Holiday Factory

Holiday Factory: travel and tourism products and services

This free game is part of our Cambridge iGCSE Travel & Tourism (0471) course for exams in EXAM YEARS 2027-2029.

Products and services in travel and tourism

In the Cambridge IGCSE Travel and Tourism (0471) course, a product is everything a tourist uses or experiences on a trip, both tangible and intangible. A service is an intangible activity you experience but cannot own or take home, such as a guided walking tour or help at check-in. A souvenir mug or a printed guidebook is a tangible product.

Tourism products are sorted into three types:

• Primary products: the core reason people travel. These are natural and cultural attractions, such as the Great Barrier Reef, a sandy beach in Tenerife or the Eiffel Tower.
• Secondary products: what tourists need once they arrive, such as hotels, airport transfers, local buses, car hire and restaurants.
• Ancillary products: extras that add value and comfort, such as travel insurance, currency exchange, airport lounges and souvenir shops.

In Shift 1 of the game, the Sort-o-Matic, you send each holiday part down the right chute: primary, secondary or ancillary.

Building holidays for different market segments

Tour operators tailor their products to market segments. In Shift 2, the Package Line, you build a holiday for four customers:

• Families need good value and things for all ages, such as a self-catering holiday park like Center Parcs and a theme park like Disneyland Paris.
• Business travellers put reliability before cost: a scheduled flight with a flexible ticket and a serviced hotel near the venue with WiFi and meeting rooms.
• Adventure tourists often choose small-group specialists such as G Adventures or Intrepid, and natural attractions such as national parks.
• Accessible tourism covers physical, sensory and cognitive needs: step-free hotels, lifts, accessible rooms, ramps and audio guides. VisitEngland's National Accessible Scheme helps tourists find them.

Learn the key terms too. Serviced accommodation includes cleaning and meals, while self-catering means guests look after themselves. Scheduled flights run to a timetable, while charter flights are hired for holiday packages.

Tour operators, travel agents and the supply chain

In Shift 3 you follow a package holiday along the supply chain, from a hotel in Corfu to the customer:

• Hotels and airlines sell rooms and seats to a tour operator at contracted rates.
• The tour operator, such as Jet2holidays or TUI, combines flights, hotels and transfers into one package sold at one price.
• A travel agent sells the package as the middleman and earns commission. Examples are Hays Travel on the high street and Expedia or Booking.com online.
• A transfer company and local businesses add more products on the ground.

When Thomas Cook collapsed in 2019, Hays Travel bought all 555 of its UK shops, showing that personal service still has value in a digital age. Other case studies in the game include Airbnb and the sharing economy, and Dubai's use of AI trip planners, AR city guides and biometric airport gates.

Technology, quality and exam tips

Technology is changing tourism products: online booking, AI dynamic pricing, virtual reality (VR) tasters that let you "walk around" a hotel room before booking, augmented reality (AR) guides and biometric check-in. Quality is measured by star ratings, customer reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor, and awards and accreditation.

• Have one example of a primary, secondary and ancillary product ready.
• For "explain the difference between a tour operator and a travel agent", say what each one does and give a named example of each. The game ends with a model answer to this 4-mark question.
• Link products to the needs of a market segment, for example a holiday park meets a family's need for good value.