different inputs (such as new aircraft offeringhigher average productivity per unit of output), or > by changing route systems to obtain economics of market sharing and to offer ‘new’ products • a good example is the use of a hub-and-spoke route system (a central route and multiple connecting routes) either domestically or internationally to increase the ‘supply of routes’.

14. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • The location, ownership and varying cost structures cause a variety of supply responses to market conditions. • The majority of hotels and motels possess a fixedsupply of rooms available for letting, and they will ideally wish to sell all their capacity – a 100 % occupancy rate. • In this they are like airlines. • However, establishing a measure of output and supply is complicated in two ways:

15. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • Firstly, occupancy may be measured in three different ways: • A basicoccupancy rate measures the percentageofrooms used on a given night by guests • A bed occupancy rate establishes how many guests are physically accommodated as a percentage ofmaximum capacity; for example many double or twin rooms (which internationally account for over80% of hotel rooms) may be let as singles

16. 2.Hotel and motel accommodation • A revenue occupancy figure compares room revenue on one night with the theoretical maximum; every roomwill have afull-priceor published rack rate, but many may be let at discounts for various reasons.

17. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • Secondly, rooms may deliberately be let at less than market rates (and possibly at a loss) to cross-subsidize food and beverage, function or otheroperating areas, or simply is therefore forgone(sacrificed)in favor of other objectives.

18. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • In general, hoteliers would wish to supply 100 % of their rooms, at full bed-occupancy and full revenue-occupancy. • This is because their cost structure contains a large fixed costs component • However, they may sometimes face a choice of selling >fewer rooms at fullrate or > more at a discount (for example when a tour group with monopsonist buying power – able to negotiate very low prices – is a potential customer).

19. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • However, the extra revenue may be more than swallowed upby increased variable costs, such as cleaning, laundry and power, which vary with room occupation. • In seasonal tourism destinations, a distinction may be made as regards overall ‘supply’: in low season hoteliers take on the block group bookings, but they may be reluctant to do so in high season because of the better chance of selling rooms at rack rate later.

20. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation Worldwide average lodging cost breakdown (%) FCVCTotal Labor 20 25 45 Financial charges 30 - 30 dep. & fixed property Energy and maintenance 5 10 15 Laundry, linen and diposables - 5 5 Other 5 - 5 Total 6040100

21. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • The difficulty many hoteliers face is that laborlevels are an indicator of service qualitywhich in turn characterizes individual lodging establishments and allows them to command price differentials. • This may not be a great problem in low-wage economies, but it is more serious in high-wage economies.

22. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • Consequently hotel companiessubstitute labor-saving capital equipment and industrially produced inputs for their own expensive labor, which unfortunately tends to replace variable costs with fixed costs. • Supplying at full capacity becomes even more important and pricing policy reflects this.

23. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • Pressure in the other direction (to convert fixed costs to variable costs) has produced an increasing separation between hotel/motel ownershipandmanagement. • Whereas before the 1960s most hotel companies owned their own properties, it is now usual for medium and large establishments to be owned by property companies, and for the hotelier to operate with a management contract or lease. • Most well known chains such as Hilton, Hyatt, Ramada or Sheraton operate the bulk of their hotels this way.

24. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • This acknowledges that there are two businesses operating in different markets. • The property company seeks an investment vehicle, especially in cities and major destinations, with capital appreciation and rental or profit-sharing returns.

25. 2. Hotel and motel accommodation • The hotelier is relieved of fixed-cost finance payments, and provided a fee or rental can be linked in some way to profit or revenue, the cost becomes semi-variable. • There is then more flexibility in supply decision-making.

26. 3. Air tour operation • Air tour operation originated principally in Europe in the early 1950s as a supply-driven sector. • Tour operators act as wholesalers/retailers by buying vacant seats en bloc at a considerable discount.

27. 3. Air tour operation • The price would be less then published airfares and at anything down to the level of VCs,which could be very low - with actual prices being determined by the relative bargainingpower of tour operators and airlines. • In order to protect their full-fare markets, airlines began to impose conditions on the resale of seats by tour operators some of which are still in effect today.

28. 3. Air tour operation • The principal condition often was (and is) that the air travel could only be sold as a component of an inclusive tour(IT) incorporating destination accommodation or other services. • This made tour operators into manufacturersbuilding ITs asseparate products. • Tour operators then carried the business risk of selling product stocks themselves.

