Tourism Entertainment - Part 1

Tourism Entertainment

Part 1 - How important is Animation for Tourism?

The tourism sector is subjected to very significant changes since the last decades, in which ever more people can afford to travel. There are several factors, including increasing purchasing power, more economic means of transport, leisure time available to individuals and the use of new technologies as a communication channel and source of information etc., which favor the continued increase in the number of passengers yearly. The WTO estimates that the number of trips will triple by 2020, which offers great opportunities for any tourism-related employer.

But it is more than evident that we must seek new ways and strategies to respond to these opportunities with professionalism and provide excellent services which meet the requirements of present and future tourists, that have nothing to do with the demands of the past and that in future will be more diversified doubtlessly. Therefore we must go away from what some hotel operators and other tourist experts are still considering essential, but what for others it is already obsolete, i.e. good bed, food, television, sun and beach.

Seen the situation from this point, we tend to have more experienced, more demanding tourists. The tourists loose the interest in realizing their holiday passively, being characterized by a rather greater tendency to practice various activities during their vacation.

There is a service capable of fulfilling most of these tendencies and more, which is the Tourism Entertainment, still not properly valued by many employers in the tourism sector. This service enables high competitiveness and professionalism by providing a variety of activities.

The hotel chain Club Mediterranee (Club Med) was the first to recognize the need for customers to create activities for their free time to perform, achieving an increasment of their level of satisfaction during their holiday period by introducing this service.

Unfortunately after about 3 decades of existence of tourism entertainment still very mistaken concepts regarding this service dominate, being totally underestimated its importance for tourism enterprises. For many hoteliers and other professionals from the tourism sector entertainment consists in dancing with children, making some clowns show and little more. It is considered a complementary service, like an air conditioner.

Touristic animation, when done professionally, is certainly much more than a complementary service and very valuable for tourist establishments, as it creates a very pleasant atmosphere, where tourists enjoy spending their time. On the other hand it helps detect minor problems in the overall service of the establishment, as many guests talk about that to the animateurs. Receiving this information these points can be remedied without much effort, that make the difference between the mass of competitors, converting the vacation experience and its establishment into something special.

Furthermore you achieve that tourists will use the facilities of your establishment rather than seeking for alternatives elsewhere. As a consequence incomes will be higher as the guests will consume in the establishment and also will lead to a higher satisfaction of the tourists by using their free time actively. This will increase the probability that some tourists come back to you in future and also recommend you to friends and acquaintances.

It’s certainly not an easy task to perform, because a wide range of issues when developing and designing a program with animation activities must be considered and covered. I will go into more detail about this in the following articles, which will discuss the different factors to take into account for this.

Generically we can say that animation

· is the set of daytime and evening activities taking place in an establishment, designed to meet the needs of leisure, enjoyment and entertainment of guests in it, being an attractive alternative for the leisure time of tourists.

· is a set of techniques derived from the recreation that allow the planning, organizing and developing of various activities and games, with the aim of creating a favorable atmosphere in a group, contributing to enhance social relationships in it and the satisfaction of the interests and needs of people in their spare time.

· enriches the concept of tourism, making tourism accommodation establishments to centers of human relations, multicultural contacts and communication in general, where fun and entertainment are valued and continuously enriched and accessible to any client.

There is no doubt that the tourist entertainment is becoming an indispensable element in the travel industry and that requires a careful analysis of the product itself, in order to recognize the general needs of the industry to get the best performance for this service. It not only needs hoteliers and other tourism experts, who recognize the growing importance of tourism entertainment, but also a more in-depth education for future entertainers, issues to be addressed in the following articles.

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Part 2 - - - - - Part 3

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