Language Roles and Model Tour Company in Enhancing Competitiveness in Tourism Industry

 
 

Language Roles and Model Tour Company in Enhancing Competitiveness in Tourism Industry  

Thavorn Thitthongkam Doctoral Candidate at the School of Management, Shinawatra University, Thailand

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Assistant Professor Dr John Walsh, School of Management, Shinawatra University, Thailand.

[email protected]

 
 

Abstract

The paper examines the roles and the importance of language to the model tour company, investigates the guidelines and the process in organising the model tour company and studies problems and solutions in managing the model tour company so as to increase competitiveness for the tourism industry. The results of the paper highlights the positive view on managing the model tour company, emphasises the language role, particularly for communication. Language increases the possibility in working and competition for the model tour company. It also creates the first consciousness for tourism industry. Managing the model tour company, tourism educational institutions need to provide enough foreign language skills training for students. The paper suggests that educational institutions and related organisations should assist to improve the quality of human resources for tourism industry.

 

Keywords

Competitiveness, Modelling, Tourism management, Tourism industries, Tourism planning, Languages

 

1. Introduction

Tourism industry is an important industry for a range of countries’ economic systems. This industry supports stimulating revenues (Font, Cochrane, and Tapper, 2004; Tricharoenwiwat, 2009) to the government. It affects everyone, and intertwines throughout the entire structure of a country (Cook, Yale and Marqua, 2006). Currently, the tourism industries in many countries are facing with the financial and economic crisis (World Bank, 2009), and it reluctantly drives these countries to find out how to push forward their tourism industry. As a result, there have been campaigns in some countries (e.g. Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, China) to urge their people to have more domestic tour so as to head their countries’ stability. They are also trying to attract international tourists to tour in their countries as much as they can.

 

In case of the Thai tourism industry, it requires eligible people to perform for tourism companies (Cunningham, Edler and Flanagan, 2009), organisations or even for governmental departments. Although there are numbers of graduates in tourism industry every year, still, they do not have enough basic experiences and skills to manage the tourism business. Some educational institutions (e.g. Sripatum University, Silpakorn University, Bangkok University) have been cooperating with the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to provide a course that encourages students to have an opportunity to study and work in authentic situations, under the supervision of the qualified lecturers. The course provides a model tour company for students to put into practice. Students have a chance to study about roles, importance and problems in organising the model tour company. Furthermore, they learn more about its method and process for managing the model tour companies that can help boosting the Thai tourism industry competitiveness.

 

Managing model tour companies, language is an imperative factor (Engman, 2005) because there are also international tourists. These international tourists are the ones who visit Thailand each year. In 2009, Office of Tourism Department, Thailand reported that there were about 9.6 million people. Language certainly will help the Thai tourism industry to get more efficient performance because it is a means for communication (Yletyinen, 2004). It helps satisfy people with the basic functions such as describing ideas, making requests and solving problems in the clearest way (Adler and Rodman, 2000). Language also assists people to approach information about countries’ cultures which can interest many international tourists to learn and find out about the countries (Wood, 2006).

 

The tourism institutions and concerning sectors should pay attention on managing activities (Trim, 2003) such as the language skills’ training and the model tour company managerial skills. These activities support the students to deal with real situations’ practices. The activities also provide a chance to expand the tourism workforce’s skills for the tourism industry, which is really important to drive the tourism industry forward. Moreover, focusing on these real situations, preparation will be a key to build up the tourism industry competitiveness (Darbelnet, 2004).

 

A model tour company is a company organised as an actual company. Language certainly, plays an important role in communication (Hammar, 1997; Sokolova1 and Lapalme, 2007), particularly, in managing either communicating between people within each department or outside. It should be correct, clear and concise. Otherwise, it will affect negatively in a working process. This includes using language to communicate outside the organisation with other tour companies and organisations. Consequently, the needs in the tourism industry competition should begin initially at the concerning workers’ development (Lindell and Stenstrom, 2005), especially, students who are studying in tourism education or other major related. This aims to train them about their duties and responsibilities, and to motivate them to be able to stand on their on feet.

 

The purposes of this paper are to study the roles of language and the importance of language to the model tour companies at Sripatum University, to investigate the guidelines and the process in organising model tour companies, and to study problems and solutions in managing the model tour companies so as to increase competitiveness for the Thai tourism industry.

