Based on a business or business unit of your choice create your own supply chain diagram to demonstrate the complex relationships that exist in service delivery.

The sea crossing by ferry is for many where their holiday begins, and thus forms a key link in the tourism experience. For many remote island communities, the car ferry has not only stimulated tourism but also acts as a lifeline, delivering vital supplies. Companies such as Caledonian MacBrayne and Western Ferries are good examples of this type of operation on the Clyde and in the Western Isles of Scotland. New pressures on funding ferry services have made businesses adapt to their products; in Norway, the Hurtigruten coastal ferry service, despite having its state operating subsidy phased out, has survived by developing and combining its cruise and ferry tourism operations.
On shorter routes across harbours, ferry operators provide services that can act as a platform for viewing landscape and maritime heritage. The Star Ferry in Hong Kong and the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan in New York are excellent examples of ferries as a tourism attraction in their own right. Liverpool’s famous Mersey Ferry has survived mainly as a tourism attraction; it not only offers trips across the Mersey, but now has scheduled cruises up the Manchester Ship Canal. Traditional ferry routes have always faced competition in some form or other; the famous ferries that criss-cross the Bosphorus now face stiffer competition from the new rail tunnel linking the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, but these ferries, because of their unique location, will always have a role not only as vehicles for transporting the millions of commuters that want an alternative passage, but also, for many tourists, as a way to view the beautiful landscape and architecture that can be seen from the sea.