Business & Tourism Management
Foundation Year Project
Student name:
Student id:
The tourism industry has been changing for the last few decades from a luxury select segment for the higher population stratum to manufacture for mass tourists. First, tourism was the source of entertainment and travelling, but in the recent future some segments like business travel, adventure travel, and heritage travel. According to VisitBritain, 2023, business travel alone formed a large part of the £213 billion spent on tourism in the UK in the year 2019. Business travellers are mostly motivated by business but they also do consider adding value to experiences through business-leisure overlap, thus there is potential in complementary market-related services. Based on the above business concepts, the following business outline has been put forward; the Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel. Such offered packages of opportunities will combine business meetings and other events with heritage tours, and give tourists the first chance to travel to regions where the families’ roots are traced and to meet the indigenous population of those areas. This is well supported by Scott’s spirit of present root tourism which has increasingly been adopted globally and whereby the UK is among the most preferred countries for such tours. According to the research, 60% of travellers are interested in the history genre especially places linked with ancestry and the genealogy market is expected to grow by 11% per annum. The business will be based in London as a result of being an international business centre with good access to transport systems. It is about people; London is a cosmopolitan city with a highly developed multicultural profile which makes the service target a wide variety of clients. The business will partner with heritage sites, genealogical experts, and local tour operators to deliver a seamless and enriching experience for clients.
Short-term Objectives:
1. Establish the business: Register the company and start the operations in the next 6 months: Raise initial capital of £20000; Engage at least five heritage sites and genealogical professionals in the UK.
2. Generate first sales: Within the first year of specialisation in the heritage business travel business, get 50 clients to book packages for exclusive travel packages with a revenue of £50,000.
Medium-term Objectives:
1. Expand service offerings: Within the next 18 months, the number of travel packages has to be increased to include at least three international destinations for various ancestors' travel attractions, for instance, Ireland, Scotland or Germany.
2. Achieve customer satisfaction: The company’s end-of-second-year goal is to reach a 90% mark or above in terms of customers’ satisfaction ratings, which will be measured through post-trip response rates solicited from clients (Fletcher et al., 2018).
Long-term Objectives:
1. Increase market share: In the fifth year, develop the business and bring the sales up to the figure of £500 000 a year, which is 5% of the UK’s ancestry tourism niche market.
2. Develop a mobile app: Develop an application for a customer in 5 years to enable them to conveniently organise and book their heritage and business travel packages.
3. Personal SWOT analysis
Strengths:
1. Business management experience: Having worked as a team and operations manager I can undertake the responsibility of managing the daily operations of a business that deals with travel and tourism.
2. Cultural knowledge: Being aware of various cultures and heritage, especially the European ones, it is easier to arrange meaningful ancestry travel depending on clients’ requirements.
3. Networking and relationship-building: Stakeholders out there a range of which includes heritage sites, genealogical experts, and local guides among others will be vital in ensuring that I offer quality and unique travel packages (Madura, 2007).
Weaknesses:
1. Limited travel industry experience: Although I gained a lot of managerial positions, I find myself with little or no experience in the travel industry which may prove difficult to grasp the dynamics of travel operations or an understanding of the various laws that govern humanitarian travel.
2. Technical expertise: Lack of experience in the design and creation of digital tools such as booking platforms or smartphone applications can be a drawback when trying to develop suitable digital interfaces for the business and its clients.
3. Marketing skills: Although the applicant has substantial general business experience and knowledge, he or she has no special experience in digital marketing and promotion niche travel services which can be the reason for the slow growth of the business (Fullen and Podmoroff, 2006).
Opportunities:
1. Growing ancestry tourism market: More and more people are interested in travelling for heritage values and ancestry, especially as cultural travellers, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. Technological advancements: The current progress of technology offers several opportunities for segmenting customers and for efficient travel planning.
3. Partnership potential: Partnering with professions, genealogy organisations and cultural centres is valuable or may enrich the services provided and reputation.
Threats:
1. Economic downturns: Fluctuations in a country’s economy may change the expendable income, which in turn alters the travel spending for different forms of tourism including ancestry tourism (Griffin, 2015).
2. High competition: It’s a very related industry with major players already existing and they already incorporate heritage in their tourism experience.
3. Regulatory challenges: Variable travel rules - including those that may shift after Brexit - might affect operations and introduce new costs.