 

2. Literature Review

 

2,1 The importance of language for tour company

Every step in the life of a human being needs to communicate unavoidably with others. All activities in the tourism industry need fine communication. A Tour company business is a business within the tourism industry. It cannot be individual in the situation of the high competition. Thus, the tour company, particularly its staff, should be able to communicate properly and effectively with their tourists. In other words, a key to be successful in running a tour business is the ability to communicate with tourists (Lukšaitien and Valiaugien, 2009) by using their own languages. Actually, tourists are always looking for something extra that make them feel special. Being worthy for what they have paid a little bit more for a product or service. This can be a way to make them have more satisfaction in paying for services (Maloney, 2004).

 

Focusing on communication, Wood (2000) defined it as a universal process in which people interact with and through symbols to create and interpret meanings. In addition, every situation should contain effective communication that involves achieving one’s goals in a manner, and ideally, maintains or enhances the relationship in which the communication occurs (Adler and Rodman, 2000). In general, a communication that occurs once will consist of elements; senders (sources), receivers, messages, channels, noise and feedbacks. Language is a kind of channel at anytime a communication occurs, and communicating by using language usually takes place in face-to-face interactions when someone speaks and listens. This kind of channel is called as “vocal channel” (Devito, 2003). Thus, everyone needs language as a crucial tool to communicate with others in daily routines. If there is not a verbal language included whenever a communication taken place, it cannot be a completely correct and effective communication. Accordingly, everyone will get panic with complicated understanding between each others.

 

The tourism industry is considered as a main industry that can be managed to grasp the interest of international tourists to travel into a country. It is an important source of returns, foreign exchange receipts, and employment. These benefits can drive the economic growth and development, especially for those countries with the limitation of natural resources and industrial capability (Edgell, 1990). On the other hand, tour companies are as important as other businesses in the tourism industry, hence, it should be awakened to compete in the circumstance that is getting more and more heated.

 

For the time being, the world is globalising. All people at every corner around the world are linked together. It is really hard to be separated them from others because of the new connection by high technology. The tourism industry has become universal. New technology reduces barriers to entry into the world of international businesses. Furthermore, tourism industry can be a leading industry in this globalisation process, and it can be successful if the management understands how to activate in the international arena (Reinhold, Diamantis and El-Mourhabi, 2004). The tour company, however, has got to adapt itself as it becomes global and international business, particularly adapting the communication either inside or outside the organisation. Language is a basic channel for people simply to hand on their ideas or feelings, and showing their representative cultures, so language competences would be an abundantly necessary asset for tour companies to communicate to everyone with the same understanding whether they are employees, employers, tourists or even competitors.

 

2.2 Language problems for tour company

In order to be a business organisation that is able to renovate the country, it has to have chances to be in the risk of the global or domestic economic crisis. The economic crisis is affecting and bringing various tribulations to companies all over the world, counting Thailand. These crises associated as financial difficulty, unemployment, and even politics. Although the tour company faces with many troubles concerning with the economic crisis, it might also face with a certain interior problem. That means the personnel’s skills in concerning positions. The staff must have almost all skills about conducting all affairs in the company. Nevertheless, every staff in the company has to be licensed or regulated as a tour company or tour operators. In order to obtain the legal licensing, the staff has to take some courses up to learn and practice some necessary skills for managing the tour company. These licensing practices are designed to promote responsibility and to assure that companies deliver the services advertised in a timely manner (Edgell, 1990).

 

It is not yet enough for the tour company’s staff to be able to manage only affairs concerning to the tourism business, they should also be able to communicate with the international tourists successfully. To emphasise, foreign languages are very important and required in worldwide business. Referring to the existing situation, every business is meant as a worldwide connection. Even though, there is a common language such as English for every people in every corner around the world to communicate with each other. Some countries have their own languages, and they do not want to use English as a common language even when they are staying in another country. The tourism industry, especially the tour company is certainly affected with this problem. International tourists who are travelling in other countries such as Thailand need the appropriate prompt accommodations and services, which include the competence to communicate in their own languages. For that reason, the tour company’s staff should understand at least 2-3 languages to perform business or to communicate with others in any channels. Besides, the ability to communicate using foreign languages is a key tool to hold up their business to be successful as a phrase mentioned “The language of business is the language of the international tourists.”

