Issue 3/2017

THE ROLE OF TOURISM TRANSPORT’S DEVELOPMENT

IN ECONOMIC GROWTH

Flora ALASGAROVA1
1
Candidate of Economic sciences,
Deputy Dean of Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality,
Azerbaijan Tourism and Management University Baku, Azerbaijan,
Tel.: +994125644233, Email: [email protected]

Abstract
Tourism is one of the necessary and very important sectors of country
economy. Tourism has its appropriate inimitable characteristics that differentiate
this sector from the other sectors. As in the other service industrial fields, in
tourism sector the tourists come to the tourism destination place where the
tourism services are supplied. To my observation and international experiences,
it is hard to think of tourism industry without transportation. Transportation
means to carry the tourists to the relevant place where tourism services are
accomplished.
The article contains detailed information about the introduction to the
concepts of tourism, theoretical approach to the tourism as service industry,
the role of transport in tourism development, international experiences in
transport tourism, development of transport tourism in Azerbaijan economy.
The article can be considered as a useful resource for experts and researchers
conducting research in this field.

Keywords: service; tourism; transport; industry; transport tourism;

destination; economy; travel.
JEL Classification: L83, L91

Tourism as a Service Industry in the Economy

Tourism is one of the most necessary sectors in the world industry, which is
involving millions of people over the world, large sums of money and creating
employment in different countries.
The tourism industry and the services that fall under its broad umbrella are
complicated essential needs. [12]
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According to Wikiversity research, tourism is important to the developing of

lots of countries, that is why the income created by the use of services and goods
by the tourists helps to the government taxes assembled on businesses in tourism
sector and create the possibility for employment and economic progress by hard
working in the industry. [13]
Hereby, tourism can eliminate or turn down a country’s bondage upon other
countries and can be of special significance to improve the level of those countries
whose economies, apart from tourism, are based on essential products. [1, p. 124]
According to Barcet A., service innovation “causes to know new
something into the access of life, timing, organization and placing of what can
generally be portrayed as the collective and individual processes that connect
to consumers”. [2, p. 51]
Tourism and other travel-related facilities comprise services provided by
restaurants and hotels (as well as including catering), travel companies and tour
operator facilities, tourist guide and other relevant services. [14]
As a service industry, tourism is quickly becoming one of the main industries
in the South Africa which is no special case with its natural prettiness found in the
most of its areas, especially KwaZulu – Natal and Western Cape. But why is
tourism explained as a service industry? Tourism displays all the features of a
service industry. This factor is shown by the origin of its components service
bargains, which are different industries in their own law. To add the tourism
industry’s progress in view of the customary three – sector model of development
introduces a theory of the development process in different stages.
As any other industrial sector in the economy, the tourism can be economically
reviewed from the productions (services) it conveys and from the inputs it requires to
accomplish the production of tourist services or products. Before any country or
region within a country can attract tourists on a large scale, certain important inputs
(facilities and services) must happen. The businesses or companies that provide these
services arrange a tourism industry. The most necessary facilities’ branches or sectors
that directly connected to the tourism industry are the following:
a) transport and travel services;
b) accommodation and catering services;
c) business and leisure facilities;
d) promotional and marketing services.
According to Howell (1983), tourism is defined as both an industry and an
answer to a social necessity, because its product covers all the elements that combine
to shape the tourism consumer’s experiences and succeed to satisfy their expectations
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and necessities. Rogers and Slinn (1993) explained tourism as marking the
provisional short term action of people to destination places outside the regions
where they normally inhabit and work and their actions during their stand at these
tourism destinations.
Increase the overall feature of services and products within the tourism
industry; improve the levels of claim nationally, regionally and internationally;
magnify competiveness within the industry; provide sensible and trustworthy
information on quality norms for the tourist and the travel industry. [15]
At the same time, tourism is also more than a service industry that is why the
facilities of tourism consider cultural heritage, natural amenity, dramatic view,
commercial hospitality, etc. According to Singh and Kaur (1982), tourism can be
divided into the three following elements:
(a) human element (tourist necessities and desires);
(b) physical element (accessibility and geographical aspects);
(c) time element (stay and trip duration).

The Role of Transport in Tourism Development

Today, as service industry, tourism can be very fast rebound on investment
created. According to all tourists’ decision to consist both time and cost are the
existence of other transport facilities, convenient, unharmed, cheapish and fast
prelude for tourism development. [3, p. 1]. Choosing the kind of access to tourism
destination places and ensuring the transport for these two parameters influence the
system. Investigating the connection between sustainable tourism and transport is
the most significant outcome of this study.
Tourism, certainly, is one of the necessary areas where the significance of
traffic for the economic progress of a state is relieved. As the blood-torrent of the
economy, traffic suggests its necessary function in communication and transportation
of goods and people purposing towards common standards of the state. [4, p. 369]
Transport cater is a major element in the growth of tourism. Historically, the
development of tourism has been nearly connected with progresses in transport
technology and innovation, which have progressive-minded simplified access
between destinations and markets within the world as the enlargement of railways
was tracked by the extension in car possession and then air voyage. [5, pp. 14-29.]
The efficacious factors in selecting the transportation rules in tourism are
added as following: distance, time limit, comfort, status, benefit, security,
geographical position, price, competition.
Transportation is an important component of tourism and recreation sector,
and comprises not only rescuing coming and return of visitors to and from their
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destination places, but also turnover while at their destination place. Furthermore,
in many circumstances, tourism, transportation and recreation actions can be
synonymic. For instance, on public lands and in parks, transportation, including
riding transit systems, auto-touring and bicycle and pedestrian travel, is a main
shape of tourism and recreation activities, offering the visitors the possibilities to
see, evaluate cultural and natural landscapes, experiment and link characteristics.

