Ø
Definition of
Tourism
Tourism is classically regarded as traveling for recreation although this
definition has been expanded in recent years to include any travel outside of
one's normal working or living area.
The
tourist originated when large numbers of middle
class people began to join
aristocratic travelers. As societies became wealthier, and people lived longer,
it became not only possible but probable that lower-middle and middle class
people steadily employed would retire in good health and with some significant
savings.
The
tourist is usually interested (among other things) in the destination's climate, culture or its nature. Wealthy people have always traveled to distant parts of
the world, not incidentally to some other purpose, but as an end in itself: to
see great buildings or other works of art; to learn new languages; or to taste
new cuisines.
Organized
tourism is now a major industry around the world. Many national economies are now
heavily reliant on tourism.
The term
tourism is sometimes used pejoratively, implying a shallow interest in the
societies and natural wonders that the tourist visits.
Ø
History of Tourism
The words tourist and tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the League
of Nations but
the tourism industry is much older than that. It was defined as people
travelling abroad for periods of over 24 hrs, but the term may also include
travelling within one's own country, and in a broader sense it can include
daytrips.
King
George III is widely
acknowledged as the first "tourist", who took regular holidays to the seaside town of Weymouth when in poor health.
"Tourism", like any
other form of economic activity, occurs when the essential parameters come
together to make it happen. In this case there are three such parameters:
- Disposable
income,
i.e. money to spend on non-essentials
- Time in which to do so.
- Infrastructure in the form of accommodation
facilities and means of transport.
Individually, sufficient health is also a condition, and of course the
inclination to travel. Furthermore, in some countries there are or have been
legal restrictions on travelling, especially abroad.
The word tour gained common acceptance in the
eighteenth century, when the Grand Tour of Europe became part of the upbringing
of the educated and wealthy British nobleman or cultured gentleman. Grand tours
were taken in particular by young people to "complete" their
education. They travelled all overEurope, but notably
to places of cultural and aesthetic interest, such as Rome, Tuscany and the Alps.
Most major British artists of
the eighteenth century did the "Grand Tour", as did their great
European contemporaries such as Claude
Lorrain. Classical architecture, literature and art have always drawn
visitors to Rome, Naples, Florence.
The Romantic movement (inspired
throughout Europe by the English poets William
Blake and Lord Byron,
among others), extended this to gothick countryside, the Alps, fast flowing
rivers, mountain gorges, etc.
The British Aristocracy were
particularly keen on the Grand Tour, using the occasion to gather art treasures
from all over Europe to add to their collections. The volume of art treasures
being moved to Britain in this way was unequalled anywhere else in Europe, and
explains the richness of many private and public collections in Britain today.
Yet tourism in those days, aimed essentially at the very top of the social
ladder and at the well educated, was fundamentally a cultural activity. These
first tourists, though undertaking their Grand Tour, were more travellers than
tourists.
Tourism in the modern sense of
the word did not develop until the nineteenth century; that was leisure travel,
which today forms the larger part of the tourist industry.
Again the leisure industry was a
British invention, for sociological reasons. Britain was the first European
country to industrialize, and the industrial society was the first society to offer
time for leisure to a growing number of people. Not initially the working
masses, but the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy,
the factory owners, the traders, the new middle class.
Leisure travel had developed as
an offshoot of cultural
tourism, partly as health
tourism. Some English travellers, after visiting the warm lands of the
South of Europe, decided to stay there either for the cold season or for the
rest of their lives, but this was a very minor development.
It was not until the nineteenth
century that leisure tourism
really began to develop, as people began to "winter" in warmer
climates, or to visit places with health-giving mineral
waters, in order to relieve a whole variety of diseases from gout to liver
disorders and bronchitis.
The British origin of this new
industry is reflected in many place names: At Nice, one of the first and most
well established holiday resorts on the FrenchRiviera, the
long esplanade along the sea front is known to this day as the Promenade des Anglais; and in
many other historic resorts in continental
Europe, old well-established palace hotels have names like the Hotel Bristol, Hotel Carlton or Hotel
Majestic - reflecting the
dominance of English customers to whom these resorts catered in the early
years.
Even winter sports,
as a leisure activity rather than as a means of transport, were largely
invented by the British leisured classes. It was English tourists who invented
winter sports at the Swiss village of Zermatt (Valais).
Until the first tourists
appeared, the villagers of Zermatt just thought of the long snowy winter as
being a time when the best thing to do was to stay indoors and make cuckoo
clocks or other small mechanical items.
Organized sport was already well
established in Britain long before it reached other countries. The vocabulary
of sport bears witness to this: rugby, football, and boxing are all British sports, and even Tennis,
originally a French sport, was formalized and codified by the British, who
invented the first national championship in the nineteenth century, at Wimbledon.
Winter sports were a natural answer for a leisured class looking for amusement
during the coldest season.
Mass tourism did not really begin to develop,
however, until two things had occurred.
a) improvements in communications allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
b) greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time. The biggest development of all was the invention of the railways, which brought many of Britain's seaside towns within easy distance of Britain's large urban centres.
a) improvements in communications allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
b) greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time. The biggest development of all was the invention of the railways, which brought many of Britain's seaside towns within easy distance of Britain's large urban centres.
The father of modern mass tourism
was Thomas Cook who, on July 5, 1841, organised
the first package tour in history, by chartering a train to take a group of teetotalers from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough,
some twenty miles away. Cook immediately saw the potential for business
development in the sector, and became the world's first tour operator.
He was soon followed by others,
with the result that the tourist industry developed rapidly in early Victorian
Britain. Initially it was supported by the growing middle classes, who had time
off from their work, and who could afford the luxury of travel and possibly
even staying for periods of time in boarding
houses.