 

The tour companies offer a wide variety of services about touring activities for almost all tourists, including providing information, making reservations, ticketing, and securing other services and travel-related documents for them as tour companies have now become the department stores of the tourism industry (Cook, Yale and Marqua, 2006). This indicates that these companies must contact with many kinds of tourists, and certainly, many kinds of tourists’ nationalities. The problem has occurred worldwide today. It is not only English totally used as a major international language, in France and Germany, for example, it is necessary to use French and German to solve the problems. Additionally, by a survey of leading executives in European countries, it points out that only 30 percent reported using English for professional purposes, and increasingly, only English cannot be used in non-English speaking markets. Consequently, the tour companies have got to consider this problem very carefully if they really need to have some stable spaces in the international tourism arena.

 

2.3 Tour company and language management

As discussed, the international tourists who visit a country need something extra than fine accommodations and services. They additionally need fine communication that they can perceive accurately with the same understanding with someone associated to their trips. Exactly, these international tourists have many different nationalities, and also many different international languages that almost tourism staff would be confused with these kinds of languages and accents. As a result, the tour companies should focus on these problems very carefully, and provide some useful methods to respond to these problems well. Up till now, English is still a common language using to communicate worldwide, but after a past few years, a lot of people have been getting to be interested in studying other international languages such as Chinese, Japanese or even other European languages. Therefore, tourists from these countries are proud as their languages attract people from other countries to learn, and then, they would realise that it is not no more necessary to know English to communicate with others whenever they are overseas. In short, this new notion directly affects the tourism industry.

 

 One of primary methods to increase the tourism industry competitiveness, it should begin mainly at the first recruitment. The Human Resource Department of each tour company has to provide effective recruitment to achieve skilful personnel to work in suitable sections matching with their skills, or at least, selecting efficient personnel to work in the company (Cook, 2007; Cook, Yale and Marqua, 2006). Otherwise, training is a solution for increasing capability in tour business managing or communication. Language training, however, is needed increasingly for tour companies’ staff (Thitthongkam and Walsh, 2009) to compete in the global market, so tour company owners are now eager to support their employees to practice or take some more courses up in order to develop these skills.

 

2.4 What is a model tour company?

Although many countries have confronted a problem of the economic crisis, the tourism industry is increasing continually. It makes skilfully the competitive in the tour industry. Various issues are important to the change of tourism industry. Not only economics, society, politics, environment issues or the market, skilled personnel are also one of the necessary issues. Without these skilled workers, the competition in tourism industry would be tough (Deangroj, 2004). Several institutions and companies are paying close attention to develop and improve their students’ or employees’ skills beneficial to the tourism industry. These people are well-trained to efficient workforce. They collect more experiences (Zhang and Chow, 2004) when they work on the model tour companies.

 

The model tour company is a small company that is modelled by many people in a group. It aims to help students to get the general knowledge of tour managing, and to comprehend the process in managing a tour company. Another objective is to provide ways to build up a good relationship with other tour companies. Every institution and company put a great effort to train their students or employees to be ready to work from role situation that may happen in actual companies.

 

The model tour companies are founded by groups of students. All companies have the same goal to reach. They have lecturers who advise and follow up the results from students. Participating in the model tour company generates students’ knowledge on how to plan tasks and perceive a process of work (Baraya, Budden and Juban, 2005) as if the students are in the real tour company. Students are also assigned the duty to complete in many departments. This creates the students’ understanding on how to work in those departments. They have to survey the routes which they will bring tourists to visit. Consequently, they can see places, estimate the time, and plan things.

 

The main objective that they built the model tour company is to enhance the understanding in all of the tour business for students. Students, as a result, can clarify elements of the tour company, and manage the tour company. This will lead students to have the capability in running tour business after their graduation.

 

In short, the model tour company can help students to understand on how to plan and run a tour business. It provides them chances to practice and learn the process of planning and tour business in real situations. Also, it helps students to use sensibility to solve problems that occur from working to adopt in the future. At the same time, it is good for students to learn how to work in team.

 

2.5 Managing the model tour company

Managing the model tour companies is not too complicated. The model tour company consists of different departments depending on the purpose of each institution or the tour company. Having the model tour companies, it is important to set the organisation structure (Warakulwit, 2003). The structure is a tool to manage the tour program to achieve the goal.

 

Generally, the model tour companies comprise of departments: Planning Department, Administration Department, Sales and Marketing Department, Operation Department, Finance Department, Transportation Department, and Information Department. Each department operates under the direction of a tour company general manager.