4. Target customers and market
Identifying Potential Customers
The target market for the Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel service is primarily business travellers interested in exploring their cultural and ancestral roots. Based on research, this market can be segmented as follows:
Segment |
Age |
Income Level |
Interests |
Business Professionals |
35-55 |
£50,000 - £100,000+ |
Heritage, ancestry, cultural experiences |
Executives |
40-60 |
£80,000 - £150,000+ |
Corporate travel, family history, luxury |
Entrepreneurs |
30-50 |
£60,000 - £120,000 |
Personalised travel, genealogy research |
Expats |
30-60 |
£40,000 - £80,000 |
Discovering ancestral connections abroad |
Table 1:
(Segmentation Table)
(Source: Author, 2024)
Demographics and Statistical Data
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the global business travel market is expected to grow by 4.2% annually, reaching a value of £1.1 trillion by 2025. In this segment, heritage and cultural tourism have been growing; this has been a result of the new trend to search for genealogy. There are millions of people in the UK who have their roots in Ireland, Italy, India and the countries of Eastern Europe (Murray, 2008).
Year |
Estimated Heritage Tourists (Global) |
2020 |
5.5 million |
2022 |
6.8 million |
2024 |
8.3 million |
Table 2: (Illustrates the growing trend of heritage tourism)
(Source: Author, 2024)
Also, genealogy services that have internet sites such as, have also revealed a higher traffic or traffic recurrence showing a growing interest in the research of one’s ancestry, although it targets this business idea’s niche market.
Specific Needs, Wants, and Demand
The target customers in this market have specific needs, wants, and demands that align with the concept of Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel:
Need: It involves the ability of business travellers to organise their travel in such a way that they create time for professional as well as personal development. Most workers have only a few spare hours but wish to develop a sounder appreciation of their roots.
Want: Basically, some clients are interested in over-grounding experiences that are worthwhile and culturally engaging. It concerns that business travellers searching for a unique experience frequently seek to find someone they know in a destination. For instance, a middle-aged business person of Irish origin will visit Dublin for business purposes while at the same time paying a visit to the towns of their origin.
Demand: According to surveys by Euromonitor International 43% of the business travellers who often travel on business to the UK showed an interest in cultural and ancestry tourism. Positive comments are noted on the travel site TripAdvisor, which presents impressions of tourists who went on heritage tours during business trips (Altinay, Paraskevas, and Jang, 2016).
How the Business Meets These Needs, Wants, and Demands
The service to the heritage and ancestry of business travellers will be a new service offer that will address the growing market segment for cultural travel services. The company will offer:
Bespoke travel packages: It depends on the customer’s genealogy and business needs. Services to be provided in packages are heritage research, ancestral site tours, and corporate event planning and hosting.
Flexibility and convenience: The business will set the trips around the customer’s business calendar, allowing the customer to discover other aspects of life aside from business without the necessity to skip work.
Unique selling proposition (USP): When integrated with genealogy consultants and historical attractions, it will allow the provision of unique, engaging offerings that depart from conventional travel; appealing to the visitor on a very passionate and unique level.
Visual Support for the Business Idea
For this Business Week visuals such as Customer testifying, word-of-mouth referrals, and pictures of endangered heritage sites will be used in promotion. For example, feedback from a recent traveller shared on social media reads: It was such an exhilarating experience; I have no doubt that can never be repeated. I am truly grateful to royal players that I was able to be presented to relatives I had no clue existed in this world, while at my business conference. The positive reception of this feedback magnifies the one-to-one relationship that business travellers seek, thus reiterating the niche market proposition of exploring our ancestry alongside business travel.
5. Competition
Identifying Competitors
In the UK, the market for ancestry and heritage-based travel services is growing. However, few businesses specifically cater to business travellers seeking personalised heritage experiences. Key competitors include:
Company |
Services Offered |
Location |
Ancestry Tours UK |
Offers customised heritage tours, focused on genealogy and local history. |
Nationwide (UK) |
Find My Past Travel |
Specialises in genealogy research combined with heritage site visits. |
London-based |
Cultural Heritage Travel Ltd |
Provides tailored cultural and historical tours, including ancestry-based experiences. |
Major UK cities |
Genealogy Travel Experiences |
Organises heritage tours based on personal genealogy, focusing on historical regions. |
London and surrounding areas |
Table 3: (Competitors’ table)
(Source: Author, 2024)
How Our Business is Different?
The concept that sets Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel aside from other travel companies is the concept of combined family ancestry exploration and business travels. In contrast to competitors providing services of genealogy and cultural tours, they do not target business people. Our service incorporates elements of personal development and business requirement; providing business travellers with fully tailored travel packages that enable them to effectively combine business obligations with sightseeing (McKeever, 2018).
Key Differentiators:
Business Integration: In contrast to other similar services, we provide travel packages closely related to business events like conferences or meetings; therefore, a business person can easily travel around the country searching for an ideal solution that will let him or her discover his or her roots.
Tailored Experience: Our service offering is very unique indeed because it involves a personalised tour package to involve family history tracing, heritage site leveraging, meeting and event planning.
