Tourist destinations

Destinations can be cities, towns, natural regions, or even whole countries.

It is possible to classify destinations as natural and built. Natural destinations include seas, lakes, rivers, coasts, mountain ranges, deserts, and so on. Built destinations are cities, towns, and villages. A resort is a destination constructed to serve the needs of tourism.

There are mass-market destinations, upmarket destinations and niche market destinations.

Mass-market destinations like Benidorm in Spain receive millions of tourists every year. Upmarket destinations like the Seychelles offer greater quality at higher prices for fewer visitors. Destinations that only appeal to very specific groups of tourists are known as niche market destinations.

All destinations contain attractions. Natural attractions include forests, national parks, waterfalls, canyons, and so on. Built attractions like the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids are historical attractions. These are very different from purpose-built attractions like theme parks, because their original function was not tourism.

Some countries create more tourism than others. The main tourism generators in the world today are……………….The top destinations are currently……………

Transport in tourism

Transport is one of the sectors in the tourism industry. It is divided into

- land transport (trains, coaches, buses, trams, taxis, cars);

- water-borne transport (cruise ships, ferries, hydrofoils, hovercrafts, yachts, motorboats);

- air transport (planes, helicopters).

Air transport is the dominant form of travel to and from today’s tourist destinations. Air travel usually means a short-haul or long-haul flight. At some tourist destinations air transport may include short transfers or sightseeing trips by helicopter.

Trains provide transport to and from destination and also locally. They can also be a tourist attraction, as with the Orient Express from Paris to Venice.

Coaches provide international and inter-city transport.

Buses, trams, cars and taxis are local transport at the destination.

Modern cruise ships are floating hotels, and provide transport, accommodation, and attractions in a single place.

Ferries travel between countries, as with the cross-channel ferries from the UK to continental Europe, or between islands, as in Greece or the Philippines.

Hydrofoils travel at high speed above the surface of the water supported on skis, and hovercrafts travel on water and land by “floating” on a cushion of air.

Tourism transport can be scheduled or charter. Scheduled transport operates on a regular basis shown on a published timetable and following specific routes. Charter transport is planes, coaches, or trains that have been contracted to travel to a specific destination on a specific date.

Shuttle services are air or land connections between two points that leave as soon as the plane, coach, or bus is full, and do not follow a strict timetable. Most major hotels have shuttle buses to pick up guests from the local airport.