Encyclopedia
- For the Roxette album, see Tourism
- For the Saint Germain album, see Tourist
Tourism is the act of travel for predominantly
recreational or
leisure purposes, and also refers to the provision of services in support of this act. According to the
World Tourism Organization,
tourists are people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited". The distance between a place of origin and a tourism destination is immaterial to this definition. Tourism has become an extremely popular, global activity. In 2004, there were over 763 million international tourist arrivals.
As a
service industry, tourism has numerous tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include
transportation, accommodation, and other components of a hospitality industry. Major intangible elements relate to the purpose or motivation for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, the opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure.
Tourism is vital for many countries, due to the income generated by the consumption of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the opportunity for employment and economic advancement by working in the industry. For these reasons NGOs and government agencies may sometimes promote a specific region as a tourist destination, and support the development of a tourism industry in that area. The contemporary phenomenon of mass tourism may sometimes result in overdevelopment, however alternative forms of tourism such as ecotourism seek to avoid such outcomes by pursuing tourism in a sustainable way.
The terms
tourism and
travel are sometimes used interchangeably. In this context travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms
tourism and
tourist are sometimes used pejoratively to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited by tourists.
Definition, classification and prerequisites
One of the earliest definitions of tourism was provided by the Austrian economist Hermann Von Schullard in 1910, who defined it as, "sum total of operators, mainly of an economic nature, which directly relate to the entry, stay and movement of foreigners inside and outside a certain country, city or a region."
Hunziker and Krapf, in 1942, defined tourism as "the totality of the relationship and phenomenon arising from the travel and stay of strangers, provided that the stay does not imply the establishment of a permanent residence and is not connected with a remunerative activities".
In 1976 Tourism Society of England defined it as "Tourism is the temporary, short-term movement of people to destination outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during the stay at each destination. It includes movements for all purposes."
In 1981 International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined Tourism in terms of particular activities selected by choice and undertaken outside the home environment.
Tourism may be classified as follows:
- Inbound international tourism: Visits to a country by nonresident of that country
- Outbound international tourism: Visits by the residents of a country to another country
- Internal tourism: Visits by residents of a country to their own
- Domestic tourism: Inbound international tourism + internal tourism
- National tourism: Internal tourists + outbound international tourism
Before people are able to experience tourism they usually need at least:
- disposable income, i.e. money to spend on non-essentials
- leisure time
- tourism infrastructure, such as transport and accommodation
Individually, sufficient
health is also a condition, and of course the inclination to travel. Furthermore, in some countries there are legal restrictions on travelling, especially abroad. Certain states with strong governmental control over the lives of citizens may restrict foreign travel only to trustworthy citizens. The
United States prohibits its citizens from traveling to some countries, for example,
Cuba.
History
Wealthy people have always travelled to distant parts of the world to see great buildings or other works of art, to
learn new languages, to experience new cultures, or to taste new
cuisine. As long ago as the time of the
Roman Republic places such as
Baiae were popular coastal resorts for the rich.
The terms
tourist and
tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the
League of Nations. Tourism was defined as people travelling abroad for periods of over 24 hours.
Health tourism & leisure travel
The history of European tourism can perhaps be said to originate with the medieval
pilgrimage. Although undertaken primarily for religious reasons, the pilgrims in the
Canterbury Tales quite clearly saw the experience as a kind of
holiday . Pilgrimages created a variety of tourist aspects that still exist - bringing back souvenirs, obtaining credit with foreign banks , and making use of space available on existing forms of transport . Pilgrimages of one sort or another are still important in modern tourism - such as to
Lourdes or Knock in Ireland. But there are modern equivalents -
Graceland and the grave of
Jim Morrison in
Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
In the course of the sixteenth century, it became fashionable in England to undertake a
Grand Tour. The sons of the
nobility and gentry were sent upon an extended tour of Europe as an educational experience. The eighteenth century was the golden age of the Grand Tour, and many of the fashionable visitors were painted at Rome by
Pompeo Batoni. The modern equivalent of the Grand Tour is the phenomenon of the backpacker, although cultural holidays, such as those offered by Swann-Hellenic, are also important.