 

      Planning Department is responsible for arranging a tour program in short term and long term by considering from type, model and method of tour program (Bangsomboon, Isichaikul and Limsuwan, 2002). The planner can set the plan and contact other organisations in advance such as a car rental company, restaurants and so on. Additionally, the planner needs to explain the process of tour program to other departments so as to work together smoothly. Planning tour program is about setting the price of tour program, entertaining, and taking care of the tourists. There are three sub-divisions; planning tour program, transportation and tour guide. Planning Department is responsible for surveying tourism attractions. All staff needs to think of quality and appropriateness of each place that is suitable for the tourists. Setting tour program needs to think of an interest, an appropriateness location, time, budget, and on site accommodation. Restaurants should be suitable for the tour program. At the same time, Transportation Department may need to manage the shuttle bus for customers to go to other places, and take care of the customers energetically. Finally, tour guide is responsible for helping and facilitating. They should give the useful information or details about the tour as well.

 

Administration Department is responsible for managing the policy, setting objectives, monitoring and managing business operations in all. It consists of senior executives such as a president, a general manager, a vice manager, etc. Administration department has employees to take action the management and to support the model tour company. This includes the chairman and head of department who are responsible for managing the policy with other departments. They allow other departments to act out those policies efficiently. The administrative work such as secretary, report, printed out documents, computer, management the file storage, tourist history, and circular between departments as well as taking care of the staff and sending or receiving the letter in the company are also tasks of the Administration Department.

 

Sales and Marketing Department is responsible for contacting the tourists to offer and sell the tour package and answers all the questions might have. This department is divided into three sub-divisions: advertisement, public relations and information. It is attractive for the tourists to buy the tour package. Staff should give the information and prepare the document for touring clearly. It helps create the relationship between tourists, company and community.

 

Operation Department arranges the tour programs. Staff who is in charge of the tour program such as a head of tour program, a tour guide and so on are responsible for accommodation, tourist attractions, number of tourists and some special request. They have to cooperate with other organisations. In the same way, the staff need to contact the organisations to make a negotiation concerning reservation, deposit and payments including documentation and equipment operators. Staff should also arrange the tour guide for the tourists.

 

Finance Department is responsible for accounting, revenue expenditure of some companies. It may have two parties in the same department such as finance and accounting department which are responsible for mutual separation, but they do a job interoperable because funds and accounts need to congregate correspondingly, and they must try to maintain its interests as possible.

 

Transportation Department is responsible for contacting the rental vehicles to tour on land and water coordination with the Operations Division to ask for the number of tourists in the program. Staff held the right vehicles, including the driver held responsible for the board of tourists.

 

Information Department is the final division. It is responsible for gathering information and document, which are related to the tour or operations of the company.

 

2.6 Model tour company in Thailand

Even though, there were internal problems of insecurity of unstable government and politics in the past few years. Still, tourism industry is the second main industry that makes revenue to Thailand. Actually, it is estimated that tourism industry in Thailand in 2009 would have 14.1 million international tourists with the revenues of EUR13, 424.84 million. However, the Thai tourism industry could not reach the target. The tourists have decreased by 23% (Thanomjit, 2009).

 

These figures indicate that the impact arise in the Thai tourism industry. So, all institutions have to cooperate and help each other. In this case, educational institutions can produce professionals for the labour market. Many universities offer curriculums in the tourism education that can help to produce the professional personnel to support the Thai tourism industry. They are providing many courses which can help students to have more knowledge. For this reason, they organise the model tour company in their institutions. The model tour company is a copy of the real tour company that runs by students who are studying in tourism management. It provides similar circumstances as the real tour company. The model tour company in Thailand is set up by many higher tourism education institutions. There are Sripatum University, Rajamangala University of Technology Krungthep, Silpakorn University, Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University, Khon Kaen University, Naresuan University, Bangkok University, and Mahasarakam University. For the purposes of this study, the model tour company at Sripatum University was focused.

 

The objective focused on students’ activities planning for the model tour company. Lecturers are consultants to oversee the tasks assigned. Several activities are not only for entertainment and interest but also for wonderful experiences. They are useful for students who aim to work for tourism industry.

 

In addition, the institutions provide the model tour company for students to investigate and practice for their technical expertise and operational skills. They aim that after students’ graduation; the students will work more efficiently for the tourism industry. The tour company model helps students learn and face problems by themselves. They will have chances to solve those problems with their colleagues in the model tour company.

