Chapter 7. Travel Services
Heather Knowles and Morgan Westcott
Learning Objectives
- Describe the key characteristics of the travel services sector
- Define key travel services terminology
- Differentiate between types of reservation systems and booking channels
- Discuss the impacts of online travel agents on consumers and the sector
- Identify key travel services and organizations in Canada and British Columbia
- Explain the importance of additional tourism services not covered under NAICS
- Describe key trends and issues in travel services worldwide
Overview
The travel services sector is made up of a complex web of relationships between a variety of suppliers, tourism products, destination marketing organizations, tour operators, and travel agents, among many others. Under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), travel services comprises businesses and functions that assist with planning and reserving components of the visitor experience (Government of Canada, 2014).
Before we move on, let’s explore the term travel services a little more. As detailed in Chapter 1, Canada, the United States, and Mexico all use NAICS guidelines, which define the tourism industry as consisting of transportation, accommodation, food and beverage, recreation and entertainment, and travel services.
For many years, however, the tourism industry was classified into eight sectors: accommodations, adventure and recreation, attractions, events and conferences, food and beverage, tourism services, transportation, and travel trade (Yukon Department of Tourism and Culture, 2013). As you can see, most of these — from accommodations to food and beverage — remain virtually the same under NAICS and have been covered thus far in this textbook.
Tourism services support industry development and the delivery of guest experiences, and some of these are missing from the NAICS classification. To ensure you have a complete picture of the tourism industry in BC, this chapter will cover both the NAICS travel services activities and some additional tourism services.
First, we’ll review the components of travel services as identified under NAICS, exploring the function of each area and ways they interact:
- Travel agencies
- Online travel agencies (OTAs)
- Tour operators
- Destination marketing organizations (DMOs)
- Other organizations
Following these definitions and descriptions, we’ll take a look at some other support functions that fall under tourism services. These include sector organizations, tourism and hospitality human resources organizations, training providers, educational institutions, government branches and ministries, economic development and city planning offices, and consultants.
Finally, we’ll look at issues and trends in travel services, both at home, and abroad.
Components of Travel Services
While the application of travel services functions are structured somewhat differently around the world, there are a few core types of travel services in every d