Tertiary and Quaternary ActivitiesClass 12 Fundamentals of Human Geography Notes

Tertiary and Quaternary Activities

Tertiary activities are all about providing services rather than making tangible goods. Think about a doctor, a teacher, or a plumber. They don't produce a physical product you can hold, but they provide a valuable service using their specialized skills and knowledge. This entire category is known as the service sector.

The main difference between secondary activities (like manufacturing) and tertiary activities is that services rely more on the skills, experience, and knowledge of people, rather than on machinery and factory processes.

These activities involve two key components:

• Production: This is the actual "provision" of the service, which is then "consumed." For example, a teacher provides the service of education, which students consume. The output is measured indirectly through wages and salaries.
• Exchange: This includes trade, transport, and communication services that help overcome distance and connect people and places.

TYPES OF TERTIARY ACTIVITIES

The service sector is vast and includes several key areas such as trade, transport, communication, and other specialized services.

Trade and commerce

At its core, trade is simply the buying and selling of items that were produced somewhere else. All trading activities, whether wholesale or retail, are intended to make a profit. The towns and cities where this happens are called trading centres.

Trading has evolved from simple local barter systems to a complex international money-exchange system. Trading centres can be divided into two main types:

• Rural marketing centres: These are small, quasi-urban centres that serve nearby settlements. They provide basic goods and services for rural communities but usually don't have well-developed professional services. Many have mandis (wholesale markets) and retail areas.
• Periodic markets are a special feature in rural areas without regular markets. These are often weekly or bi-weekly markets held on specific days, with shopkeepers moving from one location to another to serve a large area.
• Urban marketing centres: These offer a much wider range of ordinary and specialized goods and services. You can find manufactured goods, specialized markets (for labor, housing, etc.), and professional services from teachers, lawyers, doctors, and consultants.

Retail Trading

This is the business of selling goods directly to consumers. It happens in two main ways:

1. Store Retailing: This takes place in fixed locations like shops and stores.
   • Consumer cooperatives were one of the first large-scale innovations in retailing.
   • Departmental stores are large stores where different sections or departments are responsible for buying and selling their own specific types of goods.
   • Chain stores can buy merchandise very economically, sometimes even having goods manufactured specifically for them. They employ specialists and can test new ideas in one store before applying them across the entire chain.
2. Non-store Retailing: This happens without a fixed store. [!example] Examples of non-store retailing include street peddling, handcarts, mail-order catalogues, telephone sales, vending machines, and online shopping on the internet.

Wholesale Trading

Wholesale trading involves selling goods in bulk through intermediary merchants and supply houses, not directly to the public. Most retail stores get their supplies from a wholesaler. Wholesalers often provide credit to retailers, which means the retailer can operate largely on the wholesaler's capital.

Transport

Transport is a service that physically moves people, materials, and manufactured goods from one place to another. A modern society needs fast and efficient transport to help with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. Transportation adds significant value to materials at every stage.

Transport distance can be measured in three ways:

• km distance: The actual length of the route.
• Time distance: The time it takes to travel the route.
• Cost distance: The expense of traveling on a route.

When choosing a mode of transport, time or cost is often the most important factor. Isochrone lines are lines drawn on a map to connect places that are equal in terms of the time it takes to reach them from a certain point.

Network and Accessibility

As transport systems grow, they link different places together, forming a network. A network consists of:

• Nodes: A meeting point of routes, a point of origin or destination, or any major town along a route.
• Links: The road or route that connects two nodes. A well-developed network has many links, meaning its places are well-connected.

Factors Affecting Transport

• Demand: The bigger the population, the greater the demand for transport.
• Routes: The path a route takes depends on the location of cities and industrial centres, trade patterns, the landscape, climate, and the funds available to build it.

Communication

Communication services involve transmitting words, messages, facts, and ideas. Historically, communication depended on transport—messages were carried by hand, animal, boat, or train. This is why transport routes are often called lines of communication.

However, modern technology like mobile phones and satellites has made communication largely independent of transport. Still, older systems like postal mail remain important because they are cheap.

Telecommunications

Modern technology has revolutionized communication.

• The speed of sending messages has been reduced from weeks to minutes.
• Mobile phones allow for direct and instant communication from anywhere, at any time.
• Radio and television, known as mass media, can relay news and pictures to vast audiences and are vital for advertising and entertainment.
• The internet has completely transformed the global communication system.

