Tourism
Tourism is
travel for
predominantly
recreational or
leisure
purposes or the provision of services to support this leisure travel. The
World Tourism Organization defines tourists as 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". Tourism
has become a popular global leisure activity. In 2006, there were over 842
million international tourist arrivals.[1]
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 in the
service industries associated with tourism. These service industries
include
transportation services such as cruise ships and taxis, accommodation such
as hotels, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues, and other
hospitality industry services such as spas and resorts.
Definition
One of the earliest definitions of tourism was provided by the Austrian
economist in 1910,
who defined it as, "some 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
1941, defined
tourism as "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel
and stay of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence
and are not connected with any earning activity."[2]
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.
The United Nations classified three forms of tourism in 1994 in its
Recommendations on Tourism Statistics: Domestic tourism, which involves
residents of the given country traveling only within this country; Inbound
tourism, involving non-residents traveling in the given country; and Outbound
tourism, involving residents traveling in another country.
The UN also derived different categories of tourism by combining the 3
basic forms of tourism: Internal tourism, which comprises domestic tourism and
inbound tourism; National tourism, which comprises domestic tourism and
outbound tourism; and International tourism, which consists of inbound tourism
and outbound tourism.
Intrabound tourism is a term coined by the
Korea Tourism Organization and widely accepted in Korea. Intrabound
tourism differs from domestic tourism in that the former encompasses
policymaking and implementation of national tourism policies.
Recently, the tourism industry has shifted from the promotion of inbound
tourism to the promotion of intrabound tourism because many countries are
experiencing tough competition for inbound tourists. Some national
policymakers have shifted their priority to the promotion of intrabound
tourism to contribute to the local economy. Examples of such campaigns include
"See America" in the
United States, "Get Going Canada" in
Canada, and "Guseok
Guseok" (corner to corner) in
South
Korea.
Before people are able to experience tourism they usually need
disposable income (i.e. money to spend on non-essentials); time off from
work or other responsibilities; leisure time tourism
infrastructure, such as transport and accommodation; and legal clearance
to travel.
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
(notably established
Communist states) 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 traveled 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.
Pilgrimage
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
(the term itself being derived from the 'holy day' and its associated leisure
activities). Pilgrimages created a variety of tourist aspects that still exist
- bringing back souvenirs, obtaining credit with foreign banks (in medieval
times utilising international networks established by Jews and Lombards), and
making use of space available on existing forms of transport (such as the use
of medieval English wine ships bound for Vigo by pilgrims to Santiago De
Compostela). Pilgrimages 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
Père Lachaise Cemetery.
During the seventeenth 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. A 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
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. The most popular resorts were
Bath,
Cheltenham,
Buxton,
Harrogate, and
Tunbridge Wells. Visits to take 'the waters' also allowed the visitors to
attend
balls
and other entertainments. Continental Spas such as Carlsbad (Karlovy
Vary) 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 (later
George IV),
who frequented
Brighton
for this purpose.
Leisure travel
Leisure travel was associated with the
industrialisation of
United Kingdom – the first European country to promote leisure time to the
increasing industrial population. Initially, this applied 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.
Later, the
working class could take advantage of leisure time.
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 (Valais),
and St
Moritz in 1864.
The first
packaged winter sports holidays took place in
1902 at
Adelboden,
Switzerland. Winter sports were a natural answer for a leisured class looking
for amusement during the coldest season.
The Fun Ski & Snow Festival, which has been organized annually by
Korea tourism organization since 1998 and participated by about 10,000
tourists from Asia, is one of the most successful winter tourism products in
Asia. The festival provides a variety of events such as ski and sled
competitions, ski and snow board lessons, performances and recreational
activities. Majority of the event participants are foreign visitors who come
from countries with a warm climate that have no snow. The event offers them
opportunities to enjoy winter and winter sports in Korea. In addition,
southern South American countries making up the
Patagonia
region in Chile
and
Argentina attract thousands of tourists every year. Skiing is extremely
popular in the mountainous areas.
Mass tourism
Mass travel could only develop with 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.
In the
United States, the first great seaside resort, in the European style, was
Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Long Island.
In Continental Europe, early resorts included
Ostend (for
the people of
Brussels), and
Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais)
and
Deauville (Calvados)
(for Parisians).
In Britain
The pioneer 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 (particularly in Scotland) and on the
European continent (where Paris and the Alps were the most popular
destinations).
He was soon followed by others (the
Polytechnic
Touring Association, Dean and Dawson etc.), 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 Holidays Act 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 focused 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 (30% of the population in families with paid holidays)
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; alternative forms of tourism such as
ecotourism seek to avoid such outcomes by pursuing tourism in a
sustainable way.
International
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 (1952),
Lourdes
(1953),
Costa Brava (1954),
Sardinia
(1954), Minorca
(1955), Porto
(1956),
Costa
Blanca (1957) and
Costa del Sol (1959).
These developments coincided with a significant increase in the standard of
living in Britain. Further, the contribution of affordable
air
travel in combination with the package tour enabled international mass tourism
to develop. 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 operator 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!
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,
Turkey, and more recently
Croatia.
For someone 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, Merseyside have disappeared. Others have reinvented
themselves, and now cater to daytrippers, the weekend break market or business
conferences.
Recent developments
There has been an upmarket trend in the tourism over the last few decades,
especially in Europe where international travel for short breaks is common.
Tourists have higher levels of disposable income and greater leisure time and
they are also better-educated and have more sophisticated tastes. There is now
a demand for a better quality products, which has resulted in a fragmenting of
the mass market for beach vacations; people want more specialised versions,
such as 'Club 18 -30', quieter resorts, family-oriented holidays, or niche
market-targeted
destination hotels. As well, people are taking second short break
holidays.
The developments in technology and transport infrastructure such as jumbo
jets and low-budget airlines have made many types of tourism more affordable.
There have also been changes in lifestyle, such as retiree-age people who
living as a tourist all the year round. 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 beach resorts
of 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. Spain's Costa Brava, a popular 1960s and
1970s beach location is now facing a crisis in its tourist industry. 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.
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.
Sustainable tourism is becoming more popular as people start to realize the
devastating effects poorly planned 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.
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