Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the United States, the de
nition of a person-trip is one person traveling 50 miles (one way) or more away from home,
or staying overnight regardless of distance. U.S. residents take over two billion person-trips a year
mostly by motor
—
vehicle on the nation's highways.
PhotocourtesyofTheAdirondackRegionalTourismCouncil.
4.
The host community.
Local people usually see tourism as a cultural and employment factor. Of
importance to the
, for example, is the effect of the interaction between large
numbers of international visitors and residents. This effect may be bene
cial or harmful,
or both.
host community
Thus, tourism can be de
ned as the processes, activities, and outcomes arising from the relationships
and the interactions among tourists, tourism suppliers, host governments, host communities, and
surrounding environments that are involved in the attracting and hosting of visitors. (See the Glossary for
de
nitions of tourist and excursionist.)
Tourism is a composite of activities, services, and industries that deliver a travel experience:
transportation, accommodations, eating and drinking establishments, shops, entertainment, activity
facilities, and other hospitality services available for individuals or groups that are traveling away from
home. It encompasses all providers of visitor and visitor-related services. Tourism is the entire world
industry of travel, hotels, transportation, and all other components, including promotion, that serve
the needs and wants of travelers. Finally, tourism is the sum total of tourist expenditures within the
borders of a nation or a political subdivision or a transportation-centered economic area of contiguous
states or nations. This economic concept also considers the income multiplier of these tourist
expenditures (discussed in Chapter 14).
One has only to consider the multidimensional aspects of tourism and its interactions with
other activities to understand why it is dif
cult to come up with a meaningful de
nition that will
be universally accepted. Each of the many de
nitions that have arisen is aimed at
fitting a
special situation and solving an immediate problem, and the lack of uniform de
nitions has hampered
the study of tourism as a discipline. Development of a
field depends on: (1) uniform de
nitions,
(2) description, (3) analysis, (4) prediction, and (5) control.
Modern tourism is a discipline that has only recently attracted the attention of scholars frommany
fields. The majority of studies have been conducted for special purposes and have used narrow
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