Tertiary and Quaternary Activities [UPSC Geography Notes]

The Tertiary Sector along with the Quaternary Sector has replaced most of the primary and secondary
employment as the basis for economic growth. Tertiary activities include both production and exchange,
whereas Quaternary activities involve the collection, production and dissemination of information or
even the production of information. In this article, you can learn all about tertiary and quaternary
activities. This is an important part of the UPSC exam Geography segment.

Tertiary Activities

Tertiary activities are related to the service sector. Most of the tertiary activities are performed by skilled
labour, professionally trained experts, and consultants. They provide their services in exchange for
payments. In a developed economy, the majority of workers are employed in the tertiary sector. Tertiary
activities involve the commercial output of services rather than the production of tangible goods. The
main difference between the secondary and tertiary sectors is that the expertise provided by services
relies more heavily on the specialised skills, experience and knowledge of the workers rather than on the
production techniques, machinery and factory processes.

Image Source: NCERT

Types of Tertiary Activities

Trade, transport, communication and services are some of the tertiary activities.
Trade and Commerce

Buying and selling of products are referred to as 'trade'. Towns and cities where these activities take
place are known as trading centres.

Trading centres are of two types:

1. Rural Marketing Centres - These are quasi-urban centres which serve nearby settlements. In such
centres, personal and professional services are not well developed. Most of these centres have
mandis (wholesale markets) and also retail areas.

Periodic markets in rural areas are weekly, biweekly markets organised at different time intervals where
people from the surrounding areas meet their temporally accumulated demand.

2. Urban Marketing Centres - These centres provide ordinary as well as specialised goods and
services needed by people. Services of educational institutions and professionals like doctors,
teachers, consultants, lawyers, etc. are available.

Retail Trading - It is the sale of goods directly to consumers.

Wholesale Trading - It involves bulk business through numerous intermediary merchants and supply
houses and not through retail stores. Most retail stores procure supplies from an intermediary source.

Get more NCERT Geography Notes in the linked article

Transport

● It is a service to carry people, materials and goods from one place to another. Speedy and
efficient transport systems are required to help in the production, distribution and consumption of
goods.
● Transport distance can be measured as-
○ Km distance - also called actual distance of route length.
○ Time distance - the time taken to travel on a particular route.
○ Cost distance - the expense of travelling on a route.
● Isochrone lines on a map join places which are equal in terms of time taken to reach them.
● Different places are linked together to form a transport network.
○ A network consists of nodes and links.
○ A node is the meeting point of two or more routes, a point of origin, a point of destination
or any sizable town along a route.
○ Every road that joins two nodes is called a link. A developed network consists of many
links which indicate that places are well connected.
 ● The larger the population, the higher the demand for transport. Transport services are also
affected by routes which depend on the location of cities, towns, villages, industrial centres and
raw materials, the pattern of trade between them, type of climate and funds available to
overcome obstacles along the length of the route.

Communication

● Traditionally, hands, animals, roads, boats, air and rail are used to deliver messages. These are
called lines of communication. Earlier, communication used to be dependent on transportation.
Today with the invention of mobile phones and satellites, communication has become
independent of transportation. Mobile phones have made communication direct and
instantaneous.
● Radio and television, also termed mass media, are means of communication which cater to vast
audiences around the world. Newspapers cover events in all parts of the world. The Internet has
revolutionised the global communications system.

Services

● Some services are provided to industry, some to people, and some to both industry and people.
Services like grocery, and laundry (low order services) are widespread and more common than
the services provided by consultants, physicians, and accountants which are regarded as high
order services.
● Many services have been regulated i.e., supervised or performed by the government or
companies like education, customer care, building and maintaining highways and bridges, etc.
Union and state legislation have established corporations to supervise and control services like
transport, telecommunication, energy and water supply.
● Primary health care, engineering, law and management are professional services. The location of
recreational and entertainment services depends on the market. Multiplexes and restaurants are
mostly located within or near the Central Business District (CBD), whereas golf courses are
located at a place where land costs are lower than in the CBD.
● Personal services are made available to people to help in their daily life e.g., domestic services of
housekeepers, cooks and gardeners. This section of workers is generally unorganised.
● In highly developed countries, a higher percentage of workers are employed in the service sector
than in less developed countries.
● Tourism -
○ Tourism is the world’s single largest tertiary activity in total registered jobs (250 million)
and total revenue (40% of the total GDP. Tourism encourages the growth of infrastructure
industries, retail trading and craft industries.
○ Some of the popular tourist destinations are the warmer regions around the Mediterranean
coast and the west coast of India. Other places which attract tourists include winter sports
 regions found mainly in mountainous areas, scenic landscapes, historic towns, national
parks, etc.
○ Demand and transport are the two important factors which affect tourism. Demand for
tourism has increased due to better living standards and increased leisure time. Efficient
transport system (better road systems and expansion in air transport) has also led to
increased tourism.
○ The climate, landscape, history and art, culture and economy of an area are the main
tourist attractions.
○ Medical tourism refers to people travelling abroad to obtain medical treatment. India has
become the leading country in medical tourism in the world. World-class hospitals in
metropolitan cities cater to patients all over the world. Medical tourism brings abundant
benefits to developing countries like India, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

Quaternary Activities

This segment of the service sector is knowledge oriented and involves specialised knowledge and
technical skills. The quaternary sector along with the tertiary sector has replaced most of the primary
and secondary employment as the basis for economic growth. Quaternary activities (like some of the
tertiary activities ) can be outsourced. They are not tied to resources, affected by the environment, or
necessarily localised by the market.

Quinary Activities

The highest level of policymakers or decision-makers performs quinary activities. These are referred to
as “gold collar” professionals. They create, rearrange and interpret new and existing ideas, use and
evaluate new technologies e.g., senior business executives, government officials, research scientists,
financial and legal consultants, etc.

Outsourcing or contracting out is giving work to an outside agency to improve efficiency and reduce
costs. Outsourcing which involves the transfer of work to overseas locations is called off-shoring. The
KPO ( Knowledge Processing Outsourcing) involves highly skilled workers. It involves research and
development activities, e-learning, Intellectual Property (IP) research, legal profession, etc.