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Unlock This CourseWhen you book a holiday, loads of different businesses are involved behind the scenes. It's not just one company doing everything it's a whole chain of organisations working together. Understanding who does what is a big part of your iGCSE Travel & Tourism exam.
Key Definitions:
Think of a travel agent as the shop where you buy your holiday. They don't actually create the holiday they sell it for someone else. They earn commission from tour operators for every booking they make. Examples include TUI travel shops, Thomas Cook (before it collapsed in 2019) and Flight Centre. Many travel agents now operate online, like Expedia and Booking.com.
Tour operators are the builders of holidays. They negotiate bulk deals with airlines, hotels and transfer companies, then bundle everything together into a package. Big names include TUI, Jet2holidays, Kuoni and G Adventures. They produce brochures (or websites) showing what's available, then either sell direct or through travel agents.
The distribution chain (also called the chain of distribution) shows how a holiday gets from the people who provide it to the person who buys it. There are different routes this can take.
A holiday can reach you in different ways. Understanding these routes is really important for your exam.
Principal → Tour Operator → Travel Agent → Customer
This is the classic route. The hotel and airline sell to a tour operator, who packages it up and sells it through a high-street travel agent to you.
Tour Operator → Customer
The tour operator cuts out the travel agent and sells directly. This saves money on commission. Jet2holidays and TUI online do this a lot.
Principal → Customer
The airline or hotel sells directly to the customer. easyJet and Ryanair only sell direct no travel agents involved at all!
TUI is one of the world's largest travel companies and it's a great exam example because it operates at every level of the chain. TUI owns airlines (TUI Airways), hotels (TUI Blue, RIU Hotels), cruise ships (Marella Cruises) and retail travel shops. This is called vertical integration owning businesses at different levels of the supply chain. It means TUI keeps more profit and has more control over the customer experience. In 2023, TUI served over 19 million customers across Europe.
Accommodation is a massive part of any holiday and the exam loves testing you on the different types. Accommodation can be split into two main groups: serviced and self-catering.
Key Definitions:
Hotels are classified using star ratings from 1 to 5. The more stars, the more facilities and service you get. A 1-star hotel offers basic, clean rooms. A 5-star hotel (like the Burj Al Arab in Dubai) offers luxury suites, multiple restaurants, spas and 24-hour butler service. Star ratings vary between countries a 4-star in one country might feel like a 3-star somewhere else, which is a limitation of the system.
Hotels offer different meal arrangements. Room Only (RO) no meals included. Bed & Breakfast (BB) breakfast only. Half Board (HB) breakfast and dinner. Full Board (FB) all three meals. All Inclusive (AI) meals, snacks and drinks all day. All-inclusive is very popular in resorts like those in Cancún, Mexico and Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Not everyone wants a hotel! The travel industry has grown to offer loads of different options to suit different travellers and budgets.
Camping means staying in tents cheap and close to nature. Glamping (glamorous camping) offers luxury tents, yurts or pods with proper beds and facilities. Popular in the UK and France.
Self-catering options that give families more space and freedom. You cook your own meals. Websites like Airbnb and Vrbo have made this type of accommodation hugely popular worldwide.
A cruise ship is both transport and accommodation. Companies like Royal Caribbean and P&O Cruises offer floating hotels with restaurants, pools and entertainment included.
Airbnb was founded in 2008 and completely disrupted the accommodation industry. Instead of building hotels, Airbnb lets ordinary people rent out their homes or spare rooms to travellers. By 2024, Airbnb had over 7 million listings in more than 220 countries. It's a great example of the sharing economy. Traditional hotels have complained that Airbnb has unfair advantages because it doesn't face the same regulations. This is a brilliant case study for exam questions about changing trends in accommodation.
The type of accommodation a tourist chooses depends on several factors. Your exam might ask you to explain these.
The exam often asks you to compare travel agents and tour operators, or explain what each one does. Here's a clear summary to help you.
A very common mistake in the exam is confusing travel agents with tour operators. Remember: tour operators BUILD the holiday, travel agents SELL the holiday. TUI is unusual because it does BOTH that's what makes it a good vertical integration example. Also remember: when Thomas Cook collapsed in September 2019, it affected both its tour operation AND its travel agency over 150,000 UK customers were stranded abroad and had to be repatriated by the CAA.
Package holidays are protected by law in the UK and EU. The Package Travel Regulations mean that if your tour operator goes bust, you are entitled to a refund or to be brought home. This protection is a key reason why many people still choose to book package holidays rather than booking everything separately.
In September 2019, Thomas Cook one of the world's oldest travel companies (founded 1841) went into liquidation. It owed over £1.7 billion in debt. Around 600,000 tourists were abroad at the time. The UK Civil Aviation Authority launched Operation Matterhorn the biggest peacetime repatriation in UK history to fly everyone home. Around 9,000 Thomas Cook employees lost their jobs overnight. This case study shows the risks of the travel industry and the importance of ATOL protection for consumers.