Defenition of Tourism Industry - Literature review Example

Introduction Quite unbelievably, there is still a current lack of agreement or recognition at what even the most basic terms and concepts such as tourism; tourist and tourism industry means (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert and Wanhill, 1993). Some writers respond to this confusion by ignoring it and not worrying about providing clear definitions of these concepts. Such writers presumably assume that their readers understanding of the concepts and ideas brought out in the definition is the same as their own (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert and Wanhill, 1993). Other writers unable to develop their own definitions of tourism and tourists borrow heavily from previously published definitions (Cooper, Fletcher, Gilbert and Wanhill, 1993). Taking into consideration the significant levels of confusion that exist in the definition of the terms tourism and tourist, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the definitions provided by three authors regarding the terms tourism and tourist and outlining the strengths and weaknesses of their definitions. The three authors include Stear (2005), Goeldner and Brent Ritchie (2009) and Leiper (2004). Stear (2005) defined tourism as travel or temporary stay that involves activities such as being a night away from the usual surrounding (home) that is undertaken with the major objective of satisfying leisure needs which are perceived as being more enjoyably able to be satisfied by being at places outside of, and qualitatively different to, the home region (Stear, 2005). In this definition, the term leisure needs is used to refer to a state of felt deprivation that requires a combination or any one of enjoyable relaxation, entertainment, or self-development activity during otherwise uncommitted time for its gratification. Stear (2005) defined a tourist as a person engaging in activities directly related with future or present travel and temporary stay away from home with an objective of satisfying leisure needs perceived as more enjoyably able to be satisfied in a different environment. Similarly, the principal foci of this definition include policy issues, tourism managerial and marketing. The key feature of the activities involved in tourism as brought out in the definitions is the relationship between tourist attraction and traveler (tourist). In simple terms, tourist attraction refers to the process of planned visitation to, and interaction with or response to the touristically significant features of a particular place that is undertaken by a tourist (Medlik, 2002). In this context, tourism is viewed as a planned event or activity which means that it is an important activity undertaken with a specific objective in mind. A tourist is not viewed as an ordinary traveler to the market or picnic, but a person whose primary objective is to satisfy a certain aspect of unsatisfied leisure need that may not be satisfied by being in the present local surrounding (Medlik, 2002). Clear foci and boundaries are established by the author in the above definition because tourism is not just like any other form of travel because the tourist must be attached to the “tourist attraction” for him to move from his/her usual surrounding, particularly home to visit a significant feature of a particular place (Medlik, 2002). In this regard, tourism is viewed as an activity that involves processes, that includes, identification of significant features in any particular place of the world, planning for the travel (booking and paying transport fares) and finally, visiting the place to enjoy observing or being near the feature identified. One of the greatest strengths of this definition is that it brings out a clear distinction between tourism and other forms of travel such as commuting to the workplace or university each day; or travelling to the beach for a picnic (Morley, 1990). The definition above makes a distinction between tourism as nomadic activities, military invasion or attending a conference or a meeting out of town. In this regard, tourism in this context is differentiated from other activities that involve travelling from one place to the other. In spite of the above strengths, the above definition does not provide the quality of “tourist attraction” that qualifies it to be an attraction. The reason for this is that different people have different view of things, and one person can be attracted by the university buildings or environment, while another can be attracted by natural phenomenon such as lakes, seas, mountains wild animals and plants. Hence, a clear distinction is not provided between features of tourist attraction. Goeldner and Brent Ritchie (2009) defined tourism as activities involved in travelling for business, leisure and recreational purposes. Additionally, the authors defined a tourist as a person that stays away from the usual environment (home environment) temporarily for leisure, recreation and business purpose. This definition takes into consideration the underlying cause of travel as seeking to satisfy a tourist leisure need. As defined above, a tourist leisure need is a state of felt deprivation in terms of leisure (relaxation, self-development or entertainment) (Getz, 1986). The concept of business introduced in this definition seeks to affirm the position that a tourist can travel from his usual surrounding to a totally new surrounding with an objective of self-development, in terms of gaining new business ideas, or observing how business activities are carried out in