Course Description

This course discusses the general knowledge of the transportation, its role to the tourism, planning and
policies. The content includes transportation systems, various aspects of tourism-related forms of
transportation, modes of transportation, transportation operation including concepts and methods of
analysis, infrastructure, and geographical legal factors relating to local and international transportation.

Topics include discussions of surface, air, and water transportation, organization, operations, and
regulatory and marketing aspects, examination of the inter-model concept, and the social, economic,
and political factors that have influenced government transportation priorities.

Learning Outcomes

Identify the elements and types of tourism transport.

Understand the relationship between transport and tourism.

Describe the diverse roles of transport in tourism.

Explore the geographical perspective of tourism transport.

Explain the significance of transport in the accessibility of a destination.

Understand multimodal transport in the context of tourism.

Present the characteristics and types of tourism transport.

Understand the factors that influence tourist transport selection.

Transport: From a Geographical Perspective

Transport primarily deals with time and distance.

Travel distance is a factor in the accessibility of a destination. Transport facilitates the movement with
respect to place and location and provides the essential link.

It enables the spatial Interaction between different tourist generating regions and destination regions.

This flow of people from generating region to destination is almost impossible without transport.

From a geographic perspective, travel occurs to satisfy human desire for spatial movement and
transport facilitates the process of movement that has economic and budgetary costs.

According to Page (1994), “transport results from a desire for mobility and travel, and the provision of
different modes of transport aims to facilitate the efficient movement of goods and people”.

Traditionally, distance has been a bottleneck in the evolution of tourism in many destinations.

The proximity of tourist generating countries with high travel propensity has been an advantage for
destinations in attracting international tourists.
European destinations could enjoy the benefit of proximity to rich tourist markets.

The transformation in aviation in the post-Second World War era has eased the difficulties in long-haul
travel through speedier and cheaper air transport services.

Yet, the cost in covering long-haul destinations is a determinant in tourist buying behaviour.

According to Ullman (1980), there are three major reasons for spatial interaction and, therefore,
transport development. They are:

Complementarity

Intervening opportunities

Transferability or friction of distance

Three major reasons for spatial interaction

Complementarity:

In one place (in the case of tourism this would be the generating region), there exists desire to travel,
and in the other place there exists the ability to satisfy that desire.

A transportation system will link these two and a “complementarity” of demand and supply will produce
interaction between these areas.

Intervening Opportunities:

Though complementarity exists between origin and destination regions, intervening opportunities may
be possible due to competing attractions.

Though one destination has the necessary attractions and facilities to satisfy the needs and wants of
tourists from a generating region, other destinations can also offer similar attractions and facilities.

Some tourists may visit other destinations as well, even if a particular destination has the needed
services and facilities.

Hence, intervening opportunities exist in terms of tourist travel.

Transferability or friction of distance:

“Transferability” or “friction of distance” does matter in tourism.

This refers to the cost of overcoming the distance between those two places.

If the time and money costs of reaching a destination are high, then even perfect complementarity and
lack of intervening opportunities cannot ensure travel to that destination.
Hence, in tourism, spatial interaction must take place and it should have good complementarity, less
intervening opportunities and low friction of distance.

Tourism system concept of Leiper (1990) ( picture )