Health tourism has always existed, but it was not until the
eighteenth century that it became important. In England, it was associated with spas, places with supposedly health-giving
mineral waters, treating diseases from
gout to
liver disorders and bronchitis.
Bath was the most fashionable resort, but
Buxton, Harrogate, and
Tunbridge Wells, amongst others, also flourished. Of course, people visited these places for the balls and other entertainments, just as much as 'the waters'. Continental Spas such as Karlsbad attracted many fashionable travellers by the
nineteenth century.
It could be argued that Britain was the home of the seaside holiday. In travelling to the coast, the population was following in the steps of Royalty.
King George III made regular visits to
Weymouth when in poor health. At the time, a number of doctors argued the benefits of bathing in sea water, and sea bathing as a widespread practice was popularised by the Prince Regent , who frequented
Brighton for this purpose.
Some English travellers, after visiting the warm lands of the south of Europe, decided to stay there either for the cold season or for the rest of their lives.
Leisure travel was a
British invention due to
sociological factors. Britain was the first European country to
industrialize, and the industrial society was the first society to offer time for leisure to a growing number of people. Initially, this did not apply to the working masses, but rather to the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy, the factory owners, and the traders. These comprised the new
middle class.
Cox & Kings were the first official travel company to be formed in 1758.
The British origin of this new industry is reflected in many place names. At
Nice, one of the first and best-established holiday resorts on the
French Riviera, the long esplanade along the seafront is known to this day as the
Promenade des Anglais; in many other historic resorts in continental Europe, old well-established palace hotels have names like the
Hotel Bristol, the
Hotel Carlton or the
Hotel Majestic - reflecting the dominance of
English customers.
Winter tourism
Winter sports were largely invented by the British leisured classes, initially at the
Swiss village of
Zermatt , and
St Moritz in 1864.
The first packaged winter sports holidays followed in 1903, to
Adelboden, also in Switzerland.
Organized sport was well established in Britain before it reached other countries. The vocabulary of sport bears witness to this:
rugby,
football, and
boxing all originated in Britain, and even
Tennis, originally a French sport, was formalized and codified by the British, who hosted the first national championship in the nineteenth century, at
Wimbledon. Winter sports were a natural answer for a leisured class looking for amusement during the coldest season.
Mass travel
Mass travel could not really begin to develop until two things occurred.
- improvements in technology allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
- greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time.
The father of modern mass tourism was
Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, organized the first package tour in history. He arranged for the rail company to charge one
shilling per person for a group of 570 temperance campaigners from
Leicester to a rally in
Loughborough, eleven miles away. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price. There had been railway excursions before, but this one included entrance to an entertainment held in private grounds, rail tickets and food for the train journey. Cook immediately saw the potential of a convenient 'off the peg' holiday product in which everything was included in one cost. He organised packages inclusive of accommodation for the
Great Exhibition, and afterwards pioneered package holidays in both Britain and on the European continent .
He was soon followed by others , with the result that the tourist industry developed rapidly in late
Victorian Britain. Initially it was supported by the growing middle classes, who had time off from their work, and who could afford the luxury of travel and possibly even staying for periods of time in boarding houses.
The Bank Holiday Act of 1871 introduced a statutory right for workers to take holidays, even if they were not paid at the time. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the tradition of the working class holiday had become firmly established in Britain. These were largely focussed upon the seaside resorts.
The spread of the
railway network in the
nineteenth century resulted in the growth of Britain's
seaside towns by bringing them within easy distance of Britain's urban centres.
Blackpool was created by the construction of a line to Fleetwood, and some resorts were promoted by the railway companies themselves -
Morecambe by the
Midland Railway and
Cleethorpes by the Great Central Railway. Other resorts included
Scarborough in
Yorkshire, servicing Leeds and Bradford;
Weston-super-Mare in
Somerset, catering for the inhabitants of Bristol; and
Skegness, patronised by the residents of the industrial East Midlands. The cockneys of
London flocked to
Southend-on-Sea, mainly by
Thames Steamer, and the South Coast resorts such as Broadstairs,
Brighton, and
Eastbourne were only a train ride away, with others further afield such as
Bournemouth,
Bognor Regis and
Weymouth.