Partnerships with Corporate Networks: Due to partnerships with corporate travel agencies, we become a product that is an addition to business travel and is tailored to be incorporated into a business trip.
6. Marketing plans
Utilising Digital Technologies
In particular, digital technologies are essential in formulating the right strategies for the overall marketing of Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel. It means that through the big data, we can target segments of customers based on travelling frequency for business, genealogy and other quantum behaviours observed online. Thanks to Google Analytics and insights into social media platforms, the audience is defined more and more accurately so that marketing can be geared precisely. Moreover, you can use a wide variety of services like Mailchimp for sending monthly newsletters and using a CRM system to keep our target audience engaged through scrambling information about forthcoming offers based on their ancestry interests and business travel preferences.
Promotional Activities
Social Media Campaigns: By joining the relevant social sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Faces, targeted packages involving business and heritage tourist attractions will be advertised. Business travelling will enable us to connect with the customers through the social media platform where they will be able to post their success stories, recommendations from other customers and beautiful pictures of ancient places. This will have the effect of raising brand recognition and effectively communicating with the audience we intend more on (Saunders, Lewis, Thornhill, 2012).
Content Marketing: We will engage in blog articles, videos and case studies that provide information on how the packages operate and an appeal to combined ancestry research with business travels. Seo-friendly content will lead to higher traffic to the website and make us look like the go-to people for heritage and business travel hence aiding in the sales process.
Collaborations with Corporate Travel Agencies: To avoid such a situation, we will align ourselves with corporate travel agencies and companies to market our packages as business clientele’s products. It will expand our presence within the corporate market, which is in line with the company’s desire to target more business tourists.
7. Operations
Key Stakeholders
Corporate Clients: An important stakeholder of Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel will be corporate clients. These businesses will hire us to help create custom travel itineraries for their employees; travel that combines visiting historical sites with business. It is therefore important for us to ally with corporate companies that often employ their employees for business travels.
Local Heritage Experts and Travel Guides: Another important target audience is local historical and cultural specialists and tour guides in respective ancestral areas. These people will offer historical and cultural aspects which are essential for designing and delivering our travel packages. Engaging with them will enrich the kind of services that we are going to provide to our customers by providing them with an opportunity to tour around and find out more about their ancestry.
Staff and Organisational Structure
Initially, we will start with a small team of five employees, focusing on core areas: finding its sales contacts, providing clients’ services, arranging its travels, promoting its products, and managing its finances. In the next 12 months as the demand rises our staffing plan is to double the number of staff members with special personnel such as regional travel managers and increased customer service personnel. In the long term, our organisational structure will be divided into three primary departments: The following areas are the major areas based on the organisational needs: Sales and Marketing, Travel Coordination, and Customer Support. Every department will have its manager who will answer to the CEO of the company. Our organisational structure should be simple and constantly evolving, or else it directly threatens our agility required to respond to market situations and customer preferences.
Laws, Regulations, and Insurance
Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel will be required to meet several regulations and laws, specifically those of the tourism and business travel trade. First, it’s important to respect the Package Travel Regulations 2018 which state protection for customers who encounter disruptions in their travel schedule. This regulation helps keep us legal regarding refunds, cancellations, and complaints from our customers. Second, data protection laws such as the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be important since we shall be dealing with confidential customer information which may include family history. It is also important that we safeguard our CRM systems from becoming the next scapegoat for lack of data privacy protection thus staying out of unnecessary fines and loss of reputation (Tracy, 2014).
With regards to insurance, Public Liability Insurance will be required as this will help to pay for court costs of accidents or injuries that may happen during the tours. Also, Professional Indemnity Insurance will cover the business for the travelling service blunders that bring about losses to our clients. Such policies will shield our customers and the business from legal and financial risks that might arise in future. Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel will seek to effectively and efficiently engage the stakeholders, hire necessary staff and staff appropriately to meet business increases and follow all regulations and insurance policies it is required to follow for long-term business operation.
8. Finance
The initial £20,000 will be used immediately to cover basic start-up expenses of the Urban Roots Collective. The two largest expenses are purchases or rent of equipment (£5,000), as well as rent of retail space (£4,000).
First, the firm should invest in equipment like vertical farming systems, which would determine the business's core value proposition: locally grown, sustainable produce. The entire equipping of the system of urban farming will help significantly cut any waste and maximise space use in the store. The technology also aims to keep the business's productivity levels very high, which should go a long way towards future profitability.
An aggressive store location in a high-foot-traffic area will be necessary to attract customers. The price is high, but the store will offer the chance to talk face-to-face with customers and explain the value of the brand. The space inside this store will also display the urban farm experience, therefore offering experiential value to the customers during the purchase. The rest of the budget will be allocated to marketing, salaries, utilities, and inventory to ensure that the first stages of the business are successful.
