Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
• Destinations are visited for purposes other than taking up permanent residence or
employment remunerated from within the places visited (Burkart and Medlik
1981:42).
Furthermore, Burkart and Medlik's (1981) definition of tourism as a concept is
invaluable because it rightly recognises that much tourism is a leisure activity which
involves a discretionary use of time and money, and recreation is often the main purpose
for participation in tourism. But this is no reason for restricting the total concept in this
way and the essential characteristics of tourism can best be interpreted to embrace a
wider concept. All tourism includes some travel but not all travel is tourism, while the
temporary and short-term nature of most tourist trips distinguishes it from migration.
Therefore, from the broad interpretation of tourism, it is possible to consider the technical
definitions of tourism (also see Leiper (1990) for a further discussion, together with
Medlik (1993) and Hall (1995) for a concise set of definitions).
TECHNICAL DEFINITIONS OF TOURISM
Technical definitions of tourism are commonly used by organisations seeking to define
the population to be measured, and there are three principal features which normally have
to be defined (see Bar On 1984 for a detailed discussion):
• Purpose of travel (e.g. the type of traveller, be it business travel, holidaymakers, visits
to friends and relatives or for other reasons).
• The time dimension involved in the tourism visit, which requires a minimum and a
maximum period of time spent away from the home area and the time spent at the
destination. In most cases, this would involve a minimum stay of more than 24 hours
away from home and less than a year as a maximum.
• Those situations where tourists may or may not be included as tourists, such as cruise
passengers, those tourists in transit at a particular point of embarkation/departure and
excursionists who stay less than 24 hours at a destination (e.g. the European duty-free
cross-channel daytrip market).
Among the most recent attempts to recommend appropriate definitions of tourism was the
World Tourism Organisation International Conference of Travel and Tourism in Ottawa
in 1991, which reviewed, expanded and developed technical definitions, where tourism
comprises 'the activities of a person travelling outside his or her usual environment for
less than a specified period of time and whose main purpose of travel is other than
exercise of an activity remunerated from the place visited', where 'usual environment' is
intended to exclude trips within the areas of usual residence and also frequent and regular
trips between the domicile and the workplace and other community trips of a routine
character, where 'less than a specified period of time' is intended to exclude long-term
migration, and 'exercise of an activity remunerated from the place visited' is intended to
exclude only migration for temporary work. The following definitions were developed by
the WTO:
• International tourism: consists of inbound tourism.
