Tourism

The tourism and hospitality industry currently proves to be one of the most lucrative business ventures across the globe. This can be attributed to various factors such as effective transport networks especially that of airlines, communication where internet has been uses as a tool for marketing and advertisement.

Traditionally hospitality and tourism focused only on provision of accommodation services and transport but now it has become more diverse where entertainment services, food and beverage casinos etc. Currently most animal conservation areas like national parks and private conservancies are fighting with the issue of increased lodges and hotel construction as more are being put up threatening the soundness of the wildlife habitants in those areas. At the same time, meetings, convections and special events places are all part of the hospitality industry.

According to economic watch, hospitality industries can be put under two categories, the first one is entertainment areas like clubs, bars and second is accommodation. Hare accommodation is taken to be inform of resorts, lodges, motels etc while clubs and bars are fast-food joints, restaurants etc.
There is a close relationship between hospitality and tourism where activities like airline cabin, and travel agents are also in the hospitality industry.

Tourism often involves moving from one place of residence to another for leisure and enjoyment purposes. One can choose to stay in a hotel or motel. Here there are various types of hotels i.e. ones that offer full services like beds, shops within their premises such as gift boutiques, newsstands, access to laundry, swimming pools etc while limited services may just be meals and beverages. At this stage tourism

However the hospitality and tourism industry is impacted greatly by various factors such as economic factors where by setting up of hotel facilities and equipments is increasingly becoming expensive by day due to high cost of raw materials like bricks and cement, timber etc. this makes the construction cost high and limits the returns in such business apart from just inhibiting more players in this field. Hence, small scale entrepreneurs may not benefit much due to these economic challenges as compared to already established multinational players who dominate these markets.

 The economy of super power nations like United States and other European nations also greatly affects the tourism and hospitality industry. The recession experienced saw very few luxurious visits leading to low business activities around these industries and loss of jobs. Slow recovery from the recession continues to bi9te into these industries. This is aggravated by the fact that most of the ravels from such countries to others especially in Africa are mainly leisure based and not business oriented.

The economic status of the people forces them to be very cautious as to where they spend their money. When the financial status is good for the people, they tend to spend more on luxury as compared to hard economic times when they have to spend less.

Alina and Dallas (2007) and Baum et al (1997) observe that tourism and hospitality businesses are very vulnerable to demand fluctuation over various seasons in the year. These demand fluctuations are caused by institutional or environmental forces hence one can predict when the demand will be high or low. This allows or businesses, lenders and investors to anticipate many seasonal impacts.

The diversity of tourist attractions allows for many tourism and hospitality businesses to remain on the cutting edge. The bio- physical environment greatly impacts the plight of tourism activities in countries such as Kenya where impacts of climate change negatively affected this industry.  The socio-political factors also plays key role in hospitality and tourism business. Kenya recorded heavy losses in this industry when it was hit by the post election violence that threatened to tear the country into parts.

Mckercher (1993) notes that tourism as an industrial activity consumes resources, creates wastes and has specific infrastructural needs. This implies that tourism and hospitality impacts on the environment in terms of inputs needed to start and run it. As such apart from impacting by its consumption, the cultures of where such tourism and hospitality activities take place greatly determine such activities. The trade of ornaments, indigenous foods served may serve as a tourist attraction activity but it may also be a factor to be considered in the setting up of a tourism and hospitality business.

Bases on the above argument, it can be said that tourism and hospitality business activities are some of the most dynamic ventures globally. The technology innovation transfer has made it easy for this industry to grow and it is one of the top earners in the economies of many countries. There is a dominance of the private players in this sector as opposed to the government involvement. In some countries like Poland, season changes do not affect the business activities. However, in some countries like Kenya there is a seasonal flow where in certain times of the year more tourists are received when it is peak and hotels have to be booked earlier to even get a space. There are also times when the off-peak is experienced and low tourism activities are recorded.