For a century, domestic tourism was the norm, with foreign travel being reserved for the rich or the culturally curious. A number of inland destinations, such as the
English Lake District, and
Snowdonia appealed to those who liked the countryside and fine scenery. The holiday camp began to appear in the 1930s, but this phenomenon really expanded in the post-war period. Butlins and Pontins set this trend, but their popularity waned with the rise of overseas package tours and the increasing comforts to which visitors became accustomed at home. Towards the end of the
20th century this market has been revived by the upmarket inland resorts of Dutch company
Center Parcs.
Cox & Co, the forebear of
Cox & Kings were in existence from 1758 largely entwined with the travel arrangements for the British Army serving around the Empire. While acting as 'agents' for various regiments, they organised the payment, provision, clothing and travel arrangements for members of the armed forces. In the 19th century their network of offices contained a banking and also travel department. The company became heavily involved with affairs in India and its Shipping Agency had offices in France and the Middle East.
Other phenomena that helped develop the travel industry were paid holidays:
- 1.5 million manual workers in Britain had paid holidays by 1925
- 11 million by 1939
Outside Britain
Similar processes occurred in other countries, though at a slower rate, given that nineteenth century Britain was ahead of any other nation in the world in the process of industrialization.
In the
USA, the first great seaside resort, in the European style, was
Atlantic City, New Jersey.
In Continental Europe, early resorts included
Ostend , and
Boulogne-sur-Mer and
Deauville .
International mass tourism
Increasing speed on railways meant that the tourist industry could develop internationally.
To this may be added the development of sea travel. By 1901, the number of people crossing the
English Channel from England to
France or
Belgium had passed 0.5 million per year. Shipping companies were anxious to fill cabin space that was under utilised. For example,
P&O found that the majority of their passengers for India and the Far East joined the ship at Marseilles. Consequently, they marketed holidays based upon sea trips from London to Lisbon and Gibraltar. Other companies diverted their older ships to operate
cruises in the summer months.
However, the real age of international mass travel began with the growth of air travel after World War Two. In the immediate post-war period, there was a surplus of transport aircraft, such as the popular and reliable
Douglas Dakota, and a number of ex military pilots ready to fly them. They were available for charter flights, and tour operators began to use them for European destinations, such as Paris and Ostend.
Vladimir Raitz pioneered modern package tourism when on 20 May 1950 his recently founded company, Horizon, provided arrangements for a two-week holiday in
Corsica. For an all inclusive price of £32.10s.-, holiday makers could sleep under canvas, sample local wines and eat a meal containing meat twice a day - this was especially attractive due to the continuing austerity measures in post-war United Kingdom. Within ten years, his company had started mass tourism to
Palma ,
Lourdes ,
Costa Brava ,
Sardinia ,
Minorca ,
Porto , Costa Blanca and
Costa del Sol .
However it was with cheap
air travel in combination with the package tour that international mass tourism developed.
The postwar introduction of an international system of airline regulation was another important factor. The bilateral agreements at the heart of the system fixed seat prices, and airlines could not fill blocks of empty seats on underused flights by discounting. But if they were purchased by a tour operater and hidden within the price of an inclusive holiday package, it would be difficult to prove that discounting had taken place - even though it was obvious that it had! This was the origin of the modern mass package tour.
These developments coincided with a significant increase in the standard of living in Britain. At the end of the 1950s,
Harold Macmillan could say "you've never had it so good."
Another significant development also happened at the end of this decade. The devaluation of the
Spanish peseta made
Spain appear a particularly attractive destination. The cheapness of the cost of living attracted increasing numbers of visitors. Mass package tourism has at times been an exploitative process, in which tour operators in a country with a high standard of living make use of development opportunities and low operating costs in a country with a lower standard of living. However, as witness the development of many tourist areas in previously poor parts of the world, and the concomitant rise in standards of living, when there is equality of bargaining power, both parties can gain economic benefits from this arrangement.
Spain and the
Balearic Islands became major tourist destinations, and development probably peaked in the 1980s. At the same time, British tour operators developed the
Algarve in
Portugal. The continuing search for new, cheaper, destinations spread mass tourism to the Greek Islands,
Italy,
Tunisia,
Morocco, parts of the coast of
Turkey, and more recently
Croatia.
