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TOURISM:
Basically, tourism may be the act of traveling and spending time away from home in pursuit of recreation, relaxation, and pleasure, while making use of the commercial provision of services.
Tourism is distinguished from exploration in that Tourists follow a “beaten path“, benefit from an established system of provision, and, as befit pleasure-seekers, are generally insulated from difficulty, danger, and embarrassment. Tourism, however, overlaps with other activities, interests, and processes, including, for example, Pilgrimage.
-This gives rise to shared categories, such as “business tourism“, “sports tourism“, and “medical tourism“.
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THE ORIGIN OF TOURISM:
International travel was one of the most significant economic activity in the globe at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and its effects could be felt from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Therefore, it is quite interesting and significant to study the history of tourism. Before the term “tourist” was first used at the end of the 18th century, there was a lengthy history of travel.
Ancient Greece and Rome, which can lay claim to the origins of both “heritage tourism” (meant to celebrate and appreciate historic sites of acknowledged cultural importance) and beach resorts, can be found in the Western tradition of organized travel with supporting infrastructure, sightseeing, and an emphasis on essential destinations and experiences. Greek and Roman travelers visited the Seven Wonders of the World.
The practice of pilgrimage has analogous roots and involves Eastern civilizations. Along with clearly marked routes, economic hospitality, and an admixture of curiosity, adventure, and fun among the participants’ motivations, it has religious purposes. Although it is difficult to pinpoint a change from the improvised privations of small groups of monks to clearly identifiable tourist practices, pilgrimage to the oldest Buddhist places began more than 2,000 years ago.
Mecca pilgrimage has a long history. Given the amount of casualties that continued to occur on the pilgrimage through the desert even in the twenty-first century, the hajj’s status as a tourist event is questionable. Despite getting its English name from Spa, an early resort in what is now Belgium, the thermal spa as a tourist destination regardless of the pilgrimage links with the site as a holy well or sacred spring is not necessarily a European innovation. The first onsen (hot springs) in Japan have been serving bathers since at least the sixth century. Since its inception, tourism has been a universal phenomena.
The roots of modern tourism may be found in the industrial and postindustrial West. Modern tourism is a set of activities that is becoming more and more commercially organized and business-oriented. The 16th century laid the groundwork for the aristocratic grand tour of cultural sites in France, Germany, and especially Italy—including those linked to tourism in Classical Rome. But it developed quickly, extending its geographic reach to include Alpine scenery in the second half of the 18th century, in the lulls between the conflicts of Europe.
Tourism is the second victim of war, even though it may later include pilgrimages to cemeteries, battlefields, and even, by the late 20th century, concentration camps. (If truth is traditionally the first casualty of conflict). The grand tour’s exclusivity was weakened as a result of the development of the middle class, which joined the landowning and political classes in desiring to provide their sons with access to this rite of passage.
By the early 19th century, European travel for health, recreation, and culture had become a common practice among the middle classes, and the development of primers, art and souvenir markets, well-tuned transportation and lodging systems, and guidebooks and primers had made it easier to acquire cultural capital (that array of knowledge, experience, and polish necessary to mix in polite society).
