An introduction to tourism

Tourism is the act of travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes, and also refers to the provision of services in support of this act. According to the World Tourism Organization, tourists are people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited". The distance between a place of origin and a destination is immaterial to this definition. Tourism has become an extremely popular global activity.

As a service industry, tourism has numerous tangible and intangible elements. The major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other components of a hospitality industry. The major intangible elements relate to the purpose or motivation for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure.

[...] Tourism brings new money and business to an area. Role of hotels in tourism The hospitality sector plays a significant role in the development of tourism because they are indispensable in providing goods and services such as food and shelter in a warm, homely, and secure atmosphere. Hotels are the basic infrastructure for the tourism industry. The absence of hotels at a particular place may deter the tourists from visiting that place. Also, for the tourism industry to be successful, it is necessary that there is accommodation in sufficient quantity and in conformity with the requirements of the various classes of tourists. [...]

[...] Bookstore tourism is a grassroots effort to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination. Cultural tourism: includes urban tourism, visiting historical or interesting cities, such as Berlin, Lahore, Lima, Buenos Aires, London, Paris, Delhi, Rome, Prague, Dubrovnik, Beijing, Istanbul, Kyoto, Warsaw, and experiencing their cultural heritage. This type of tourism may also include specialized cultural experiences, such as art museum tourism where the tourist visits many art museums during the tour, or opera tourism where the tourist sees many operas or concerts during the tour. [...]

[...] Tourism is an industry concerned with attracting people to a destination; transporting them there; housing, feeding, and entertaining them on arrival; and returning them to their homes. There is no other international trading activity that involves so much critical interplay among economic, political, environmental, and social elements as tourism does. The hotel industry is an essential part of tourism. The expansion of tourism inevitable brought out a development in the hotel industry, which is so closely linked with the tourism industry that it is responsible for about 50% of the foreign exchange earnings from tourism. [...]