Services

Services can be categorized in many ways. Some are for industry, some are for people, and some (like transport) serve both.

• Low-order services: These are common and widespread, like grocery shops and laundries.
• High-order services: These are more specialized and less common, like the services of accountants, consultants, and physicians.

Services can also be categorized by who performs them and how they are managed:

• Regulated Services: Many essential services are supervised or performed by governments or companies. This includes maintaining highways, firefighting, education, and supplying energy and water.
• Professional Services: These are primarily services like health care, engineering, law, and management.
• Recreational and Entertainment Services: The location of these depends on the market. A multiplex might be near a Central Business District (CBD), while a golf course would be located where land is cheaper.
• Personal Services: These are provided to people to help with their daily lives. Workers, often unskilled migrants from rural areas, are employed as housekeepers, cooks, and gardeners. This sector is often unorganized.

PEOPLE ENGAGED IN TERTIARY ACTIVITIES

Today, most people in developed countries are service workers. While services are provided in all societies, a higher percentage of the workforce is employed in this sector in more developed countries compared to less developed ones. Employment in the service sector is increasing, while it is decreasing or staying the same in the primary and secondary sectors.

SOME SELECTED EXAMPLES

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreation, not business. It has become the world's single largest tertiary activity, accounting for 250 million jobs and 40% of the total global GDP. It also supports local jobs in accommodation, meals, transport, and craft industries (souvenirs).

Tourist Regions

Popular tourist destinations include:

• Warmer places like the Mediterranean Coast and the West Coast of India.
• Winter sports regions in mountainous areas.
• Scenic landscapes and national parks.
• Historic towns with monuments and heritage sites.

Tourist Attractions

What makes a place attractive to tourists?

• Climate: People from colder regions often seek warm, sunny weather for beach holidays, which is why Southern Europe is so popular. Others may seek snow for skiing.
• Landscape: Many people enjoy holidays in beautiful environments like mountains, lakes, and spectacular coastlines.
• History and Art: Ancient towns, archaeological sites, castles, and palaces attract many visitors.
• Culture and Economy: Experiencing local customs can be a major draw. Additionally, if a region offers these attractions at a cheap cost, it is likely to become very popular. Home-stay businesses have become profitable in places like Goa and Coorg in Karnataka.

Medical Services for Overseas Patients in India

Medical tourism is when medical treatment is combined with international tourism. India has emerged as a leading country for medical tourism, with world-class hospitals in its major cities catering to patients from around the world. This trend brings significant economic benefits to developing countries like India, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Beyond just treatment, there is also a trend of outsourcing medical tests and data interpretation. Hospitals in India, Switzerland, and Australia now perform services like reading radiology images and interpreting MRIs for other countries.

QUATERNARY ACTIVITIES

Quaternary activities are a specialized part of the service sector that is knowledge-oriented. They center around research, development, and the collection, production, and dissemination of information.

The Quaternary Sector

This sector, along with the tertiary sector, has become the basis for economic growth in developed economies, replacing primary and secondary employment.

• Over half of all workers in developed economies are in the "Knowledge Sector."
• This includes jobs like mutual fund managers, tax consultants, software developers, statisticians, teachers, doctors, and accountants.

QUINARY ACTIVITIES

Quinary activities are performed by the highest level of decision-makers and policymakers. These are often called "gold collar" professions.

• They focus on the creation, re-arrangement, and interpretation of new and existing ideas, as well as the use and evaluation of new technologies.
• This group includes senior business executives, government officials, research scientists, and financial and legal consultants.
• Although they are small in number, their importance in the structure of advanced economies is immense.

Outsourcing has led to many jobs in this sector moving to countries where cheap and skilled workers are available, such as India, China, and the Philippines. This creates jobs in the destination countries but can cause dissatisfaction among job-seekers in the countries that are outsourcing the work.

A new trend is Knowledge Processing Outsourcing (KPO). Unlike Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), KPO involves highly skilled workers and is focused on information-driven knowledge outsourcing, such as R&D, e-learning, and legal research.

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The opportunities created by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are not evenly distributed across the world. This gap is known as the digital divide.

• Developed countries have generally moved forward in providing ICT access to their citizens, while developing countries have lagged behind.
• A digital divide also exists within countries. For example, in a large country like India, metropolitan centres have much better connectivity and access to the digital world than remote rural areas.