For the worker living in greater
London,
Venice today is almost as accessible as
Brighton was 100 years ago. Consequently, the British seaside resort experienced a marked decline from the 1970s onwards. Some, such as New Brighton have disappeared. Others have reinvented themselves, and now cater to daytrippers and the weekend break market.
Recent developments
There has been a discernible upmarket trend in tourism over the last few decades, especially in Europe where international travel for short breaks is commonplace. Tourists have higher levels of disposable income and greater leisure time. They are also better educated and have more sophisticated tastes. There is now a demand for a better quality product in many quarters. This has resulted in the following trends:-
- The old 'sun, sea, and sand' mass market has fragmented. People want more specialised versions of it, such as 'Club 18 -30', quieter resorts with select hotels, self-catering, etc.
- People are taking second holidays in the form of short breaks/city breaks, ranging from British and European cities to country hotels.
- There has been a growth in niche markets catering for special interests or activities.
The developments in technology and transport infrastructure have placed some types of holiday in the affordable mainstream:-
- The development of a mass cruise holiday market.
- The advent of affordable holidays to long-haul destinations such as Thailand or Kenya.
- The phenomenon of the low budget airline, utilising a new generation of small regional airports.
There have also been changes in lifestyle, which may call into question the current definitions of tourism. Some people may be adopting a tourism lifestyle, living as a tourist all the year round - eating out several times a week, going to the theatre, daytripping, and indulging in short breaks several times a year.
Much of this results in impulse purchasing. This is facilitated by internet purchasing of tourism products. Some sites have now started to offer dynamic packaging, in which an inclusive price is quoted for a tailor- made package requested by the customer upon impulse.
There have been a few setbacks in tourism, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks and terrorist threats to tourist destinations such as Bali and European cities. Some of the tourist destinations, including the Costa del Sol, the Baleares and Cancún have lost popularity due to shifting tastes. In this context, the excessive building and environmental destruction often associated with traditional "sun and beach" tourism may contribute to a destination's saturation and subsequent decline. This appears to be the case with Spain's Costa Brava, a byword for this kind of tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. With only 11% of the Costa Brava now unblemished by low-quality development , the destination now faces a crisis in its tourist industry.
Sustainable tourism is becoming more popular as people start to realize the devastating effects tourism can have on communities.
Receptive tourism is now growing at a very rapid rate in many developing countries, where it is often the most important economic activity in local GDP.
In recent years, second holidays or vacations have become more popular as people's discretionary income increases. Typical combinations are a package to the typical mass tourist resort, with a winter skiing holiday or weekend break to a city or national park.
On December 26, 2004 a tsunami, caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake hit Asian countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and also the Maldives. Tens of thousands of lives were lost, and many tourists died. This, together with the vast clean-up operation in place, has stopped or severely hampered tourism to the area.
Special forms of tourism
For the past few decades other forms of tourism, also known as
niche tourism, have been becoming more popular, particularly:
- Adventure tourism: tourism involving travel in rugged regions, or adventurous sports such as mountaineering and hiking .
- Agritourism: farm based tourism, helping to support the local agricultural economy.
- Ancestry tourism: is the travel with the aim of tracing one's ancestry, visiting the birth places of these ancestors and sometimes getting to know distant family.
- Armchair tourism and virtual tourism: not travelling physically, but exploring the world through internet, books, TV, etc.
- Audio tourism: includes audio walking tours and other audio guided forms of tourism including museum audio guides and audio travel books.
- Bookstore Tourism is a grassroots effort to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination.
- Cultural tourism: includes urban tourism, visiting historical or interesting cities, such as Berlin, Kathmandu, Lahore, Lima, Buenos Aires
| [i] ||
AR-C ...
,
London,
Paris,
Delhi,
Rome,
Prague,
Dubrovnik,
Beijing,
Istanbul,
Kyoto,
Warsaw, and experiencing their cultural heritages. This type of tourism may also include specialized cultural experiences, such as art museum tourism where the tourist visits many art museums during the tour, or opera tourism where the tourist sees many operas or concerts during the tour.