 

Some intuitions use the tour routes those have been certified by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in the initial test permit a tour guide to create the way to make the model tour company. After the end of this project, students will be evaluated their work. It will be considered and approved for the issuance of license for a tour guide in the future. In addition, the model tour company also helps students to recognise the role of self-responsibility. The company set up to allocate a plurality of work which releases all parties must act together to achieve the goal. In short, tourism education institution in Thailand has the same objectives to set up the model tour company in their institutions. Those are prepared in the work skills for the students before they will access in the career and demand for students to acknowledge in the process and lead to student learning problems in operational tour and problems facing the tour were organised. This will lead to Thai tourism industry competitiveness.

 

2.7 The model tour company assessment

The students who organise the model tour company have to be evaluated about the performances, potentiality and competencies by qualified lecturers and the manager of each department. The assessment will evaluate all of the capabilities of each student who plays different role in the model tour company. It includes the capability in using foreign languages, especially students who play the role as tour guides.

 

Each student will be interviewed. The interview is conducted by lecturers and manager of the model tour company. Most of the interviewing issues would be about the roles in working in each department and the responsibilities. Each manager will be evaluated by the lecturers.

 

With respect to the capability’s evaluation in using foreign languages, this evaluation emphasises English, Chinese, Japanese, and French as major and common languages for global communication. As a result, students who work as tour guides are mostly considered to be evaluated in using languages. Foreign languages training, however, are provided for these students before they work as tour guides. These training include every part each language usage, but regularly focusing on speaking. They are conducted by tourism lecturers who are fluent in each language, and some foreign lecturers in the university. These trainings aim to review language skills for these students to be able to communicate professionally with the tourists who are foreigners. Consequently, these students who work as tour guides will be evaluated by monitoring them in their real working.

 

3. Methodology

This study was based on face-to-face qualitative interviews with a convenience sample of 30 managers, 4 lecturers, 20 tour guides, and 80 students. They were selected on a random basis. The samples were in charge of the model tour company. The aims were to examine the roles of language and the importance of language to the tour company model, to investigate the guidelines and the process in organising the tour company model, and to study problems and solutions in managing the tour company model so as to increase competitiveness for the Thai tourism industry.

 

A set of interview guidelines was created as a research instrument by the researcher. It consists of four parts. The first part was aimed to obtain information about the importance of language roles and managing the model tour company. The second part related directly to language roles. The third part was designed to acquire guidelines and process of managing the model tour company. For the last part, it was designed to study problems and solutions.

 

After designing a set of interview guidelines, it was given to experts in designing the interview guideline to consider. The aim was to determine whether wording, question order and other issues were relevant and understandable for interviewees. Some minor adjustments were made to the interview guidelines as a result. Then interviews were conducted. It was approximately 40-60 minutes to interview the tour company’s managers, tour guides, and including lecturers. It was approximately 30-40 minutes to interview each student because they had less experience in working in the real situations. Explaining objectives started the interviews.

 

Every interviewee was pleased, willing to answer the questions, and provided necessary information. The interviews were conducted in Thai as all interviewees were Thai, so interviewing in Thai was convenient and straightforward to get accurate information. The interviews were recorded. Later, they were transliterated for accurate analysis.

 

 All the answers were sorted out in accordance with the objectives after finishing the interviews, and then all suitable answers to each question would be chosen to adopt for the research findings. The limitation of this study was considered as the questions using in the interviews, which were open-ended questions, so they had made the interviewees to think a lot before answering. The future research would benefit by having more concise interviewing to save time in the interview. Another limitation was about the interviews. They were conducted with only one group of students who had first experience in managing the model tour company. A larger sample might also be positive. Supplementary sources such as books, journals and websites are included.

 

4. Research findings

The research findings are divided into four parts: (1) the interviewees’ perspective about the importance of language roles and managing the model tour company, (2) the role of language in the model tour company, and (3) guidelines and process of managing the model tour company, and (4) the problems and solutions.

 

4.1 Interviewees’ perspective about the importance of language roles and managing the model tour company

The informants had a positive attitude toward the model tour company managing. They obtained advantages through the model tour company managing. The informants had a good chance to experience of their line of business. They learned how to work with others both inside and outside the company. The managers, the lecturers, and the tour guides voted unanimously that managing the model tour company granted the significance experience to students because the students learned by doing. They also pointed out that managing the model tour company was very motivating. It facilitated the students to recognise how to run tour business suitably.

