ISSUES IN TRAVEL

Issues in Travel



Issues in Travel

Tourism

Tourism is defined as travel to a place outside the usual residential environment, involving a stay of at least one night but no more than 1 year, with varying motivations, such as business, pleasure, visits to friends and relatives (VFR), and education. It is one of the world's largest industries. Tourism has long been of interest to geographers, given its spatial, temporal, and activity patterns and given its major economic and environmental impacts, ranging from the local to the global. Tourism can benefit the discipline of geography. Tourism geography education can increase course enrolments and majors in departments that develop tourism majors or concentrations. It can raise the discipline's visibility as geographers bring content on sustainability, cultures, heritage, and Geo spatial analysis to interdisciplinary tourism and hospitality programs.

Tourism as an Industry

Tourism is seen as a "system" which is geographically bounded and consists of both the industry facets and the consumption experience of travel (Cooper, 1995). The concept of tourism as an industry represents the supply side view of what tourism is, and it concerns with what business entities should be included in, or excluded from, the tourism industry. Although many commentators argue that tourism should not be considered an industry, it is contended by Smith (1988) that a supply-side view is needed in order to signify the economic value and thus, to gain the recognition of the society, of tourism. From a planning and development perspective, Gunn (1994, p. 5) defines tourism as "an agglomeration of land development and programs designed to meet the needs of travellers," which consists of a variety of business and non-business sectors.

Tourism is the aggregate of all businesses that directly provide goods or services to facilitate business, pleasure, and leisure activities away from the home environment (Beaver, 2002). According to Smith, there are three important aspects of tourism explained by this definition: 1) tourism is a retail-service industry with businesses that completely or partially involved in serving travellers; 2) the motivations of a traveller are not important. That is, the status of a business, as part of the tourism industry, does not depend upon whether the traveller consumes the product for leisure or business purposes, as long as the traveller in a definable way; and, 3) the concept of "home environment" is open for interpretation and further rationalization depending upon practical purposes. Although it recognizes the nature of the goods in terms of making the trip more successful, easier, or enjoyable, this definition largely downplays the demand-side with the intention to emphasize the contributions of tourism to the destination's economy.

Impact of Change on Tourism

Economic factors

In place of the industrial era in which the basic value was material wealth, comes a post-industrial era, where the primary goal is to experience and feel, and this is where tourism development globally took place. Important factors influencing the development of tourism include development of transport and communications, increasing mobility, urbanization, reduction of working time, the growth of social wealth (Wilkerson, Chad, ...