Business Overview of a Tourism Company

Your assignment is to develop a Business Overview of a Tourism business through research.  The purpose of this assignment is to learn more about “the business of tourism”.  You will support your overview content with evidence and provide sources for your content.Please select a business (ie: a specific company) in one of the following tourism sectors:
•    Accommodation
•    Food & Beverage
•    Transportation
•    Travel Trade
•    Tourism Services 

Do not choose a company with only one location for its business as you will not have sufficient information and content to discuss.

You will use the 6 bolded Section Headings and the questions below as your guide and discuss your thoughts about these questions in your Business Overview. 

Use the 6 bolded Section Headings exactly as shown and include your thoughts under each section of the Business Overview.  You do not need to discuss all of the points and questions shown under each bolded heading … those are just listed to help you think about what information you would want to consider discussing under each bolded Section Heading.

The Business Overview must adhere to the following format requirements:
•    Sentence and paragraph format (bulleted lists may be used when appropriate)
•    Font: Arial, 11
•    Spacing: Single
•    Margins: 1 inch all around
•    MLA citations must be included in the body of the work and quotation marks used if you direct quote a source. Each citation must also be listed on a separate page entitled Citations.
•    Length: Minimum of 1000 words and a Maximum of 2000 words (excluding the MLA Citations page at the end)
 
Please refer to the Rubric for this assignment for additional information.Use the “Business Overview Report” document provided in this assignment in the Weekly Modules and submit your completed report in the appropriate area in the Assignments and Exercises Submission folder of our course site by the due date.Remember to cite your sources as required by MLA Citation

While you are expected to do research to assist you in preparing your report, copying and pasting large sections for your report that are either directly copied or paraphrased from other reports is NOT acceptable.  As discussed in class, think about the content from the research you have done and provide your own thoughts in each section.  Brief references to other content is completely appropriate, but other authors’ content should not create more than about 1/3 of your content.  Reports not meeting this expectation will have a minimum Professionalism mark assigned, and if there is a significant failure to comply with MLA Citation requirements then the mark could be reduced even further and additional action taken.

Section Headings:

Write this summary after you have completed all of the other sections of the report.  Summarize your key learnings about the business from the sections below in 1-2 paragraphs.  Include the most important elements from each section to create this Executive Summary. 

2.    About the Business 
A.    What is the name of the business?
B.    What type of ownership model is the business?
C.    What primary products/services does the business provide?
D.    Describe the physical, human, and regional geography this business operates in
E.    How does the company segment its market / what segments does it focus on?
F.    How does the company communicate/promote its products/services to customers?
G.    Does this business partner with any intermediaries? If yes, describe the relationship.
H.    Identify and describe the distribution channel(s) that this business utilizes

3.    Strengths of the Business 
A.    What does your business do well?
B.    How strong is your business in its market?
C.    Does the business have a strong sense of purpose and the culture to support that purpose?

4.    Weaknesses of the Business
A.    Identify weak points about the business
B.    Has the business ever encountered (or is presently encountering) financial or other poor performance issues?
C.    What markets or segments for this business are struggling?

5.    Opportunities for the Business
A.    What industry trends provide opportunities? 
B.    What new markets exist for your products or services? 
C.    Identify future opportunities facing the business

6.    Threats to the Business
A.    Who are your competitors? (be specific for your marketplace)
B.    What are competitors doing well?
C.    Are there troubling changes in this business environment such as the environment, technologies, laws, and regulations?