Essay Example on National Tourist Organization: Leveraging Tourism for Country's Development

Introduction

The National Tourist Organization (NTO) is the body tasked with formulating and implementing policies regarding tourism in the country. This body acts as the government's instrument for handling the control, direction as well as the promotion of tourism. Countries need to have a national tourism organization because it forms the basis for implementing all programs on tourism in the country. The NTOs undertake in the coordination of several activities as far as tourism is concerned among the other bodies dealing with tourism promotion. As such, the NTO can be a fully-fledged ministry, a department, a board, a corporation, or a directorate-general. There is, however, no specific structure of an NTO in the constitution.

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In some countries, the NTO acts as an independent ministry and is headed by a cabinet secretary. In some other countries, tourism is jointly incorporated with other sectors such as sports, arts, commerce, and culture and in overall recognized as one ministry. With such structures in place, it can be noted that the structure of the NTO is different depending on the country's preference. Some of the factors that determine the choice of the NTO's structure include the political arrangement of the country, the level of tourism development, availability of capital for tourism development, e.g., infrastructure, and the potential value of tourism to the economy (Choy, 1993).

The sole objective of the NTO is to ensure maximum benefit to the country's economic and social standards from international tourism. This objective can be achieved by engaging in various roles, including coordination, legislation, promotion, research, and providing tourist information (Choy, 1993). However, the roles can be extended and broken down into the following functions:

Research

This acts as the chief function of the NTO. It forms a direct yet essential role of the NTO. The promotion of any given institution is usually initiated by conducting research. Therefore, the NTO researches the principal potential markets as well as investigating the marketability of the country's tourism product (Choy, 1993).

Domestic Information and Promotion

Information and promotion that are undertaken within the country entail creating awareness of the tourism within the country, accompanied by encouraging local tourism. This will not only boost the tourism sector but will also encourage international tourists to appreciate the tourist products in that given country. Information offices usually are located at the tourist centers where they provide details of other several tourist centers found in the country, and further details are given for follow up if interested.

These information centers relay essential, accurate, and latest information to the tourists who visit whether locally or internationally. For them to capture the target audience, the NTOs set up branches in strategic places all over the country. These offices provide information to new or overseas tourists through social media and are also in charge of receiving the visiting tourists alongside fulfilling the interests of local tourists (Choy, 1993).

Regularization of Standards of Lodging and Restaurants

According to Choy (1993), the NTO needs to encourage and promote tourism consciousness among the public as well as government agencies by making them realize the benefits accruing from tourism. As such, it is necessary to enact regularization policies for the standards of lodging and restaurants meant for tourists. Regularization entails offering services at standard rates, not necessarily expensive rates. This encourages local tourists to engage in more tourism activities, and it also encourages international tourists to visit more because of affordability. Alongside affordability should be consumer satisfaction of services and standards of living in the lodges and restaurants. Lodges and restaurants need to reach the desired standards of accommodation, and this can be done through government involvement. Inspection and compliance can be conducted by the government to ensure that these tourist destinations in the country offer quality products and services.

Control of Activities of Private Travel Agencies

Choy (1993) reveals that the growth of tourism in a country goes beyond providing quality products in the tourist destination alone. It entails integrating the transport and travel agencies with the tourist destinations so that the interests of the tourists are safeguarded. As such, the government, through NTOs, monitors the activities of the travel industries. These travel agencies need to provide safe, efficient, and reliable transport systems for tourists. In doing so, it encourages more tourists to travel into the country. It is upon the NTOs to maintain a standard of quality within the travel agencies for them to attain professional status. This can be achieved through legislation - setting up appropriate laws on the manner of operations in the travel agencies. As such, it acts as a way of promoting the country's tourism by ensuring customer satisfaction. A happy client is a good rating for the company, and a good rating boosts the marketing process for tourism itself.

Publicity Overseas

Another essential role of the National Tourist Organizations is promotion through publicity of all sorts such as proper public relations, distribution of information efficiently to reach tourists internationally (Formica & Littlefield, 2000). Advertisements are another way to publicize the tourist destinations in the country. It is, however, essential to place these adverts in platforms that enable global publicity. Together with the travel trade, the NTOs exercise this function and give the country recognition worldwide to attract more tourists for more benefits. It is, therefore, upon the organization to plan the publicity of the various destinations present on the country's behalf.

Technical and Juridical Problems

According to Formica et al. (2000), this refers to law administration to ensure the quality of what the country offers to tourists. The NTO should be very careful with the laws they set as they mostly determine the quality of the services offered in different tourism sectors. Technical problems refer to the development of various services offered. The NTO should regularly assess the infrastructure and the plans of the organizations in order to meet the demands of tourism soon. Tourist satisfaction should be ensured through proper knowledge on how to present the country's attraction to convince tourists that this is what they need, providing first-class services that match the tourist demands, to mention but a few.

International Relations

Tourism is also highly influenced by international relations. The connections of the country with other countries is key to spreading the good about our culture and also learning about others. Tourism is the driver for a global understanding of different people by bringing them together. Social and cultural promotion of different cultures is spearheaded when people come together as a result of tourism. It is, therefore, the role of the NTO to ensure numerous international contacts in the country are as a result of tourism. The NTO should also have representatives or rather offices overseas for tourism promotion and also work hand in hand with the NTOs of neighboring countries to aid each other in regional promotion programs (Formica et al., 2000).

Development of Selected Areas

It is usually complicated and costly to develop all tourist attractions the country has. As many as they are, it is upon the NTO to select and develop a few areas that they view as the best according to the tourism knowledge they have. These selected areas usually have the maximum tourist potential and represent the other attractions in the international phase. It is usually advisable for the NTO to carry out surveys on the tourist attractions in order to avoid wasting resources and money to develop the wrong areas (Formica et al., 2000). The National Tourist Organization works together with the government to protect such areas as they become the tourism face of the country internationally.

Overall Tourism Policy and Promotion

This is very crucial as it helps ensure maximum utilization of resources the country has and also in knowing whether the tourism sector yields benefits to the country as a whole. As much as economic benefits are essential to the nation, the NTO should also look at the non-economic benefits such as cultural developments, social and political growth, to mention but a few(Formica et al., 2000).

To sum up, the NTO needs to perform all these roles efficiently to enable the country to achieve ranks among the best tourist destinations globally. All the national forces and resources present should be put to work towards the goal of the nation as a whole that is the development of the tourism sector.

References

Choy, D. J. (1993). Alternative roles of national tourism organizations. Tourism Management, 14(5), 357-365. https://doi.org/10.1016/0261-5177 (93)90004-5

Formica, S., & Littlefield, J. (2000). National tourism organizations: a promotional plans framework. Journal of hospitality & leisure marketing, 7(1), 103-119. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J150v07n01_08