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Legislation and Ethics in Travel and Tourism Sector
Introduction
This report analyses the diverse aspects of travel and tourism with their legislation. It is fragmentedinto four parts. The first part helps to understand the regulatory and legalframe work in context to travel and tourism sector. It also discusses the laws in relation to the passenger such as sea, surface and air transport. In part second it evaluatesthe legislation in respect of health, safety and security and also the concept of equality. The third part helps to analyses the concept of the consumer in relation to theThomas cook with the help of different legislation. The fourth part helps to understand the role and significance of business ethics and dilemmas that can face by the tourism and travel sector. It also emphasis on the concept of CSR and how it helps tothe community.
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Task 1
1.1 Explain the legal and regulatory framework of the travel and tourism sector.
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Introduction
This leaflet, explain the various regulations and legislation in the contextof the tourism as well as travel. It includes the different regulations such as Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), Health and safety commission (HSC), Air Travel Operators Licensing (ATOL). Regulation ensures the contractual obligations between the parties.
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Package Tours Regulations 1992:
A package tour is the package holiday that consists of the accommodation and transport and sold by the vendor. The package holidays are organized by the tour operator and that sold the services to the customer. It is essential for the Thomas cook to follow the rules and regulations. The package tour is governed by the package tours regulations 1992(Coteanu, 2017).
Development of Tourism Act, 1969:
This act is related to the issue of British Tourist Authority that helps to expand and promote the development of tourism. They also provide the finance and funds to modify the existing hotels and form the hotels and restaurants.
Regulatory Framework:
Different regulations are framed for the sector of travel and tourism. It consists of Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Strategic Rail Authority (SRA).
Regulations are incorporated to the tourism as well as travel sector. It consists of Health and Safety Executive (HRA) and Strategic Rail Authority (SRA)
Strategic Rail Authority (SRA)
It provides the strategic direction to the railway industry. The main function of this authority is to ensure and awards the compliance with the passenger with rail franchises(Moutinho and Vargas-Sanchez, 2018).
Health and Safety Executive (HSE):
It focuses on the health and safety issues. It ensures the safety issues within the Thomas cook. It also provides the safe environment and analyses the risks in the Thomas cook.
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Conclusion
From the leaflet, it can be determined that there are diverse legislation and regulations that support and provide the aids to organization to perform their obligations and rights.
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Legal framework:There are diverse measures that can be performed in the organization.
Health and safety commission
It is the statutory body that can be established under the UK law. It is governed under the Health and Safety at work Act, 1974. It ensures the safety and healthy environment at the work place. It also encourages the individuals to achieve the operations of the objectives.
Air Travel Organiser’s licensing (ATOL):
It is necessary for the operators to hold the ATOL license, without that license they can’t be able to perform the contract. The main objective of the ATOL is to provide the refunds that can be affected by the activity and due to that they can’t provide the services to their customers.
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1.2 Discuss surface, sea and air transport law in relation to the carriage of passengers within the legal and regulatory framework.
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Introduction
This leaflet analyses the issues of different laws that are in relation to the passengers. These issues are analysed according to their legal perspective. It also discusses the surface, sea,and air transport law.
Sea law
It relates to the rules and principles that interact in maritime matters. The law of sea monitors the environmental factors and also provides the security in context to a matter of sea. It protects from the safety of fire and also to the visitors against the fire and injury. The main objective of this law is to protect the passenger from the hazardous activity that is operated at the sea.
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Surface law
This law is governed through the International carriage of passenger Road Act 1979; it protects the obligations and rights of the visitors who travelled around the world. There are various regulations that can be framed for the passengers as they provide the services and there is a contract between the organizer and transport operator(Kötz, 2017).
This law is governed by the Airport Act 1986 and Airports order, it is rehabilitated by civil aviation and privatized the British Airports Authority as a private organization. It is the authority of CAA to inspect the actions that are performing at the time of air transport. It consists of the claim and compensation provisions and that can be provided to the passenger who suffers injury and loss due to the activities.
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Conclusion
From this leaflet, it can be determined that there are diverse legislation and regulations that are created to protect the visitors against the risks and hazards. It can be identified by analyzing the surface law, Air law, sea law etc.
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Task 2
Executive Summary: Legislations are essential in every industry and tourism sector is no exception. In this report, the organization has been chosen, namely Thomas Cook UK Limited and the impacts of principles of safety, health, and security have been discussed in reference to . To add more to the understanding, the analysis of legislation that provide equality to everyone working in the organisation and discard the issues like discrimination is done.
Introduction
In any country, legislations are valuable to promote societal norms, guidelines, and standards. In tourism industry, they play a crucial role in promoting ethical practices. In this report, a discussion on different aspects of health and safety laws and their impact on tourism organisation will be done. Furthermore,the impacts of equality law will be analysed.