 

4,2 The role of language in the model tour company

Language plays a role in communication. It helps people to understand each other. People share ideas and understand one another by means of language. Language roles make work easy, and help increasing working abilities (Cohen, 1996).

 

In the model tour company, language plays an important role because students need to communicate. It is important that they used language to communicate among group members, to arrange meetings and to make plans. If students do not understand the language, many problems might occur in the model tour company. In model tour company management, organisation charts and duties were contrived. Everyone wants to know and understand other departments. They could work corporately. The informants pointed out that students could manage their companies very effectively. Sometimes, students needed to contact or to corporate with other departments where language skills are needed. People from the Operation Department should know that all employees are required to communicate using foreign language. All staff in the model tour company should understand other departments’ nature, so they could get the right idea about them. All staff who wanted to contact some departments, Operation Department as an example, has to speak foreign language as a principal.

 

It is emphasised that language plays an important role for the model tour company. In the model tour company, students need to impress their tourists and gain trust for the model tour company. If the student staff only speak the native language, the international tourists will not understand them and feel negative. Also, students need to understand the international tourists’ cultures. Otherwise, they will loose international tourists’ trust. In other words, if the student staff understand and can communicate with tourists in their language and understand the tourists’ cultures, the tourists will feel more satisfied. The tourists might return to use the services again.

 

The model tour company prepares staff with the third language skills; Chinese, Japanese, and French. Speaking only English is not enough in managing the model tour company because there are international tourists who cannot speak English or Thai. The model tour company concerned might organise language training to staff. In brief, everyone is the main part to impulse the company and brings it to success. A company that lacks of collaboration may lead to failure. In contrast, any company works as a team and get the cooperation from the members will certainly have a bright future.

 

Focusing on the role of language in the model tour company, the informants highlighted that language is a key for managing the model tour company, particularly for communication. They also used the language to correspond in various manners: face-to-face interaction, on phone, giving information to tourists, booking restaurants, and negotiating with suppliers.

 

Based on the tour managers and the tour guides, language plays a vigorous role for colleagues both talking with staff and tourists. The informants stated that they were a key part that helped upgrade and generate good image to the company. Additionally, the informants studied cultures of major tourists. Language also plays role in creating the first impression for tourism industry, and this will boost competitiveness in the Thai tourism industry.

 

4.3 Guidelines and process of the model tour company

Due to the high competition in the Thai tourism industry that has been increasing recently from several factors such as politics and global economic, many tour companies are changing their strategies (Henderson, 2007). Each tour company tries to offer its best selection to tourists. To operate the company at its highest possibility, experienced and skilful employees are needed. Unfortunately, many new graduates who are equipped with their knowledge in tourism industry are unable to join those tour companies as they are inexperienced and unskilful.

 

Sripatum University is one of the universities in Thailand that emphasises on tourism education. Many students majoring in Hotel and Tourism Management in the Faculty of Liberal Arts are interested in this managing model tour company as they hope the knowledge and experience will provide a bright future ahead. In fact, they realised that it is hard to find a job without experiences and skills. Solving this problem, the university offers many necessary courses related to tourism education to help its students with useful expertise and practical experiences. The university provides the Tour Package course as an example. Its main objective is to give students some overview of their future careers. Students are required to study and manage the model tour company. The objective of the company is changing according to the current need of the tourism market. Not only students are studying how the model tour company is managed but also practice in real situations. This is because both knowledge and skills are important to tourism industry.

 

Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sripatum University sets up the model tour company in the same way as the real company is done. Only one different fact is that it is not a registered company, so every managing model tour company is operating under the brand of Sripatum University. It helps students to practice and train in the model tour company management before their graduation from the university. The main objectives of studying the course are: (1) to get students aware of principles and methodology of the tour, (2) to encourage students to know the character of problems and methods of solution in organising, (3) to provide students with useful knowledge and guidance for future career.

 

Each semester, students will set up 5 to 6 companies as the model tour companies. It depends on the number of students who register for the course. Although, there are a lot of companies and numbers of people, but students want to share their duties and responsibilities with each other. In order to corporate in the model tour company management, every company consists of seven departments: Administration Department, Planning Department, Sales and Marketing Department, Operation Department, Transportation Department, Document Department, and Finance Department.