International Experiences on Transport Tourism

Recreation and transportation are confidentially associated. Transportation
actions, comprising walking and driving, are often sample shapes of recreation
activities carried out by visitors and tourists in public lands and parks. By
definition, tourism initiates some shapes of transportation and travel. Moreover, a
great number of the recreation and tourism took part in Americans appears on
transportation equipment involving streets, roads and pathways. Transportation
systems ensure not only equipment and activities for recreation issues, but also
convey ways by which the impacts and requirements of recreation and tourism can
be efficiently and effectively conducted. These combinations give the impression
that transportation is contrary and that carrying systems form tourism and
recreation treatment. Throughout their broadness, diversity and intensity specific
recreation and transportation, the contacts mark recreation and transportation as
immanently combined systems. [6, p. 28]
For each country, to find themselves on the road to arrange a new system
concerning its integration with the international tourist and visitors movements, it
is hard from some points of view. As one of Balkan region state, Croatia was born
in the war and sprang up from a system which was almost destroyed. There are
historic possibilities for an independent development of a new tourist future. The
advancement of the efficiency and quality of the tourist suggestion is a project of
reciprocal interest for many organizations and many subjects. [7, p. 369-378]
Transport is indicated to play a major role in opening up a destination place:
the connections between transport and growing up the number of resorts and hotels
is intensified, trip outlines development and in the last stage a condition of
maximum connectivity outcomes. [8, 2012, p. 4]
In 1992, the Commonwealth Government of Australia declared a national
tourism strategy for the country under the name, “Tourism: Australia’s Passport to
Growth”. After this, the country’s Minister of Tourism A. Griffiths noted that
tourism “has ripened into an outstanding, proficient industry...”
They focused on clarifying the meaning of tourism industry and on finding
who are its participants? For this aim, the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not
signal tourism as a distinct industry and has no definition for “tourism”. This fact
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should not astonish us, since tourism is not an industry to start with. It is merely,
the modernization of diverse industries or areas that indirectly or directly cater to
the necessities of the tourist. Diversity is the fact that has demonstrated the biggest
trip block in the tourism industry’s action over the last ten years to legalize itself in
the eyes of the Australian governments and public authorities. The variety and
geographical boarders of the tourism product factors, as well as the contending
interests among tourism areas are the major arguments for this permanent tussle for
recognition.
As a government agency, the Australian Travel Industry Association lists 5
direct trading sectors under the tourism services: transport carriers, accommodation,
attractions, promotions & distributions, tour operators & wholesalers, and retail
services.
The tourism and travel industry and the nation’s transport system have
considerable interdependent influences on the American economy. From a statistical
point of view, the former is an immense $1.3 trillion generator for the number of 7.5
million direct works and national economic surplus that is dependent on travel
expenses, while the last is the connection for transporting the huge volume of the
nation’s goods and travellers. [9, p. 3]
Nearly 80% of all travels happen on highways and driving is the most
prominent recreational action for Americans. To become a visitor or tourist is about
driving time, driving costs, driving security, and driving annoyance. Two main
issue: First, the phrase “tourism and travel,” as generally used, comprises travel for
business aims, as well as comfortable travel. For example, the UN World Tourism
Organization notes that tourism includes the actions of visitors traveling to and
staying in different places outside their current environment for not more than one
consistent year for leisure time, business and other aims. [16]
It can be sensibly fact that the modern American recreation and tourism
industry sector, furnishing services to individuals and families, driving lots of miles
on their vacation, began with the increasing of the level of interstate highway
system. Further, the industry has not ever appeared to appreciate fully the
indivisible linkage between the vivacity and developing of the industry section and
the nation’s highways.

