Hi!

I want you to think about tourism.

What comes to your mind?

I am guessing you are now thinking of your last holiday.

Hopefully you have some nice and happy memories.

But that is not what I want to discuss with you now.

Tourism is in fact much more than you probably just thought of.

It is interwoven many other sectors and domains; from hospitality and leisure to media

and technology, as well as for instance domains of psychology, geography, ecology and economy.

Tourism also relates to wider notions of transport and logistics, corporate services and

many more purposes for which people engage with forms of travel.

Tourism is hence undeniably part of many other sectors, but it is not a traditional “sector” by itself.

This then raises questions as to why and how we should understand or study tourism?

To answer this question, we best start at the beginning.

Namely; how is tourism defined?

Here you see the definition in the moment of tourism which is defined

by the World Tourism Organisation.

See if you can grasp what this definition is saying really...”:

‘ Tourism comprises of the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places

outside of their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure,

business and other purposes’.

Hmmmm...this means you are a tourist when

you are away from your usual environment for less than a year for either business or leisure activities.

Or even other purposes, which makes it even more vaguely defined.

In fact, so is the usual environment, when you think of visiting, for instance, tourist places
in your own hometown, where you do things like visiting historical monuments, musea etcetera.

This definition also does not state anything about the minimum amount of time you have to be away.

This definition is in fact one of the many, as different scholars have created their own

definitions of tourism.

Instead of repeating all such complex definitions out there, how about we acknowledge here that
tourism

typically consists of three crucial components.

In short these components address tourism in terms of an activity that is both spatial and temporal.

As an activity, tourism is typically considered to be of a voluntary nature.

Typically for leisure purposes, but you may also think of other purposes, such as business travel,

or other important personal travel for the sake of, for instance, better care.

Tourism is then typically a spatial activity, since it requires people to go to places that

are outside their usual living environment.

This movement also implies a return to one’s usual living environment once the activity has ended.

And this brings us to temporality.

Tourism is typically an activity that lasts for longer than one night, but it remains temporary.

These three components may raise further questions still.

For instance, can we think of political migrations as a form of tourism?

It may be temporal, spatial, but can we truly argue that it is also voluntary?

And does a migrant have the opportunity to return to their usual living environment?

It is hard to give an absolute answer here, but what is certain, is that such blurry boundaries

are worth debating further.

So once again, why and how to study tourism?

Why?

Because tourism has grown to become one of the largest economic forces in the world today

and has tremendous effects on peoples’ livelihoods in terms of jobs, income and many more things.
It has become such a powerful economic force that it is capable to drastically change our

social and natural environments on this planet.

But how do you study tourism then?

If you think about what I just told you, how complex tourism is, you will understand that

there is no easy and straightforward answer.

Rather, there are multiple approaches to study tourism.

Either through management-oriented approaches that look at straightforward solutions and

management of tourism as a sector.

Or non-management-oriented approaches that look more critically at how tourism is actually organised

and it may lead to serious impacts on its social and natural environment.

Together the diversity of approaches are crucial to further discover the underlying truth

of tourism as an industry.

An industry that is more than just a happy industry.

An industry that actually requires serious reflections made by me, but especially also by you!!

Hi there.

Can you imagine a future of tourism without access to oil?

Wow... that means: no more air-travel as we know it,

nor any other fast means of travel dependent on oil.

You may find this scenario bizarre if you consider

how transportation means have become an essential part of our daily lives and incredibly efficient

energy-wise and cheap in comparison to, for instance, 50 years ago.

Advancements in technology have, without a doubt,

led to an explosive growth of flows of people and goods.

While some people are becoming concerned with

the environmental impacts of travel behaviour globally,

we should not forget the sheer economic size of this industry.

For instance, every day there are more than 100.000 planes carrying almost

19 billion US dollars worth of goods and another

4 billion US dollars worth of airtickets.

If we stick to travel and tourism purposes only,

and look at people, who travel for a destination with the idea of staying at least one night,

then these movements are accounted for as International Tourist Arrivals.

These numbers grow rapidly every year, as you can see here.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization:

by 2012, 1 billion people travelled to places for tourism purposes,

That is almost 3 million people a day that stay at their destinations overnight!

In 2016, this number already increased by roughly 20 percent.

This number is expected to increase by another 50% the year 2030.

But note, that we are talking about international travel only here,

meaning that these numbers become far greater

if we also include domestic forms of travel.

Today more and more people have the luxury to travel.

See the intensity of flights here,

as people tend to make use of flights every day across the globe.

Where travel used to be an elitist activity,

over time it has become accessible to growing middle classes from the Global West

to increasingly also to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

We have become a lot faster in making decisions on where to spend our next holidays

and we have also become a lot faster in actually getting there.

Flying to the other side of the world has never been so easy.

If I decide to fly to, let's say….

Sydney, Australia, ok, what do I do next?

I go online, I type in Amsterdam with Sydney as my destination.

Within a minute I learn that if I pack tonight and leave tomorrow morning,

it will take me

not more than 24 hours until I stand in front of the Opera House.

Wow...

Actually, if you compare this to, for instance, the year 1939,

if you wanted to travel from London to Sydney, then this would have taken you about 10 days by plane!

Furthermore,

we now observe a lot of new destinations popping up.

This is necessary if you consider growing demands for new places to visit,

but also:

where are we going to put 2 billion international travellers in the future?

Where are these people going to stay overnight?

Who is going to host them?

Well, as you might imagine, these developments require even wider flows than tourists alone.

Think also of all those people working in the travel industry.

More beds have to be made up, more meals have to be prepared,

more massages are to be given...

Currently, it is actually 1 in 10 jobs in the world that is working in the tourism industry.

This ratio will keep getting smaller if means of travel keep growing.

How can this growth be managed?

What effects will this have on the use of natural resources?

The question then remains,

how are we going to tackle these and other tourism-related processes?

Will the end of the oil age force us to stay home for our holidays?

Will increased environmental awareness lead to higher transportation costs,

or is tourism going to become an elite activity once again?