Tourism Theories and Practices

“What do tourists do and why?” Critically discuss

Tourism industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing industry and largest employers in the modern world. This sheer vastness of the industry is understood from the fact that the numbers of tourists worldwide are anticipated to be doubled to one billion plus by the end of 2010.(Kamra, p 184)

This essay will discuss in brief the different theories of tourism which define tourist behavior, their roles, activities and motivations which in turn influence the industry.

Thesis statement: Tourists and their thought process, their behavior and motivations are centrifugal to the concept of tourism. Many scholars have tried to define the typology of the tourists, their classifications in order to understand the concept of tourism.

The essay will outline some of the old theories and the modern day approach and why there is a need for more research based studies to exploit the potential of this industry.

Meaning of tourism-What is tourism

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne said, “A man should ever be ready booted to take his journey.”

Man because of his gregarious nature is bound to travel from one place to another to fulfill his various needs be it social, emotional or physical. Traveling is thus characteristic to human society on the whole.

Travel and tourism was traditionally considered as a luxury item. But with the turn of the century, definition of travel and tourism has evolved. Tourism no longer stands for simple traveling or temporary journeys and stays mainly for pleasure, leisure and or recreational purposes or a luxury element. Twentieth century ushered in the paradigm shift in the concept of tourism. In fact it will not be unjustified to say that there has been transition from the 19th and early 20th century concept of tourism as an exercise in leisure and pleasure domain to the concept of tourism as an exercise in business, economics. It is more of a consumer product; tourism industry is a vibrant market where tourism products can be sold now as any other consumer product, consumer here is the tourist. (Kamra, p 157)

According to statistics brought out by the statistics of the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) in 1994, tourism contributed 12 per cent of the world’s Gross National Product. (Kamra, 12)

Tourism industry is one of the fastest growing industry employing hundreds of millions of people worldwide, which explains the reason why the study of the tourism and tourism research has become so important in not only the academic field but also for the economy on the whole.

Modern day tourism is much more than simple traveling; it is pure economics, which is determined by theories of demand, and supply, which brings in the question of sustainability. Tourism is no more synonymous to traveling.

Today tourism is just like a normal consumer product, which is driven by market dynamics, demand supply, sold through retail outlets. It no longer remains a luxury of the upper class but has become a mass product for the growing consumer market, in this case the growing tourist community. (Swarbrooke and Horner – p 4)

In fact there has been a combination of factors which have resulted in the proliferation of tourism industry. The prime being increased leisure, higher incomes of burgeoning middle class. One of the main drivers to growth in the coming era would be the growing middle class.

The study of tourism theories and practices therefore would mainly revolve around the needs, motivations, role, experiences of the the tourists. What do tourists do and why?

The most general classification of tourists is on the basis of the needs of the tourist. This would mainly classify the entire tourist community into two groups-the traveler and the tourist.

While the former is mainly conceived as one who would basically travel to understand the place and thus would rather prefer longer trips and would plan it individually. The latter classified, as a tourist in layman’s version would be characterized as one with superficial interest. One who would indulge in shorter trips and group tours or charters and would mainly depend on tour agents. But this classification is very vague.