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 are the 5 phases of a trip?

Trip Phases
Trip Phases

Most trips for tourism purposes may be divided into five distinct phases as illustrated in the model above:

1.     Before: The time leading up to departure from the traveler’s home.

2.     To: The time between departure from the traveler’s home and arrival at the destination.

3.     At: The time spent at the destination.

4.     From: The time between departure from the destination and return to the traveler’s home.

5.     After: The time following return to the traveler’s home.

A trip may thus be described as a cycle starting with the before phase and ending with the after phase. Note that whereas the five trip phases describe periods of time, the terms departure and arrival describe specific points in time. Departure is the moment when a person leaves a place, and arrival is the moment when a person comes to a place. The term transit may be used to describe the time when a traveler is on the way to or from a destination. Return is used here to mean the moment of arrival back home, but the term is also sometimes used to include the entire homeward journey.

Trip Phases - Full
Trip Phases - Full

At some point the after stage of one trip flows over to the before stage of the next trip, and a new trip cycle begins. The before phase of one trip may overlap the previous trip cycle, however, in the sense that the anticipation and planning of one trip may begin already prior to the previous trip being completed. In the same vein, the after phase may overlap with the next trip cycle in the sense that the reflections and experiences of one trip will be carried over into the next. The departure from- and return to a person's home nevertheless mark clear boundaries between what should be considered two distinct trips.

The stippled line in the model above indicates that some trips include more than one destination, and in such cases traveling from one destination coincides with the traveling to another destination. The main trip cycle may thus consist of one or more minor trip cycles. These should be considered partial cycles, however, because the before and after phase will enclose the entire trip regardless of whether it involves one or more destinations.

Being able to distinguish between these phases is important for marketers because tourism consumers have different needs in the different phases. The tourist will need to make different types of decisions and deal with different types of tourism organizations according to where in the trip cycle he or she is. Different types of decisions means different information requirements. For instance, a person in the before phase who is trying to decide where to go on the next holiday will require different information from different information sources than a person in the at phase who is looking for the nearest restaurant to have lunch.

Insofar as tourism marketing is about satisfying the needs of travelers, it is essential to know what needs these travelers are likely to have when and where. Tourism companies therefore need to consider which phase their customers are in, and then be sure to meet them with the appropriate information in the appropriate communication channels at the appropriate time.

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