What is tourism?

Tourism  is what people do when they visit a place outside their usual environment. By some accounts, tourism is the world’s biggest industry. According to The World Tourism Organization, it employs up to 10% of the world's workforce. But what e xactly is this phenomenon we call tourism? Simply put :   «T ourism is what people do when they visit a place outside their usual environment. »   I t is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon that is steadily getting more attention in international research communities. As a field of study, it is concerned with the following key questions: Who? (t ravels) W here? Why? When? H ow?   As with most topics of interest, there are many ways of defining tourism, however, and various definitions have been put forward to serve various purposes. But one thing everyone agrees to is that tourism has to do with travel - i.e. movement between relatively distant locations. But not all forms of travel are considered tourism, so one of th
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What is tourism?

What is Tourism
What is tourism?

Tourism is what people do when they visit a place outside their usual environment. As a field of study, it is concerned with the questions of: Who travels where, how, why and when?

 More specifically, it can be said that tourism is a form of travel that meets certain spatial, temporal and motivational criteria:

 Spatial: The trip must extend outside the traveler’s usual environment.
Temporal: The duration of the trip must be less than one year.
Motivational: The main purpose of the trip must not be to seek permanent employment.

 Travelers who meet these criteria are called tourists.

Travel (of which tourism may be considered a sub-category) includes all movement of people between geographical locations for any duration and for any purpose.

Note that the definition of tourism excludes:
  • Routine travel close to home (e.g. commuters)
  •  Long-term travel (e.g. migrants, refugees, nomads)

For various reasons the following groups are also considered travellers but not tourists: diplomats, deployed military personnel, and stopovers who do not clear customs.