Question

What role does a well developed transport system play in attracting tourist

Answer 1

Transportation has been an integral part of the tourism industry; transportation links tourists with various tourist attractions. There is a general agreement that tourism expands more when there are better transportation systems. In many part of the world tourism had been underperforming compared to the natural
Whether transportation plays important role in enriching the travel experience of a tourist depends on the mode of transportation and the frequency of use. Transportation can turn into a separate tourist attraction element; cruising, Orient Express trains, boat trips along the river and etc. are the best examples to tourist attractions. The effective factors in choosing the transportation mode in tourism are given below (Westlake and Robbins 2005, 463):
• Time limit 
• Distance 
• Status 
• Comfort 
• Security 
• Benefit 
• Price 
• Geographical position 
• Competition 
An increase in traffic due to world tourism growth puts pressure on transportation facilities, and this can have adverse effects. Those negative effects are as follows (Goeldner and Ritchie 2012, 96).
• Congestion – means delays which leads to waste of time and energy. Serious congestions may have a negative effect on transportation modes, especially on airports and roads during peak times.
• Safety and security – making sure that the transportation mode is safe and secure is a basic and important requirement for tourism.
• Environment – an increase in traffic may have disastrous effect on the environment if that area does not have the carrying capacity for additional tourists.
• Seasonality – seasonal patterns of travel demand create overcrowding at certain times. Adversely low occupancies and load factors will occur at other periods.
Air Transportation One of the most important transportation modes in tourism is air travel. Air travel has made significant changes in people’s minds concerning time and distance. In order to meet the demand which increases every day, the airline companies spend billions of dollars and apply new technological innovations. Having matchless role in long distances the air travel industry develops very rapidly. The world’s airline industry numbers 1,629 airlines, 27,271 aircraft, 3,733 airports, 29.6 million scheduled departures a year, and carries 2.7 billion of passengers a year. The major aircraft making companies to share the market will be Airbus and Boeing.
Automobile Transportation In short distances automobile transportation comes forward in regard to other modes of transportation. The automobile transportation makes it easy to see local culture and nations. It presents great flexibility in contrast to other modes of transportation (Oter, 2007). The importance of this mode in tourism is also very important. When compared with the prices in air transportation, this mode of transportation is frequently used by tourists because of low prices. But the main factor affecting this choice is time and distance
Railway Transportation The other mode that affects tourism is railway transportation. This type of transportation is considered the oldest one. In 19th century the railways were frequently used. Currently in many countries the railways are used for transportation of loads. The reason for this is tourist choice of air or automobile transportation. But there exists such railroads that have been included to touristic packages. For the example, we can give Orient Express railways. But nowadays application of technology and technological innovation gave birth to fast trains which compete with air and automobile transportation modes.

Sea Transportation Here we may include cruise travel, boat travel, yachting, ferry travel and etc. The cruise travel has a special place in tourism.
All the stated issues prove the importance of transportation in tourism. As mentioned above the tourist’s travel experience starts and ends with transportation. In this sense, if the countries want to gain sustainable development of tourism sector, they must pay attention to transportation sector, reduce monopoly in this sector; provide sound competition opportunities for the companies.

To sum up, in order to develop and increase the role of transportation in tourism the countries should pay attention to the following points:
• The transportation modes specific to the regions must be developed 
• The transportation costs must always be kept competitive 
• The passengers must be attracted to sea and railway modes of transportation
• New embarkation ports must be established in order to develop cruise travel 
• New fast train lines must be established and new fast trains must be bought and foreign experience must be applied 
• The distance from stations must be kept less 
• New coaches must be brought to the country 
• New technologically advanced aircraft must be put into air lines
• The personnel must be trained 
• The governments should allocate financial support for the development of transportation