- Dark tourism: is the travel to sites associated with death and suffering. The first tourist agency to specialise in this kind of tourism started with trips to Lakehurst, New Jersey, the scene of the Hindenburg airship disaster.
- Disaster tourism: travelling to a disaster scene not primarily for helping, but because it is interesting to see. It can be a problem if it hinders rescue, relief and repair work.
- Drug tourism: travel to a country to obtain or consume drugs, either legally or illegally.
- Ecotourism: sustainable tourism which has minimal impact on the environment, such as safaris , Rainforests and hiking , or national parks.
- Educational tourism: may involve travelling to an education institution, a wooded retreat or some other destination in order to take personal-interest classes, such as cooking classes with a famous chef or crafts classes.
- Extreme tourism tourism associated with high risk
- Gambling tourism, e.g. to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, California, Macau or Monte Carlo for the purpose of gambling at the casinos there.
- Garden tourism visiting botanical gardens famous places in the history of gardening, such as Versailles and the Taj Mahal.
- Heritage tourism: visiting historical or industrial sites, such as old canals, railways, battlegrounds, etc.
- Health tourism: usually to escape from cities or relieve stress, perhaps for some 'fun in the sun', etc. Often to Sanatoriums or "health spas".
- Hobby tourism: tourism alone or with groups to participate in hobby interests, to meet others with similar interests, or to experience something pertinent to the hobby. Examples might be garden tours, amateur radio DX-peditions, or square dance cruises.
- Inclusive tourism: tourism marketed to those with functional limits or disabilities. Referred to as "Tourism for All" in some regions. Destinations often employ Universal Design and Universal Destination Development principles.
- Medical tourism, e.g.:
- for what is illegal in one's own country, such as abortion or euthanasia
- for advanced care that is not available in one's own country
- in the case that there are long waiting lists in one's own country
- for use of free or cheap health care organisations
- Pop-culture tourism: tourism by those that visit a particular location after reading about it or seeing it in a film.
- Perpetual tourism: wealthy individuals always on vacation; some of them, for tax purposes, to avoid being resident in any country.
- Pilgrimage Tourism: pilgrimages to ancient holy places , religious sites such as mosques, shrines, etc.
- Sex tourism: travelling solely for the purpose of sexual activity, usually with prostitutes
- Solo Travel: travelling alone
- Sport travel: skiing, golf and scuba diving are popular ways to spend a vacation. This could also include travelling to a major international sporting event such as the FIFA World Cup or following a tour such as the Ashes.
- Space tourism: traveling in outer space or on spaceships.
- Vacilando is a special kind of wanderer for whom the process of travelling is more important than the destination.
- Wine tourism, the visiting of growing regions, vineyards, wineries, tasting rooms, wine festivals, and similar places or events for the purpose of consuming or purchasing wine.
Trends
The
World Tourism Organization forecasts that international tourism will continue growing at the average annual rate of 4 % . By 2020
Europe will remain the most popular destination, but its share will drop from 60 % in 1995 to 46 %. Long-haul will grow slightly faster than intraregional travel and by 2020 its share will increase from 18 % in 1995 to 24 %.
Since e-commerce has taken off on the internet, tourism products have become one of the most traded items on the net. Tourism products and services have been made available on the net at bargain prices through intermediaries. Tourism providers have started to sell their services through the Internet. This has put pressure on intermediaries from both the virtual and the traditional brick and mortar stores.
Space tourism is expected to "take off" in the first quarter of the 21st century, although compared with traditional destinations the number of tourists in orbit will remain low until technologies such as a
space elevator make space travel cheap.
Technological improvement is likely to make possible air-ship hotels, based either on
solar-powered airplanes or large dirigibles. Underwater hotels, such as Hydropolis, expected to open in
Dubai in 2006, will be built. On the ocean tourists will be welcomed by ever larger cruise ships and perhaps floating cities.
Some futurists expect that movable hotel "pods" will be created that could be temporarily erected anywhere on the planet, where building a permanent resort would be unacceptable politically, economically or environmentally.
See also
- Backpacking
- Hospitality Services
- Hotel
- List of popular tourist regions
- List of types of lodging
- Package holiday
- Passport
- Pilgrimage
- Resort town
- Tourism geography
- Tourism in literature
- Tour guide