The Development of Transport Tourism in Azerbaijan Economy

The tourism industry of Azerbaijan is undergoing a rejuvenation and
revitalization process. Foregoing the independence, experts from the Soviet Union
made substantial investments in the tourism sector of Azerbaijan – especially in
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transport facilities, museums, hotels, and other tourist sideshows. As a major tourist
destination placed within the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan profited from the tangible
assets allowed from this investment. [10, p. 3]
Mountains, coastal areas, farmlands, forest areas, and nine out of a realizable
eleven different climate zones ensure Azerbaijan with a wide range of natural
surroundings that can be used to increase a range of tourism actions and to allure a
various group of tourists.
Azerbaijan is well off with natural resources, including natural gas, oil, and
mineral resources, as well as wide areas of farmland. Hereby, there are these areas
of agriculture, more widely, the rural regions of Azerbaijan, which could best
suggest and assist unique tourism services. Furthermore to the rural and natural
attractions, Azerbaijan has a wealthy history that concluded from its internalisation
into the powerful of early empires; it had been occupied and lined by the Persians,
Romans, Arabs, and Seljuk Turks.
2011 has been notified by government the “Year of Tourism” in Azerbaijan.
The tourism sector is of key significance as one of the priority issues of the non-state
sector in the country. [11, p. 3] Today jobs are accomplished to involve tourists from
different foreign countries. Furthermore, all works in the service sector are focused to
promote Azerbaijan’s tourism possibilities among the people abroad.
There are many destination places in Azerbaijan which would be of interest
to foreign visitors and tourists. Baku is the foremost example of an old city gone
modern. Baku has a rare architecture that chains from grand palaces encouraged by
the turn-of-the-century oil resonans to a walled Old City that surrounds the ancient
historical Shirvanshah’s Palace, as well as the twelfth century Maiden’s Tower.
Azerbaijan is a land with rare geopolitical, geographical and climatic
situations. It is a fact that today, the total area of Azerbaijan is 86.6 thousand km2.
There are a lot of mineral, medical and medical mud and oil, thermal springs in
Azerbaijan. Those resources are mostly located in Nakhchivan, Shamakhi-
Ismayilli, Ganjabasar, Guba, Balakan-Zaqatala, Masalli-Lankaran, Sheki-Qabala
regions. There are 6 national parks and twelve reservations. They cover 2.4% of the
area of the country and can be discovered in all the climate zones which exist in
Azerbaijan. There are six caves, including Azikh cave where a sample or basic man
gathering was revealed, which are comprised into paleontological nature memorials.
The transportation system and infrastructure will need an important overtake.
The telecommunications industry needs to increase and broaden connectivity and
service possibilities in smaller rural and urban areas.
There was an opportunity for Azerbaijan, in order for the visitors who came
for Eurovision 2012 song contest, which was to be held in Azerbaijan, to feel
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comfortably in the country and travel in secure, so the country built a new airport,
bought new planes, bought new trains, renewed the metro lines and system and
built new tunnels, highways. It is a fact that this kind of activities will ensure the
development of tourism and they will be the main reason why tourists must choose
this country again in future.

Conclusion
For nearly 16-20 years, the mutual dependence of recreation and tourism and
transportation has become more visible – a mutual dependence that has been more
condemning with the extensive increasing of recreation and tourism and its
appropriate increasing economic influence, specially the improving role of tourism
as a major tool of economic development of the country. It has been comprehended
that the principal state governmental organizations and companies responsible for
recreation and tourism and for carrying transport have not improved relationships
enough productive and positive to help the economic development.
Research found that expanding the service of tourism industry would have an
important role in economic development of the country. International experiences
on tourism transport help the development of tourism transport in Azerbaijan.

References
1. Sinclair, M. Thea & Mike Stabler, Economics of tourism, pdf, London, 2002, p. 124.
2. Barcet, A., “Innovation in services: a new paradigm and innovation model”, in
Gallouj, F. and Djellal, F. (Eds), The Handbook of Innovation and Services: A
Multidisciplinary Perspective (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2010), p. 51.
3. Singaporean Journal of business economics and management studies, The role of road
transport in tourism industry development, Gilan Province, Vol. 1, No. 11, 2013, p. 1.
4. Jurcevic, M., P. Madunic, I. Tolusic, “Relations between Transport and Tourism – Croatia’s
Possibilities”, Promet – Traffic & Transportation, Vol. 18, No. 5, 2006, pp. 369-378.
5. Lohmann, G. and D. G. Pearce, “Tourism and transport relationships: the suppliers’
perspective in gateway destinations in New Zealand.” Asia Pacific Journal of
Tourism Research 17(1), (2012): 14-29.
6. A Report from the University of Vermont Transportation Research Centre, Sustainable
Transportation for Tourism: Indicators and Standards, 2013, p. 28.
7. Griffith University, Tourism and transport relationships: the suppliers’ perspective in
gateway destinations in New Zealand, 2012, p. 4.
8. King, Aubrey C., Relationships between transportation and tourism: interaction
between state departments of transportation and state tourism offices, 2007, p. 3.
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9. Rapid Tourism Assessment for the Azerbaijan Tourism Sector Development Program,
Citizens Development Corps, OSCE, 2004, p. 3.
10. CEST Policy Report on Tourism Sector in Azerbaijan, Baku 2011, p. 3.
11. http://www.inboundtourism.com.au/article_three.html
12. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Tourism/Introduction
13. https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/tourism_e/tourism_e.htm
14. http://www2.unwto.org/technical-product/quality-standards-tourism-services
15. www.world-tourism.org

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