Tourism

Unit 1
 Elements of tourism
1. Pleasing weather
2. Scenic attractions
3. Historical and cultural factors.
4. Accessibility
5. Amenities
6. Accommodation
7. safety and security
8. Other factors
a. Guide/ escort facilities.
b. Basic medical facilities.
c. Electricity
d. Water
e. Communication system.
 NATURE OF TOURISM
• Tourism is a multi-facet activity. Rapid and continuous growth
has been the key-note of tourism. The present day, a traveler
comes from a wider social background and his tastes and
desires are much more varied and his leisure time is much more
restricted. Now a days people have started moving for exciting
and exotic activities of mountaineering, water skiing, under
water swimming, pony tracking, etc. to utilize their leisure time.
• They like riding, boating, shooting, etc. organised by large
private groups, constructing their own specially designed low-
priced accommodation and very often providing their own
entertainment and other services.
 Characteristics of tourism
Five main characteristics of tourism are:
1. Tourism arises from movement of people to, and their stay in, various
destinations.
2. Therefore there are two elements in all tourism: the journey to the
destination and the stay including activities at the destination.
3. The journey and the stay take place outside the usual place of residence
and work, so that tourism gives rise to activities, which are distinct from
those of the resident and the working population of the places, through
which the tourist travels and in which they stay.
4. The movement to destinations is of temporary, short-term character, with
the intention of returning to the usual environment within a few days, weeks
or months.  
5. Destinations are visited for purposes other than taking up permanent
residence or employment
 TYPOLOGY OF TOURISM

• travel for pleasure

• travel for business & education
• travel to religious places
 types of tourists
1. Explorer- They are very limited in numbers, looking for discovery of
new places & involvement with local people.
2. Elite- These are special individually tailored visits to exotic places.
3. Off-beat- The desire to get away from the crowds.
4. Unusual- The visit with peculiar objectives such as physical danger
or isolation.
5. Incipient mass- A steady flow travelling alone or in small organised
groups using some shared services.
6. Mass- The general packaged tour market leading to tourist enclaves
overseas.
7. Charter- Mass travel to relaxation destinations which incorporate as
many standardized western facilities as possible
 Tourism network

• A form of partnership involving different

interacting elements, which include tourists,
enterprises, institutions and the host
community.
 Basic approaches to the study of tourism

• 1. Institutional Approach The institutional approach to the study of tourism considers

the various intermediaries and institutions that perform tourism activities. It
emphasizes institutions such as the travel agency. This approach requires an
investigation of the organization, operating methods, problems, costs, and economic
place of travel agents who act on behalf of the customer, purchasing services from
airlines, rental car companies, hotels, and so on. An advantage of this approach is that
the U.S. Census Bureau conducts a survey every five years on selected services that
includes travel agents and lodging places, thus providing a database for further study.
• 2. Product Approach The product approach involves the study of various tourism
products and how they are produced, marketed, and consumed. For example, one
might study an airline seat—how it is created, the people who are engaged in buying
and selling it, how it is financed, how it is advertised, and so on. Repeating this
procedure for rental cars, hotel rooms, meals, and other tourist services gives a full
picture of the field. Unfortunately, the product approach tends to be too time-
consuming; it does not allow the student to grasp the fundamentals of tourism
quickly.
• 3. Historical Approach The historical approach is not widely used. It
involves an analysis of tourism activities and institutions from an
evolutionary angle. It searches for the cause of innovations, their
growth or decline, and shifts in interest. Because mass tourism is a
fairly recent phenomenon, this approach has limited usefulness.
• 4. Managerial Approach The managerial approach is firm-oriented
(microeconomic), focusing on the management activities necessary
to operate a tourist enterprise, such as planning, research, pricing,
advertising, control, and the like. It is a popular approach, using
insights gleaned from other approaches and disciplines. Although a
major focus of this book is managerial, readers will recognize that
other perspectives are also being used. Regardless of which approach
is used to study tourism, it is important to know the managerial
approach. Products change, institutions change, and society changes;
this means that managerial objectives and procedures must be
geared to change to meet shifts in the tourism environment.
• 5. Economic Approach Because of its importance to both domestic and world
economies, tourism has been examined closely by economists, who focus on
supply, demand, balance of payments, foreign exchange, employment,
expenditures, development, multipliers, and other economic factors. This
approach is useful in providing a framework for analyzing tourism and its
contributions to a country’s economy and economicdevelopment. The
disadvantage of the economic approach is that whereas tourism is an important
economic phenomenon, it has noneconomic impacts as well. The economic
approach does not usually pay adequate attention to the environmental, cultural,
psychological, sociological, and anthropological approaches. Tourism Economics is
a journal utilizing the economic approach.
• 6. Sociological Approach Tourism tends to be a social activity. Consequently, it has
attracted the attention of sociologists, who have studied the tourism behavior of
individuals and groups of people and the impact of tourism on society. This
approach examines social classes, habits, and customs of both hosts and guests.
The sociology of leisure is a relatively undeveloped field, but it shows promise of
progressing rapidly and becoming more widely used. As tourism continues to
make a massive impact on society, it will be studied more and more from a social
point of view.
• 7. Geographical Approach Geography is a wide-ranging discipline, so it is natural that
geographers should be interested in tourism and its spatial aspects. The geographer
specializes in the study of location, environment, climate, landscape, and economic
aspects. The geographer’s approach to tourism sheds light on the location of tourist
areas, the movements of people created by tourism locales, the changes that
tourism brings to the landscape in the form of tourism facilities, dispersion of
tourism development, physical planning, and economic, social, and cultural
problems. Because tourism touches geography at so many points, geographers have
investigated the area more thoroughly than have scholars in many other disciplines.
Because the geographers’ approach is so encompassing—dealing with land use,
economic aspects, demographic impacts, and cultural problems—a study of their
contributions is highly recommended. Recreational geography is a common course
title used by geographers studying this specialty. Because tourism, leisure, and
recreation are so closely related, it is necessary to search for literature under all
these titles to discover the contributions of various fields
• Interdisciplinary Approaches Tourism embraces virtually all aspects of our
society. We have cultural and heritage tourism, which calls for an
anthropological approach. Because people behave in different ways and travel
for different reasons, it is necessary to use a psychological approach to
determine the best way to promote and market tourism products. Because
tourists cross borders and require passports and visas from government
offices, and because most countries have government-operated tourism
development departments, we find that political institutions are involved and
are calling for a political science approach. Any industry that becomes an
economic giant affecting the lives of many people attracts the attention of
legislative bodies (along with that of the sociologists, geographers, economists,
and anthropologists), which create the laws, regulations,and legal environment
in which the tourist industry must operate; so we also have a legal approach.
The great importance of transportation suggests passenger transportation as
another approach. The fact simply is that tourism is so vast, so complex, and so
multifaceted that it is necessary to have a number of approaches to studying
the field, each geared to a somewhat different task or objective.