What is tourism?

Tourism is the act of travel for mostly recreational or leisure purposes, and also refers to the services provided in support of this act.

The term tourist and tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the League of Nations. Tourism was defined as travelling abroad for periods of over 24 hours. The term tourist was best defined by the World Tourism Organization. According to it tourists are people who “travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for leisure, business and other purposes…”

Nowadays tourism is a service industry and has numerous tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other components of a hospitality industry. Main part of intangible elements refer 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 in one’s spare time and have an adventure.

The industry encompasses two areas: outbound and inbound tourism.

Outbound tourism is what nearly every person is most familiar with. It involves travelling of people from their home city/ village to other provinces, territories or countries. For example, going to Hawaii is considered outbound tourism. At the same time, every country competes in a global market to attract tourists from Europe, Japan, the United States and plenty of other countries. In addition, each province and territory implements marketing campaigns aimed at attracting travellers from within its country to these areas. The tourists coming to your area from other places are called inbound tourists.

Tourism is vital for many countries because tourism dollars help to support the economy. Through taxes, for example, this money helps to develop and maintain countries’ infrastructure (highway and bridges), their education and health care system, and other initiatives for which government spend money. Some tourism dollars are used to help support and protect culture, art and heritage of a country. Many people are supported directly by tourism, but many more gain indirectly from the dollars spent.

Tourism has become an extremely popular, large-scale activity. The role of tourism in the world economy started to grow very quickly. According to the World Tourism Organization review of 171 countries tourism profits were worth $6.48 trillion in 2006 and there is no end in sight. Tourism is expected to become the world economy leader by 2010. That is why every country should be aware of its power and give it due attention.

Phonetic Exercises

III. Mind the letters a + r and a + re pronunciation:

a+r - [ά:]	a+re - [εә]
art	area
part	care
marketing	aware
start	spare
large	parents

IV. Read the following sentences:

• Be aware of his care!

• Mark started marketing campaigns.

• A large part of this area is mine.

• His parents take care of park gardens every spare moment.