 

Administration Department controls and runs the company. Planning Department sets tour programs, including price of tour programs and survey new tourism places. This department will bring new tourism places to present in the meeting. Sale and Marketing Department is important to the company because the department has to contact and offer tour programs to tourists directly. People who work in this department should have the ability to approach tourists and sell tour packages. Operation Department deals with tourists when they guide them to visit interesting places. Tour guides and staff will provide all things to make tourists feel comfortable during the tour. Transportation Department contacts the vehicles which will take the tourists to their destinations on the tour route. Documentary Department manages all documents in the company; this department will provide important documents in running a business and prepare the documents for the meetings. Finance Department checks and controls all of the model company expenses and budgets for each department. This section is very important because they can help anticipate the loss from running a model tour company. As a reason, Sripatum University provides the managing model tour company for students so as to encourage students to learn how to manage the tour company. This helps students to improve the management skills and gain experience.

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Figure 1: The Organisation Chart of the model tour company at Sripatum University

 

Every company has a lecturer as a president. The lecturer is also being a consultant to the company operation and giving an approval of the project. The syllabus of the course is based on the book for the operating policy’s purposes only. The company’s objectives and management depend on students’ decisions in the meetings. The lecturer provides some samples from the real situations for students to solve. It helps students to understand the lesson and see a performance of a real tour company very clearly. This method gives students an opportunity to share ideas in a meeting. In each meeting, the president’s secretary reports minutes of the meeting. The minutes are important tools for the next meeting. The president’s secretary reports minutes of the last meeting to the president. If the president wants to give some suggestions, he will make an appointment among the managers of the departments to discuss some working process.

 

The model tour company management also has some rivals to compete like any other actual companies. The rivals are the management of other model tour companies, and students have to cooperate and manage their company to make it success. Their target tourists are lecturer and students on campus, and people in the city. Students normally use billboards and other media to promote their companies and to motivate potential tourists. In the model tour company management, they do not sell the tour package only to the Thai people but also to international tourists. Since tour packages are not expensive, so each model tour company can get a good member of tourists. Certainly, language plays important role in managing the model tour company, particularly for communication with international tourists and organisations. The university emphasises English, Chinese, Japanese, and French. Students have to have skills of these languages to communicate in the model tour company management, and use them in the real working.

 

4.4 The problems and solutions

The informants revealed that some staff cannot communicate with international tourists. Some of them do not have clear picture on how to manage the model tour company. The solutions to the problem were to improve staff. The companies provide the extra-training session. They recommended that educational institutions need to create activities for students to increase the language skills for working such as organising English camps, speaking contest, singing contest, debating, and having workshop.

 

5. Conclusion and recommendations

The research findings support researchers (Devito, 2003; Maloney, 2004; Adler and Rodman, 2007; Wood, 2006; Thitthongkam and Walsh, 2009) when they stated that language capability is really crucial to the tourism industry. Students who work for the model tour company have to be able to communicate by using foreign languages. There is a main problem alongside with the language competences in organising the model tour company. It is very normal that the people occasionally use English or other foreign languages to communicate. They use mainly their native language to communicate with others. As a result, most of the students are only familiar with using native language for communication. Unfortunately, they have very few chances to use foreign languages, especially English, Chinese, Japanese, and French. Hence, the students who involved the model tour company faced this problem unavoidably. They are not fluent in foreign languages when contacted with international tourists during the tour.

 

Moreover, the model tour company which is a taught course to students in the university, it offered a great opportunity for students to discover and practice in the real situations. It helps them to figure out how to run the tour company. Even though there were copious problems occurred, students learned how to execute from those dilemmas. Lecturer played roles as a consultant, a facilitator, an advisor, and an evaluator. Experiencing in managing the model tour company made students work hard as if they were actual tourism staff. They also learned how to get along well with others in functioning. Students can apply the skill for their future profession when they work for the tourism industry. Regardless, the language roles and the model tour company certainly enhance competitiveness in the Thai tourism industry.

 

Based on the research findings, it is recommended that managing the model tour company, tourism educational institutions need to provide enough foreign language skills training for students. Further research should concentrate on the diversity of the model tour company in Thai universities comparing to educational institutions in western countries. Another concentration should be about roles of language in tourism competitiveness.

 
 

6. References

 

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