Tourism

Between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009 tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown (see Great Recession), and in consequence of the outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus.

[5] Globally, international tourism receipts (the travel item in the balance of payments) grew to US$1.03 trillion (€740 billion) in 2005, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 3.8% from 2010.

[15] In 1941, Hunziker and Kraft defined tourism as "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel and stay of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence and are not connected with any earning activity.

Adventure tourism is the most extreme of the categories and includes participation in activities and sports that require a level of skill or experience, risk, and physical exertion.

The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".

International tourism has significant impacts on the environment, exacerbated in part by the problems created by air travel but also by other issues, including wealthy tourists bringing lifestyles that stress local infrastructure, water and trash systems among others.

[39] Travel writers such as Fan Chengda (1126–1193) and Xu Xiake (1587–1641) incorporated a wealth of geographical and topographical information into their writing, while the 'daytrip essay' Record of Stone Bell Mountain by the noted poet and statesman Su Shi (1037–1101) presented a philosophical and moral argument as its central purpose.

[41] He travelled through territories of today's Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, where he admired the siege of Breda by Spanish forces, France, Switzerland to Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

Artists, writers, and travellers (such as Goethe) affirmed the supremacy of classic art of which Italy, France, and Greece provide excellent examples.

For these reasons, the Grand Tour's main destinations were to those centers, where upper-class students could find rare examples of classic art and history.

The New York Times recently described the Grand Tour in this way: Three hundred years ago, wealthy young Englishmen began taking a post-Oxbridge trek through France and Italy in search of art, culture and the roots of Western civilization.

A pioneer of the travel agency business, Thomas Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth.

With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles (18 km) away.

Furthermore, the focus of UNESCO in war zones is to ensure the protection of cultural heritage in order to maintain this future important economic basis for the local population.

[73] Major ski resorts are located mostly in the various European countries (e.g. Andorra, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey), Canada, the United States (e.g. Montana, Utah, Colorado, California, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York) Argentina, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Chile, and Lebanon.

The developments in air transport infrastructure, such as jumbo jets, low-cost airlines, and more accessible airports have made many types of tourism more affordable.

[74] Individual low-price or even zero-price overnight stays have become more popular in the 2000s, especially with a strong growth in the hostel market and services like CouchSurfing and airbnb being established.

[77] Sustainable tourism should embrace concerns for environmental protection, social equity, and the quality of life, cultural diversity, and a dynamic, viable economy delivering jobs and prosperity for all.

It helps educate the traveller; provides funds for conservation; directly benefits the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, and fosters respect for different cultures and for human rights.

These were the first large scale voluntary sending organisations, initially arising to modernise less economically developed countries, which it was hoped would curb the influence of communism.

[91] Increasingly, organisations such as VSO have been concerned with community-centric volunteer programmes where power to control the future of the community is in the hands of local people.

In general, studies have primarily focused on the short-term effects of the crisis on tourism demand, often overlooking the long-term implications for the competitive positioning of the impacted destinations.

Its European roots date back to the time of the Grand Tour, which saw the sons of aristocratic families travelling for the purpose of mostly interactive, educational experiences.

Several countries offer examples of this type of tourism development, including the United Kingdom, Austria, France, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and South Korea.

[105][106] The growing interest of tourists[107] in this new way to discover a culture regards particularly the operators and branding managers, attentive to the possibility of attracting a quality tourism, highlighting the intangible heritage (craft workshops, cooking classes, etc.)

This type of tourism involves visits to "dark" sites, such as battlegrounds, scenes of horrific crimes or acts of genocide, for example concentration camps.

It includes youth hostels and low-priced holiday accommodation run by church and voluntary organisations, trade unions, or in Communist times publicly owned enterprises.

Some see the trend as related to sustainable tourism or ecotourism due to the fact that a number of these tourist destinations are considered threatened by environmental factors such as global warming, overpopulation or climate change.

[136] Not only as a result of the important economic contribution of the tourism industry, but also as an indicator of the degree of confidence with which global citizens leverage the resources of the globe for the benefit of their local economies.

Some threats include, for example, terrorist groups looking to destabilize governments affecting not only the local economies but killing foreign tourists to cause geopolitical tensions between delivery-country and receiving-tourist countries.