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 terms 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 (highways and bridges), their education and health care systems, and other initiatives for which governments 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.

From the history of tourism

The earliest forms of leisure tourism can be traced as far back as the Babylonian and Egyptian empires. A museum of “historic antiquities” was open to the public in the sixth century BC in Babylon, while the Egyptians held many religious festivals attracting not only the believers, but also those who came to see famous buildings and works of art in the cities. The local towns accommodated tourists by providing services such as: vendors of food and drink, guides, hawkers of souvenirs and touts.

From around the same date, Greek tourists travelled to visit the sites of healing gods. Most of these tourists travelled by water as the independent city-states of ancient Greece had no central ruler to order the construction of roads, thus seaports prospered.

The lands of the Mediterranean Sea produced a remarkable evolution in travel. People travelled for trade, commerce, religious purposes, festivals, medical treatment, or education developed at an early date.

However, international travel became first important under Romans’ rule. With no foreign borders between England and Syria, and with the seas safe from piracy (due to the Roman patrols), conditions favouring travel arrived. Roman coinage was acceptable everywhere, and Latin was the common language. Romans travelled to Sicily, Greece, Rhodes, and Troy, Egypt and from the third century AD, to the Holy Land.