2.1 Evaluate the impact of principle of health, safety and security legislation on the travel and tourism sector.
The health, safety, and security laws strictly focus on the vulnerabilities and hazards in the tourism sector. It safeguards the lives of those who are associated with this industry by minimising the chances of occurrence of accidents. The major aim is to create a safe environment where everyone can work without any worries regarding their lives (Hoffmann, 2012). It obligates Thomas Cook (UK) Limitedto take measure to improve the working condition of their premises and if in any case, a tragedy occurs, then carry out inspections and report the entire scenario as soon as possible.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, defines the role, duties and responsibilities of the managers working at Thomas Cook (UK) Limited to provide health and safety to those who work under them. It also states the guidelines to enforce the legislation regarding the health and welfare in the organisation operating in the UK. In addition to those, it also defines the duties of employees and contractors, suppliers, managers, etc., (Landsbergis, et.al, 2014). Apart from this, theOccupiers’ Liability Act 1984, covers the duties of the occupier to take care of the visitors and the trespassers, provided that the occupier has a knowledge about the vulnerabilities or existing danger and that a visitor might be near to it. Another act to protect the data of the citizen of the UK is the Data Protection Act 1998. This act safeguard the personal information and data of everyone living in the UK against the data security breach.
The impacts of the aforementioned laws was quite effective in safeguards the people and lives against some major laws. The employers become obligated to provide safe environment, machineries, first-aid facilities, ambulance facilities in work premises, especially in areas that are more prone to accidents. Health and safety codes are being followed as described by the National Health Agency (NHS) and World Health Organisation (WHO). Thomas Cook (UK) Limitedis directed to formulate the HR policy to manage the proper health and safety in the working area and to inform the employees about their right to safe working environment. Moreover, organisations are informed to provide special training to the employees so as to make them friendly with the equipment used in the working area. Mock drills are being organised regularly to counter any emergency situation.
2.2Analyse legislation that relates to equality.
TheEquality Act, 2010, safeguard the rights of the citizen of the United Kingdom against any kind of discrimination based on caste, religion, sex, social status, economic condition, age, disability, etc. It obligates the management of Thomas Cook (UK) Limitedto treat every employee working in his/her organisation equally, fairly, and respectfully. In addition to this, this law guides the employers to make some adjustment in the job for the persons with disability so that they could compete with the normal employees (Scambor, et.al, 2014).
The Act harmonises, foster, and simplifies the present laws in order to provide the UK with a new law against all kinds of discrimination and empowers them to be treated equally in the society. It is now an umbrella for nine of the existing legislations that are mentioned below:-
- The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- The Equal Pay Act 1970
- The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- The Race Relations Act 1976
- The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
- The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
- The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
- The Equality Act 2006, Part 2
- The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
The law obligates the employers to carry out an inspection of any kind of discrimination (direct or indirect) and prepare a report of it. It ensures that men and women get equal pay or benefits for same kind of job. Workers associated with public or private sector or any NGO, have a legal right to promote and establish equal opportunities.
In addition to this, it provides the managers of Thomas Cook (UK) Limited a right to ask about health-related issues in order to know whether the aspirant can do a particular kind of a job or not and take positive action to aid the disables to work together with the non-disables.
Conclusion
In this report, the laws regarding the health and safety of the citizens of the United Kingdom was discussed briefly. In addition to this, the influence of health, safety, and security legislation was highlighted. Some other laws, such as legislation for data protection was also discussed. In the end of this report, the analysis of the law for equality was done.
Task 3
33.1 Explain contract legislation in relation to travel and tourism customers
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Introduction
In this leaflet, it analyses the different aspects of contract in relation to the travel and tourism. According to the scenario, the assistant of Thomas cook form transactions with other tour operator and customers, the clients are not satisfied with the services. So as the manager, it helps to understand the laws in relation to tourism and travel.
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Acceptance:
It plays an important part in the contract. When the clients accepted the offer which was provided by the Thomas cook that is known as acceptance. The customers accepted on the terms and conditions.
Consideration:Consideration is essential in the contract as without consideration there is no agreement. For example, Thomas cook sells the services and the clients purchase their services and pay the amount. The amount is recognized as the consideration in respect of services(Hollick, 2017).
Capacity:Capacity means the capability of performing the contract. The party should be major and of sound mind so that he/she can easily understand the terms of contract. He/she does not disqualified by law.
Certainty:The contract should be certain, which means that it should be in proper and reliable form that helps the parties to understand easily. The Thomas cook provides the relevant information that has the meaning, if they did not provide the relevant information then it affects the contract and it is considers as the void contract.
Enforceability:To make the valid contract, it is necessary to enforce without the enforcement the contract can’t be implement properly. There should be legal consideration behind the contract(Kamanga, 2017).
