Tertiary And Quaternary Activities Class 12 Geography

Tertiary Activities

• Tertiary activities are related to the service sector. Manpower is an important component of the service sector as most of the tertiary activities are performed by skilled labour, professionally trained experts and consultants.
• Tertiary activities include both production and exchange. The production involves the ‘provision’ of services that are ‘consumed’. Exchange, involves trade, transport and communication facilities that are used to overcome distance.

Types of Tertiary Activities

Trade and commerce

Trade and commerce is essentially buying and selling of items produced elsewhere. The collection and distribution points where trading takes place are called trading centres. These centres are divided into:

Rural Marketing Centres

• They are quasi urban and cater to local needs and areas.
• Most of these have mandis (wholesale markets) and retail markets.
• In rural areas, there are periodic markets that may be weekly or bi-weekly and people from the nearby areas meet their demands.
• These markets are held on specified dates and shopkeepers move from one place to another.

Periodic Markets

• Periodic markets in rural areas are found where there are no regular markets.
• These markets are organized at different temporal intervals, such as weekly or bi-weekly, to meet the temporally accumulated demand of people from surrounding areas.
• They are held on specified dates and move from one place to another.
• This system keeps shopkeepers busy on all days while serving a large area.

Urban Marketing Centres

• These markets sell ordinary as well as specialised goods and services.
• Markets for labour, housing, semi or finished products exist.
• Services of educational institutions and professionals like teachers, doctors, lawyers also develop.

Retail Trading

• In this type of trading, goods are directly sold to consumers.
• This trading is done through fixed establishments or stores, small shops, consumer cooperatives, big departmental stores, and chain stores.
• The chain stores buy commodities in bulk and then hire skilled specialists for executive tasks.
• Street peddling, handcarts, trucks, door-to-door, mail order, telephone, and Internet are examples of non-store retail trading.

Wholesale Trading

• Wholesale trading constitutes bulk business through numerous intermediary merchants and supply houses and not through retail stores.
• Some large stores including chain stores are able to buy directly from the manufacturers.
• However, most retail stores procure supplies from an intermediary source.
• Wholesalers often extend credit to retail stores to such an extent that the retailer operates very largely on the wholesaler’s capital.

Transport

Transport is a tertiary activity in which people, materials and manufactured goods are physically carried from one place to another. While selecting the mode of transport, distance, time and cost are seen.. Distance can be measured as km distance, time taken to travel particular route as time distance, expense of travelling on a route as cost distance.

Factors Affecting Transport

People Engaged in Tertiary Activities

Earlier more number of people were employed in the primary and secondary sector as these sectors provided more jobs. But, now there has been a shift of jobs to tertiary or service sector. In developed countries, a higher percentage of workers are employed in providing services as compared to less developed countries.

Some Selected Examples

Tourism

• Tourism can be seasonal or throughout the year like warmer places around the Mediterranean coast, West coast of India during winters, mountains in summers or winter spots regions found mainly in mountainous areas.
• Historic towns, religious places, heritage sites offer tourism throughout the year.
• Factors Affecting Tourism 
  • The rise in tourism industry is due to increased demand for it which is thus influenced by improvement in standard of living and increased leisure time.
  • Another factor is improvement in transportation that has made travel easier and destinations reachable.

Tourist Attractions

Tourist attractions are specific features of a place that attract people. These are as follows:

• Climate In winter holidays, areas having warm sunny weather is preferred like beaches in Southern Europe, so it attracts more number of tourists there.
• Landscape Mountains, lakes, spectacular sea coasts and landscapes not completely altered by man are good tourist attractions.
• History and Art Ancient or picturesque towns, archaeological sites, historically important places having castles and palaces attract tourists.
• Culture and Economy Areas having rich cultures attract people as they go their to experience ethnic and local customs. Places giving economic benefits are also attractions such as cheap home stays in Goa, Madikere and Coorg in Karnataka.

Medical Services for Overseas Patients in India

• Medical services or tourism takes place when medical treatment is combined with international tourism activity. People from developed countries like US are visiting India for medical tourism or services.
• This brings economic benefits to India and other countries where medical tourism is taking place like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.
• Other medical related activities such as outsourcing of medical tests, data interpretation, reading radiology images, interpreting Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) and ultrasound tests are taking place in India, Australia and Switzerland.

Quaternary Activities

• Quaternary activities involve the collection, production, and dissemination of information.
• These activities focus on research and development and require specialized knowledge and technical skills.
• The quaternary sector, along with the tertiary sector, has replaced most primary and secondary employment as the basis for economic growth.
• Over half of all workers in developed economies are in the 'Knowledge Sector'.
• There has been significant growth in demand for information-based services, such as those provided by mutual fund managers, tax consultants, software developers, and statisticians.
• Personnel working in office buildings, elementary schools, universities, hospitals, doctors’ offices, theatres, accounting firms, and brokerage firms all belong to this category of services.
• The quaternary activities, like some tertiary functions, can also be outsourced.
• They are not tied to specific resources, are unaffected by the environment, and are not necessarily localized by the market.