However, the Bank Holiday Act of 1871 introduced, for the first time, a
statutory right for workers to take holidays, even if they were not paid at the
time.
The combination of short holiday
periods, travel facilities and distances meant that the first holiday resorts
to develop in Britain were towns on the seaside, situated as close as possible
to the growing industrial connurbations. For those in the industrial north,
there were Blackpool in Lancashire,
and Scarboroughin
(Yorkshire).
For those in the Midlands,
there were Weston-super-Mare in Somerset and Skegness in Lincolnshire,
for those in London there wereSouthend-on-Sea,
Broadstairs, Brighton,
Eastbourne, and a whole collection of other lesser known places. But for a
century, tourism remained a national industry, with foreign travel being
reserved, as before, for the rich or the culturally curious. A minority of
resorts, such as Bath, Harrogate and Matlock, emerged inland, a trend boosted
by the emergence of the Dutch company Centre Parcs.
Similar processes occurred in
other countries, though at a slower rate, given that nineteenth century Britain
was far ahead of any other nation in the world in the process of
industrialisation. Billy Butlin developed low-cost holiday camps with
chalet-style budget accommodation and mass catering near many attractive
beaches. Other companies, such as Pontins followed his example, but their
popularity waned with the rise of package tours and the increasing comforts to
which visitors became accustomed at home.
In the USA, the first great
seaside resort, in the European style, was Atlantic
City, New Jersey.
In Continental Europe, early
resorts included Ostend (for the people of Brussels),
and Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais)
and Deauville (Calvados)
(forParisians).
Even so, increasing speed on
railways meant that the tourist industry could develop slowly, even
internationally. By 1901, the number
of people crossing theEnglish
Channel from England to France or Belgium had already passed 0.5 million per
year.
Other phenomena that helped
develop the travel industry were paid holidays:
- 1.5
million manual workers in Britain had paid holidays by 1925
- 11
million by 1939 (30% of the population in
families with paid holidays)
What the railway did for
domestic tourism in the nineteenth century, the airliner and the package tour have done for
international tourism since 1963. For the worker living in greater London, Brindisi today is almost as accessible as Brighton
was 100 years ago.
Tourism has become a
multi-billion pound international industry, and one that is growing in
developed countries (source countries) at a rate considerably faster than
annual growth levels.
Receptive tourism is also
growing at a very rapid rate in many developing countries, where it is often
the most important economic activity in local GDP.
Mass tourism has been stagnating
and declining in recent years. The Costa
del Sol and the Baleares,
which attracted millions of tourists annually during the1980s and 1990s, and other
resorts such as Cancun have seen declining tourist numbers as
they have become seen as untidy or ugly or simply lacking in kudos due to their
past popularity. The mass tourist economy has also been hit badly by terrorism,
with specific attacks on destinations such as Bali andKenya. For the
past few decades other forms of tourism have been becoming more popular,
particularly:
- Ecotourism:
Sustainable tourism which has minimal impact on the environment, such as safaris (Kenya) and Rainforests (Belize), or
National Parks.
- Cultural tourism: Usually urban tourism, visiting historical
or interesting cities, such as London, Paris, Prague, Rome, New York etc.
- Heritage tourism: Visiting
historical or industrial sites, such as old canals, railways,
battlegrounds etc.
- Health tourism: Usually to escape from cities or relieve
stress, often to "health spas".
- Sport tourism:
Particularly skiing.
In recent years, second holidays
or vacations have been becoming more popular as people have more disposible
income. Typical combinations are a package to the typical mass tourist resort,
with a winter skiing vacation or weekend break to a city or national park.
Ø Benefits of Tourism
The key
benefits of tourism are economic, socio-cultural and environmental.
·
Economic benefits - Tourism can provide direct jobs to
the community, such as tour guides or hotel housekeeping. Indirect employment
is generated through other industries such as agriculture, food production, and
retail.
Visitors' expenditure generates income for the local community and can
lead to the alleviation of poverty in countries which are heavily reliant on
tourism.
Economic diversification is important to areas where there may be a
concentration of environmentally damaging industries such as mining or
manufacturing.
Infrastructure development such as airports, roads, schools, hospitals,
and retail areas have the potential to benefit the local community and can aid
economic development by allowing more trade and better flow of goods and
services.
·
Social benefits - Tourism can bring about a real sense
of pride and identity to communities. By showcasing distinct characteristics of
their ways of life, history and culture, tourism can encourage the preservation
of traditions which may be at risk of
·
Environmental benefits - Tourism provides financial support
for the conservation of ecosystems and natural resource management, making the
destination more authentic and desirable to visitors. It also adds more value
to the local tourism business.
Ø Negative Impacts of Tourism
Many of the
negative impacts from tourism occur when the amount of visitors is greater than
the environment's ability to cope with the visitor volume.
Some of the
consequences of exceeding the environmental capacity include strain on already
scarce resources such as water, energy, food and natural habitat areas. In
addition, unchecked tourism development may lead to soil erosion, increased
pollution and waste, discharges into the sea and waterways, increased pressure
on endangered species of animals and plants, and heightened vulnerability to
deforestation, as well as loss of biodiversity.
The same way
that tourism can encourage the preservation of socio-cultural authenticity of
host communities, mass tourism may also erode traditional values by introducing
foreign elements which are in conflict with the cultural, historical, and
religious heritage of the community.
The tourism
paradox therefore, lies in the tension between our desire to travel the world,
and the need to provide the most benefits with the least harm. Many well intentioned
people in the public and private sector are hard at work looking for solutions
that will provide viable, long-term socio-economic benefits for tourist areas.
Building a
culture of sustainability will however, take time and you, the traveler, can
become part of the solution.
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