Tourism is so difficult to define because, universally, industries cannot come to an overall agreement. Some argue that tourism is simple just spending a period of time away from a persons usual home and workplace. During this time taking part in activities that could be for pleasure, relaxation or recreation. However, even though tourism consists of these very few things, it can over lap with other categories, for example, individuals travel for business reasons, sports reasons, leisure reasons and sometimes even medical reasons. Tourism has become, internationally, one of the most important economic activities. Tourism is also organised with much other infrastructure. Alternatively, there can be differing explanations. Some sources highlight the importance of the use of hotels, restaurants and transport (all known as physical infrastructure) for something to be considered tourism. According to some, the ‘tourism’ industry will provide indirect jobs and activities, for example, tourists need to eat food at places like restaurants, so this provides transport companies with jobs/tasks. Due to the large scale of indirect jobs and tasks linked to tourism, it gives us difficulty defining tourism in one particular way. There are many categories that tourism can be divided into, for example, we have; inbound tourism, outbound tourism,, niche tourism, mass tourism and domestic tourism. Tourism is actually “a phenomenon with no universally accepted definition”. However, there is a widely used definition implemented by the World Trade Organisation, “in order to qualify as a tourist one must travel and remain in a place outside of their usual residential environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or other purposes”.
overall, this puts into perspective how the definition of tourism cannot reach a final conclusion, some consider the infrastructure, some consider the indirect contribution and some simply just consider the simple movement of an individual from their place of home/work to another destination.
Tourism (2024) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/tourism (Accessed: 03 October 2024).
Stainton, H. (2023) What is tourism? A definition of tourism. Tourism Teacher. Available at: https://tourismteacher.com/definition-of-tourism/ (Accessed: 03 October 2024).