9. Back-up Plan
If Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel faces some difficulties in the process of repaying this loan the following strategies will be put in place to enable efficient handling of this aspect. First, we will preserve working capital of not less than three months of the loan repayment amount to act as a buffer for any future shortfalls. Such a provision will also help to replenish immediate financial reserves in the event of revenues below expectations. Second, customers’ payment will be made flexible for the service provider to easily attract, for instance offering early bird discounts or a package of integrated services (MarketLine Industry Profile: Travel & Tourism in the United Kingdom’, 2023).In the event of a slight downturn, one can easily cut on almost all indirect expenses including marketing, or stem any further growth in employees by hiring fewer additional workers to ensure that all loans are repaid in the shortest time possible. Also, there is the possibility to discuss with the lending company the terms of the restructuring of the credit or to prolong the term of the credit to change the rhythm of the payments and, thus, to free up the incurring capital.
10. Conclusion
Heritage & Ancestry Business Travel is sure to succeed because there is a clear trend of rising interest in custom travel services for business people. Connecting with professional exhibitions and cultural tourism, we respond to the popularity of the topic concerning ancestry and heritage. Through a strategic marketing approach underpinned by digital technologies, we shall be able to target our audience; our contingency plans will also afford us financial stability. Thus, having a good and clear vision, good and powerful stakeholder relations, and the proven desire to meet customers' needs and expectations we are prepared to succeed. About this innovative idea, receiving the start-up loan will help us to achieve this noble course and benefit the tourism sector.
References
Altinay, L., Paraskevas, A. and Jang, S. (2016) Planning research in hospitality and tourism. Second edition. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Fletcher, J., Fyall, A., Gilbert, D., Wanhill, S. (2018) Tourism: principles and practice. Harlow: Person Education.
Fullen, S.L. and Podmoroff, D. (2006) How to write a great business plan for your small business in 60 minutes or less. Ocala: Atlantic Publishing Company.
Griffin, M.P. (2015) How to Write a Business Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Plan That Gets Results: AMA Self-Study.
Madura, J. (2007) Introduction to Business. 4th ed. Thomson Higher Education. Available in Additional Resources in Moodle.
MarketLine Industry Profile: Travel & Tourism in the United Kingdom’ (2023) Travel & Tourism Industry Profile: United Kingdom, pp. 1–80.
McKeever, M. (2018) How to Write a Business Plan. Berkeley, California: NOLO.
Murray, J.W. (2008). The Complete Guide to Writing Effective and Award-Winning Business Proposals: Step-by-Step Instructions. Ocala: Atlantic Publishing Company.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. (2012) Research methods for business students. 6th ed. Essex: Financial Times, Prentice Hall.
Tracy, B. (2014) Marketing. New York: AMACOM (Brian Tracy Success Library).
Appendix A
Initial start-up cash flow forecast
Cash in-flow
Cash in-flows |
Description (as required) |
Values |
Total anticipated sales |
Sales from the first month |
£0 |
Value of your Start-Up Loan |
Loan from a bank |
£20,000 |
Other sources of cash or equity |
Investment from family |
£0 |
Existing assets for business purposes |
Personal savings |
£0 |
|
Total cash in-flows: |
£20,000 |
Cash out-flows
Cash out-flows |
Description (as required) |
Values |
Total anticipated cost of sales |
Cost of goods sold |
£3,500 |
Existing assets for business purposes |
Inventory setup |
£1,000 |
Rent or premises cost |
Rent for retail space |
£3,500 |
Business rates for your business premises |
Local business rates |
£500 |
Utilities (gas, electricity, water) |
Utility costs |
£300 |
Insurance |
Business Insurance |
£250 |
Telephone and internet |
Communications costs |
£100 |
Marketing and advertising expenses |
Social media & print ads |
£1,500 |
Vehicle running costs |
Delivery vehicle fuel |
£200 |
Equipment purchases or leasing |
Vertical farming equipment |
£5,000 |
Postage, printing, stationery |
Supplies |
£100 |
Transport and delivery |
Delivery services |
£300 |
Professional fees (legal, accounting, etc.) |
Legal and Accounting |
£400 |
Your salary |
Owner’s draw |
£1,200 |
Staff costs |
Employee wages |
£1,000 |
Start-Up Loan monthly repayment – First Loan amount |
Loan repayment (1st month) |
£150 |
|
Total cash out-flows: |
£19,000 |
Your net cash flow (A-B)
Total cash in-flows |
Total cash out-flows |
Net cash flow |
£20,000 |
£19,000 |
£1,000 |
