Tourism

An understanding of the definition of tourism is important at a variety of practical and theoretical levels. However, with respect to tourism policy and planning the definition of tourism helps distinguish not only what we study but also how we analyse and govern it.

Of significance to all definitions of tourism are concepts of space (i.e. travel away from a ‘home’ location or region) and time (i.e. the time spent away from a home location). Yet because of the capacities of people to travel further and faster as a result of improvements in technology, changes in accessibility and increases in personal wealth, the boundaries that are selected as determinants of what constitutes short-term travel are increasingly fluid. For example, in order to improve the collection of statistics and improve understanding of tourism, the United Nations and the World Tourism Organization (WTO) recommended differentiating between visitors, tourists and excursionists (daytrippers). The WTO (1991) recommended that an international tourist be defined as;

a visitor who travels to a country other than that in which he/she has his/her usual residence for at least one night but not more than one year, and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the country visited.

and that an international excursionist (e.g. cruise ship visitors) is defined as

a visitor residing in a country who travels the same day to a country other than that in which he/she has his/her usual environment for less than 24 hours without spending the night in the country visited and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the country visited.