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Conclusion
This leaflet determines the essentials and importance of contract law in context to tourism as well as travel sector. It also discuss the clause of termination that provides the remedy to the visitor to reject the contract , if the Thomas cook does not fulfill the terms and conditions according to the agreement.
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Contract
It is an agreement that is formed between two parties. The agreement is enforced by law can be sated as the contract. A contract is created when both parties agreed on the terms and conditions that can be stated by the Thomas cook . Thomas cook is accountable to provide the better and reliable services in relation to the conditions of contract. They are under obligation to fulfill all the requirements such as schedule of flights with the information. It can be analyses that if the Thomas cook does not provide the better services then the visitors has right to terminate the contract(Vega, 2017). Important requirements are to fulfilled to form the contract, that is given below:
Elements of contract
Offer:It is the promise that can be performed in trade for performance by another party.The Thomas cook provides the services and offers them to purchase the packages. There are two parties the one who makes the offer is offeror and the other party who accepts isofferee.
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3.2 Explain consumer protection legislation in relation to travel and tourism customers
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Introduction
This leaflet helps to understand the different legislation of consumer in respect of travel and tourism. It can be observed that there are certain obligations and duties provided to the consumers and that is necessary to be protected. It includes the Trade description Act, 1968, Package Travel Regulations 1992, Consumer ProtectionAct, 1987 etc.
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Consumer Protection Act, 1987:
In this legislation, it is under duty bound to provide the services in relation to the health and safety laws. It protects the consumer against the high price, bad quality in the services. The Thomas cook has to charge the minimum and cheaper prices for the services so that every individual can purchase the packages (Howells and Weatherill, 2017).For example,Thomas cook has to provide the services and packages and that should be complying with the standards and codes. They did not provide any harmful and hazardous services to their customers.
Package travel regulations, 1992:
The main reason behind this act is to charge the minimum for the facilities and services that can be stated by the Thomas cook. They are under duty bound to charge the low minimum price so that the customers did not affect from that. It can be analyses that if the Thomas cook provides the services at the minimum charges then every visitor can easily purchase the tour package. It also includes all the facilities as provided in the brochure of Thomas cook. If the visitors observed that the services and facilities are not up to the mark then in that case, they will be responsible for the damage (Di Domenico. and Miller, 2012).
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Conclusion
From the above leaflet, it can be determined that the consumer plays a significant role in Thomas cook. It is essential for the Thomas cook to frame the laws and regulations to prevent the injury and risks. It can be evaluated with different acts such as Trade description Act, 1968 and consumer protection act, 1987.
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Consumer Protection Law
These laws are designed to prevent the Thomas cook that is engaged in unfair practices and fraud form gaining the advantage over a competitor. The main aim of the consumer is to protect the interest of clients against the untrue statement and misleading information. It is the accountability of the Thomas cook to provide the necessary information in context of various packages that are offered by the tour operators. They are responsible to provide the true and relevant information so that the consumers does not affect by the misrepresentation. Diverse legislations are framed in context to the consumers that are given below:
Legislations
Trade description Acts 1968:
This act prevents the manufacturers and retailers from providing the wrong and misleading the clients as the organizations is offering the different services. In this case, the court has power to punish the individuals and organizations who are offering the bad services. The main purpose of this act is to prohibit the untrue and false information and data which are received in relation to the services. For example, If Thomas cook provides any misleading information to their clients then they are responsible for the penalty and they have to pay compensation for that.
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Task 4
Executive Summary: The tourism industry is quite intricate to understand due to the factors that cause dilemmas to travellers and which have become tough to handle. These factors are affecting the growth of this industry. In this report, some of those dilemmas that the tourism organisations like Thomas Cook (UK) Limited faces usually have been discussed thoroughly. Apart from this, an analysis of the Corporate Social Responsibility of a particular organisation has been done briefly.
Introduction
Travelling is adventurous when the organisations involved in operations are ethically operating their business. The travel and tourism sector often faces many problems that hinders its growth. In this report, many of such issues that create dilemmas for this industry have been talked about. Furthermore, an analysis followed by a brief discussion of how CSR activities of Thomas Cook (UK) Limitedaffect a business have been done.
Analyse ethical dilemmas faced by the travel and tourism sector.
Tourism is an emerging market across the globe and is coming up with the plethora of opportunities, such as employment, development, etc. On the other hand, the travel and tourism industry is affected by many ethical issues, such as environmental degradation, corruption, unethical customer issues, discrimination etc. No doubt that these factors are affecting the growth of this sector, but there are many factors that are invisible to most of the world. One such factor is dysfunctional government. Countries which are often attacked by the terrorist, or where civil wars or riots keep occurring frequently have a slower growth of tourism sector. For example, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran are some those countries where the tourism has been majorly hit by the anti-social activities, thereby making them the least preferred traveling destination among other.