other places other than his/usual environment. It is clear that Goeldner and Brent Ritchie (2009) as well as Stear (2005) agree that the main force behind tourist travel is to satisfy a particular felt deprivation. This means that a tourist must have felt the need to satisfy the felt deprivation and must have recognized that the felt deprivation can be satisfied in a particular place other than the usual surrounding. In this regard, the authors consider tourism as a set of totally different activities undertaken by people of a daily basis. Just like in the previous definition, the principal foci of the above definition include policy issues, marketing and tourismic managerial. However, one of the clear differences brought out in the later definition of tourism provided by Goeldner and Brent Ritchie (2009) and Stear (2005) is the duration of stay away from the usual environment. While Stear (2005) viewed at least a night away as the most appropriate duration upon which the context of tourism can be placed, Goeldner and Brent Ritchie (2009) viewed less than one consecutive year as being the most appropriate duration for defining the concept of tourism. The latter means that one year is an appropriate duration in which a tourist can stay in his/her preferred destination. However, the years of travel to a tourist attraction should not be consecutive. One of the strengths provided in the above definition is that tourism is also a planned activity and a deliberate process undertaken by a tourist with a primary objective of satisfying his own felt deprivation. In other words, the tourist makes the choice of the tourist attraction and destination out of his/her own free will (Hall, 2003). In this perspective, this definition differentiates a tourist from another person that might travel to a new environment for other activities such as pursuing a master’s degree or compulsory attendance to a business conference or meeting in a particular place. Hence, the aspects of travel are qualified and are of bounding nature which means that the authors provide an adequate definition of tourist and tourism. The most obvious weakness of the above definition of tourism and tourist is lack of a proper elaboration of business purposes that qualify to be placed in the context of tourism. The reason for this is that not all business purposes qualify to be placed in the context of tourism. For instance, travelling to Australia for a business conference or meeting that takes several days does not qualify to tourism. Leiper (2004) defined tourism as activities undertaken by an individual that involves travelling and staying in a particular place outside the usual surrounding. The primary objective of tourism is to seek leisure and recreation. A tourist is thus an individual that undertakes activities aimed at seeking leisure and recreation in a different or unusual environment away from home for a period less than one year. Leiper (2004) is one of the authors that admit finding difficulties in defining the terms tourism and tourist. This definition focuses on tourism as a set of activities that must be fulfilled after certain processes are undertaken by the tourist. Such processes include identification of the surrounding in which the leisure and reaction can be enjoyed and moving to the tourist attraction sites. Similar to the definitions provided above, Leiper (2004) distinguishes tourism from other sort of activities that involve travelling. The author takes into consideration the differences in marketing strategies and structures that differ from other forms of travel. For example, the differences in product elements, pricing strategies, promotional strategies and distribution channels are taken into consideration (Morley, 1990). This definition is purely conceptual in nature that views tourism as an activity that involves a number of arrangements and processes before it is accomplished. One of the clear strengths of this definition is that it views tourism not as an ordinary or routine activity undertaken by an individual. Rather, tourism is viewed as a different activity planned by a tourist with an aim of achieving a particular objective in a place far away from his/her usual environment. However, one weakness with this definition is that it provides a wide view of tourism. For example, the term recreation used in the definition above means passing time, hobby, activity, play, sport, exercise, or amusement (Morley, 1990). While some of these terms fall under the concept of tourist leisure need, terms such as sport, exercise, activity, do not reflect the underlying objective of tourism. References Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Gilbert, D. & Wanhill, S. (1993), Tourism: Principles & Practice, London, Pitman Publishing. Getz, D. (1986) “Models in tourism planning: towards integration of theory and practice” Tourism Management, Vol. 7, No. 1: 21-32 Goeldner, C. and Brent Ritchie, J.R., (2009), Tourism: Principles, Practices and Philosophies,(11th edn) Wiley, Hoboken, NJ Hall, C., (2003), Introduction to Tourism; Dimensions and Issues, 4th edn, Hospitality Press, Frenchs Forest, NSW Leiper, N, (2004), Tourism Management (3rd edn) Pearson Education Australia, Sydney Medlik, S, (2002), Dictionary of Travel and Tourism, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, UK Stear, L. (2005), Some heuristic definitions for Studying Highly Industrialized Tourism Systems. University of Technology, Sydney. Morley, C. (1990) “What is tourism? Definitions, concepts and characteristics”, The Journal of Tourism Studies, 1(1): 3-8 Read More