Introduction of Tourism

Tourism is generally related with sightseeing in recreational and historical areas and staying over there for a couple of day. Tourism is related to travelling and travelling is naturally a human character Tourism arises from a movement of people to travel to various destinations. It is related with fantasies of self-realization, personal transformation, exotic escape and romantic sublimation. Tourism is an activity that takes place when people move to some other place for leisure or business and stay at least for 24 hours. The word ‘Tourism’ did not appear in English language until the early nineteenth century. It was derived from French language ‘tourisme’. The literal meaning is ‘the practice of touring or travelling’. It is a new concept and its significance was fully realized recently. Tourism is the most recent and significant phenomenon of modern times. It is difficult to describe tourism, as it is an experience rather than a tangible object.

According to Webster’s in New International Dictionary, “Travelling for recreation” is tourism. Travelling may be regarded touristic if it meets with the three essential conditions. That it must be:-
· Travel must be temporary.
· Travel must be voluntary and
· Travel must not have remunerated.

In 1976 Tourism Society of England defined tourism as: “Tourism is the short –term movement of people to destination, outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during the stay at these destination. It includes movement for all purpose, as well as day visits or excursions”.

Tourism is, therefore a composite phenomenon which embraces the incidents of a mobile population of travelers who are strangers to the places where they visit. It is essentially pleasure and recreational activity in which money earned in one’s normal domicile is spent in the place visited. The quantitative aspect of tourism for marketing decisions has assumed increasing importance in recent year. This has led to various attempts by experts in the field to arrive at an internationally accepted definition of the term tourist as the basic unit of measurement for organized tourism.

However according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it first appeared in the year 1811 from a Greek word ‘Tearnus’ used for the tool that was round in shape. It is often regarded as a pass time and consequently a travel activity. But over the year, tourism has become a highly complex phenomenon which has wide range economic, social and environmental effects. Tourism is an effective means of income distribution between countries and thus also contributes to a more balanced development of world economics. But there are very few who can make accurate differentiation between a traveler and a tourist. There is one saying, “all tourism is a travel but all travel is not tourism”. Travel undoubtedly is a common theme in all definitions of tourism. The use of the term tourism has led to a range of people, a sector of the economy and identifiable industries of service which need to be provided for travelers.