29. 3. Air tour operation • In buying accommodation for their ITs, tour operators bargainto secure discounted prices. • Relativebargaining power dictates final prices. • Final negotiated prices may also depend on: > the season and the hotel’s occupancy rate

30. 3. Air tour operation > whether the operatorbooks, and guaranteespayment for, a set block or allocation of rooms, or merely books on an ad hoc basis(the former results in cheaper prices for the operator but a semi - fixed cost compared with a variable cost for the latter) > continuity of the operator’s demand, where demand in low season is a strong bargaining counter not only for low rates, but also protecting the operator’s allocation in high season.

31. 3. Air tour operation • From purchasing blocks of seats on scheduled services as inputs, some air tour operators progressed to chartering whole aircraft, often on days when aircraft were standing idleowing to schedulingmethods.

32. 3. Air tour operation • Although the potential saving to the operator on individual seats is less, the operator can gain the same advantage overall as charter airlines, by working with a very high load factor. • Largeoperators also own busfleets, attractions and sometimes their own accommodation.

33. 3. Air tour operation • In purchasing inputs, especially air carriage, the tour operator’s objective is to obtain program series ofITs. • With charter IT (ITC or CIT), for example, this means regular weekly or two-weekly departures, where this week’s outward flight brings home last week’s tourists, and accommodation is used continuously.

34. 3. Air tour operation • It is often more difficult to have this regularity with ITs using scheduled services(ITXs or inclusive tours by excursion), but the principle otherwise holds good.

35. 3. Air tour operation- sample income and expenditure percentages for an air tour operator

36. 3. Air tour operation • The table above reveals two key things. • Firstly, many operators do little better than break-even on trading directly in their IT products, owing mostly to competition. • Many obtain as much, or as in this case more, profit from interest received on deposits and prepaid holidays, from dealing in foreign exchange, and from selling ‘add-on’ products.

37. 3. Air tour operation • Secondly, air travel and lodging are the two major input costs. • These more than anything dictate tour operators’ supply. • A feature or product characteristic for many ITs is an overall price advantage to the tourist compared with purchasing individual components. • This advantage has been found in some cases to be around 15 % up to perhaps 40 % or more.

38. 3. Air tour operation- a supply schedule (backward-sloping) for air ITs Market Price P3 P2 P1 Q1 Q3 Q2Quantity supplied

39. 3. Air tour operation • Along tour operation supply schedule SS1, a market price P1 calls forth supply OQ1of ITs. If market price rises to P2, supply will be increased to OQ2, but market price P3 means that; > tour operators’ margins are squeezed, and > travel and lodging suppliers are not interested in selling to operators, so the supply of ‘components’ dries up.

40. 3. Air tour operation • This assumes that all market prices (whether for selling direct or through tour operators) move together, which is normally the case. • As a result, operators are forced to reduce supply to OQ3.

41. 4. Controls on supply • Controls are placed on supply in tourism industry by both government authorities and the various sectors’ own trade associations. • The controls may be both long and short-term in effect. • Governments establish controls principally through licensing and grading.

42. 4. Controls on supply • Licensing systems operate in many areas to regulate; > the number of suppliers and > the products which they supply, both nationally and internationally.

43. 4. Controls on supply For example, national governments negotiate bilateralagreements to determine international scheduled air routes and the capacities of seats to be offered, including how those capacities will be shared between countries; individual governments thenlicense specific carriers to provide set proportions of those capacities. National governments may licensedomestic air carriage(and also other carriage) in a similar way.

44. 4. Controls on supply • This form of regulation has been justified for reasons of - orderly(regular)competition, - protection of national carriers’ business, - control of standards, - providing services on uneconomic but socially desirable routes, and > other political and diplomatic ends.

45. 4. Controls on supply • Other forms of licensing include those for travel agents, tour guides, foreign exchange dealing for tourists and a range of other activities where the aims are primarily either > to enforce service quality standards or > to protect consumersagainst losses following financial misdealing or failure.

46. . Controls on supply • Consumer protection applies to the travel agency and tour operation sectors of many countries, and is accompanied by various kinds of financial bonding. • The economic effect is to create barriers to entry and therefore restrict supply, so that such systems are frequently adopted by trade associations (on behalf of their existing members) as well as by governments.

47. 4. Controls on supply • Grading systems can also indirectly effect supply. • A lodging proprietor may then restrict supply of one grade of accommodation in order to concentrate on another more profitable one, or shut downaltogether if not permitted to charge whatever rate is considered necessary to meet objectives.

48. The influence of these controls and other, more direct, ones such as planning restrictions or straight price control on tourism industry marketplaces will be examined in the next chapter.