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Social impact brought by travel agency

Tourism events like family holidays, cruise, city break, etc. are an important factor for socioeconomic growth and development in many countries. This is due to the significant potential of generating jobs, income, attracting investments and, above all, promoting the exchange of experiences and promoting the appreciation of cultures and traditions.

The tourism sector can make a significant contribution to job creation, favoring young people, as it is an economic activity that needs less investment to create jobs and is also labor intensive due to the nature of the jobs.

Some issues were fundamental for the strengthening of the sector, such as the implementation of public policies, expansion of the offer of quality tourist itineraries, increase of national arrivals, increase in the number of foreigners, increase of direct investments, etc. In addition, another important fact is the emergence of a new middle class in the country, which incorporated more people into the consumer market. And, this audience wants to have the title of tourist!

In this context, travel agency such as Cumbria’s Leading Independent Travel and other tourism entrepreneurs occupy a key position as a link in the extensive production chain that ranges from individual entrepreneurs, small businesses to large hotel companies, airlines, car rental companies, restaurants, cultural centers, product trade. , among others.

However, some reflections are imposed on the present and future of tourism. It is observed that the benefits of tourism occur unevenly in some localities, and often they are not incorporated by the majority of the local population. As in all production chains, the impacts of tourism on the territory have positive and negative aspects in the social, economic, environmental and cultural spheres that must be taken into account. Issues such as unskilled labor, inadequate infrastructure, informal labor relations, seasonality of activities, sexual exploitation, degradation of natural resources should be considered further by the sector.

It is essential to ensure sustainable and sustainable development and to seek inclusive ways to generate positive and competitive effects in a dynamic and challenging world economy.

For this, we must also respond to the wishes and dialogue with a new consumer profile of tourism, which gradually lets be enchanted by the standard mass itineraries, to wish to experience transformative experiences that are tailored to their dreams. In addition, this consumer has incorporated information technology into his daily life and through this acts directly in the chain: buying tickets, destination research, talking with local actors, etc.

So, what strategy, then, that tourism chain entrepreneurs should take to compete and value all the rich cultural and geographical diversity?

We suggest looking at two global trends that can add to the strategic differential of a business while generating positive social and environmental impacts, contributing to the strengthening of territories. Thus enabling the construction of a social business model for the tourism chain.

The first is tourism that aims to be more than a traditional, stereotypical trip, to be an opportunity to experience other cultures and personal enrichment. This is a concept that is not new, but still little explored.

Another growing trend is community-based tourism, which infers a reorientation of the tourist experience, exchanging massification for an authentic experience, closer to the local reality (both the community, and spaces and meanings by their traditional uses). This is the essence of community tourism, the practice of intentional visitation to the ‘soul’ of the place and the people who inhabit it.

These two vectors have in recent years stimulated the increasing structuring of groups and networks of entrepreneurs who develop and offer tourism products born from their vocations, local knowledge, cultural, gastronomic and folkloric movements.