Lack of fair trade tourism principles also affect the tourist movement. Tourists are charged extra (200% or more) for the goods and services they desire to take. This can be seen from small to large businesses (Stephenson, 2014.). This is the violation to international trade policy. Apart from this, in the under-developed countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Mayanmar, etc., there is a large number of children working in the housekeeping and other hospitality staff. According to the report of World Health Organisation, the lower literacy rate and high unemployment are key reasons for this.
According to the senior manager working at Thomas Cook (UK) Limited, some social factors also contributes in promoting the tourism industry. These factors include, social institution, NGOs, host communities, etc. Government’s foreign policies is a key player in extending the arms of this sector. The easy it is to get the visa of any country, the higher will be the tourist influx in that particular nation.
4.2 Analyse the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of a specified travel and tourism business.
Thomas Cook UK Limited is the renowned name in the world of tourism. The reason being is its ethical standards. The company believes in good business while benefiting the society equally. Keeping this as its vision, the organisation integrated the concept of CSR. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a business initiative to carry out the assessment and taking the responsibility of the firm’s effect on nature and social wellbeing. It can also be called as “corporate citizenship” and can cost a short-term initial cost, but in a long run, it benefits the organisation hugely by promoting the sustainable environment.
Thomas Cook set an example of Excellency by actively working to improvise the quality of life of people in the countries they are operating. They are working with the government to build the nation via sustainable development. They have earmarked the CSR budget to be at least 2% of the average net profit. Moreover, CSR budget focuses the following:-
- Quality in education and increasing employment
- Better health and sanitation
- Rural and tribal area development
- Contributing in the relief funds
Conclusion
In this report, the opportunities that the tourism sectors can offer were mentioned along with the major dilemmas that the travel and tourism industry faces. In addition to this, the impact of these dilemmas on the growth of the tourism sector was discussed. In the next part, the CSR activities of Thomas Cook UK Ltd., were discussed and what CSR policies it has incorporated in its functioning were mentioned.
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be identified that there are various acts and legislation that is considered by the sector of travel and tourism. The Thomas cook has to follow these laws to fulfill their needs and goals. It is necessary for the Thomas cook to adopt these norms and laws as it helps them to develop in the sector of hospitality. Thomas cook is also responsible to fulfill all the responsibilities and duties towards the society and the employees should follow these to duties. They are accountable to make the strategies and plans to ensure the betterment of services and packages. The different laws are governed by the different acts and that provides the advantage to Thomas cook to perform the services in effective an efficient manner.
References
Coteanu, C., 2017.Cyber consumer law and unfair trading practices. Routledge.
- Di Domenico, M. and Miller, G., 2012. Travel and tourism enterprise: Experiential authenticity in the diversification of independent small-scale business. Tourism Management, 33(2), pp.285-294.
- Font, X., Walmsley, A., Cogotti, S., McCombes, L. and Häusler, N., 2012. Corporate social responsibility: The disclosure–performance gap. Tourism Management, 33(6), pp.1544-1553.
- Hoffmann, T., 2012. The Phenomenon of “Consumer Insolvency Tourism” and its Challenges to European Legislation. Journal of consumer policy, 35(4), pp.461-475.
- Hollick, A.L., 2017.US Foreign Policy and the Law of the Sea. Princeton University Press.
- Howells, G. and Weatherill, S., 2017.Consumer protection law. Routledge.
- Kamanga, V.V., 2017.Product labelling and trade descriptions the failure to warn and the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008(Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
- Kötz, H., 2017.European contract law. Oxford University Press.
- Landsbergis, P.A., Grzywacz, J.G. and LaMontagne, A.D., 2014. Work organization, job insecurity, and occupational health disparities. American journal of industrial medicine, 57(5), pp.495-515.
- Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018.Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI Tourism Texts. Cabi.
- Pitcher, J. and Wijers, M., 2014. The impact of different regulatory models on the labour conditions, safety and welfare of indoor-based sex workers. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 14(5), pp.549-564.
- Scambor, E., Bergmann, N., Wojnicka, K., Belghiti-Mahut, S., Hearn, J., Holter, Ø.G., Gärtner, M., Hrženjak, M., Scambor, C. and White, A., 2014. Men and gender equality: European insights. Men and masculinities, 17(5), pp.552-577.
- Stephenson, M.L., 2014. Tourism, development and ‘destination Dubai’: Cultural dilemmas and future challenges. Current Issues in Tourism, 17(8), pp.723-738.
- Vega, H.L., 2017. Latin America and the Caribbean, thirty-plus years of lukewarm liberalization of air transport markets: A Critical Assessment. InAir Transport Liberalization. Edward Elgar Publishing.
