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Categories of Tourism

In tourism literature, various forms of tourism are cited. It is necessasary to look through various types of tourism and popular terms in order to get acquintance with clear view of tourism industry. Classification of tourism is made according  to the purpose, length/span of journey, number, organisation etc.
One of the most important distintion is domestic and international tourism. Normally when we think about tourists, a picture of white skinned traveller from the west but in reality, natives of the country are also significant for tourism industry. People of USA  travel within the country than going abroad and Chinese tourists travel within the country than going abroad. 

Though there are differences, some similarities also exists;
·         Both generates revenue and employment oportunities.
·         Both may use similar tourist facilities and infrastructure.
·         Both are suceptible to crises and security problems.
·         Importance of both type can not be ignored.
Traditionally, domestic tourism is overshadowed by international tourism but its importance is being realised more and more. As mentioned earlier, even in the tourist generating countries, domestic tourism have bigger volume than outbound tourism. Gradually, there is increasing tendency of travelling within the country in developing countries. During the recession in the tourism of Bali (due to bomb explosion in 2002 and 2005), domestic tourists from other part of Indonesia kept on the blood stream of Balinese tourism. In the context of Nepal also, priority level is increasing for domestic market during last few decades.
Nevertheless, the difference is diminishing globally. EU  is an example for that; currency, open border rules etc have narrowed down the gap between international and domestic tourism in the region.
Besides the distinciton between international and domestic tourism, other classifications of tourism are relevant as well;

According to purpose of visit
1.       Holiday: It is tourism for escaping everyday stressful and and refreshment break. Most of the tourists in Nepal belong to this category.
2.       Busines:  Modern business require visiting other destinations for training, networking, marketing and so on. Today buisness and more precisely MICE tourism occuies significant place in tourism.
3.       Common interest: people travel for certain other interests rather than purposes mentined above. VFR, medical purpose, Spa, Spiritual tourism etc come under this category.
According to the duration
1.       Excursion: travelling done for less than 24 hours can be taken as excursions. Sometimes it is taken as travel without overnight stay in the destination.
2.       Overnight:  travel with at least one night stay in the destination comes in this category.
Sometimes the distinction is relative term because for the single heritage, tourists are excursionist but for overall destination, they can be overnight tourists. For example, a day trip to swayambhunath of an European is excursion whereas he might live one month in Nepal.
According to Number
1.       Individual: Young people specially students like to go travelling alone. For the learning purpose and other special purposes, this is preferred.
2.       Group: For older age and into unfamiliar destinations, group tourism is popular. It suits to the people who like things organised, safe and less time consuming.

According to organisation
1.       Independrent: Selection of destinations, transportaton, and lodging are managed by traveller himself. In popular words, they are taken as backpackers. Though per person expenditure is less than organised, they may have better economic impacts to local population.
2.       Organised: Different process of journey is organised by tour operators. Organised tourism have bigger spending than independent one but lots of leakage occurs because these tourists consume foreign materials and services.

In addition, various terms are used in tourism literature which is relavant to mention;
·         Popular tourism: when people with similar interest start to flock to any destination, it is popular tourism. During the 60’s and 70’s, various destinations in Asia like Bali, Kathmandu, Goa etc were popular tourist destination.
·         Mass tourism: When a lots of number of tourists flock to any destination, if results in mass tourism. Often, popular tourism gives a birth to the mass tourism. Bali and Goa nowadays are mass tourism destination.
·         Sustainable tourism: this is a relatively new typology of tourism which of iften taken as an alternative of mass tourism. In simple words, sustainable tourism is a kind of tourism which is  aimed to minimise positive impacts of tourism fairly and minimise negative impacts keeping resources and heritages unharmed.
·         Green tourism: similar to sustainable tourism and biased on the preservation of natural resources.

·         Pro-poor tourism:  It is tourism aimed to minimise poverty.

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