Definitions, Theory and Practice

Tourism Definitions and Data

Tourism as the world's largest business is a complex system of integrated parts, and each dimension receives attention at different times and locations, depending on the specific purpose and interest of the study at hand. In a recent review of tourism development in Australia, Richardson (1999: 144) states 'somewhere along the way travel and tourism (have) become the world's biggest business'. He cites a World Tourism Organisation publication as an authority on the subject:

Tourism is now the largest industry in the world by virtually any economic measure, including gross output, value added, employment, capital investment and tax contributions. (Wheatcroft, 1994)

Others have made increasing reference to the calculations and estimates emerging from the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). This influential body came into existence in 1990 with membership open to chief executive officers of companies from all sectors of tourism and tourism related businesses. Its chief goal is to demonstrate the overall significance of this disparate collection of businesses to national and world economic development. Consequently it has hired consulting companies and researchers to develop estimates of the 'industry's' overall size and contribution. It estimated that 'in 2000 travel and tourism would generate, directly and indirectly, across the global economy US$4.2 trillion of economic activity and 7.8% of total employment' (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2002).

To collect the data to make estimates of tourism's impacts requires a definition of terms that have universal application. While considerable progress has been made in this direction over the past 10 years or so the situation is still clouded by inconsistencies. Reviews of these definitional problems can be encountered in good introductory texts such as French et al. (1999) and Goeldner et al. (2000). Therefore, this book focuses on the issues involved with using tourism definitions and data for the purpose of community analysis and planning. The structure suggested by Smith (1995) in his excellent survey of tourism data analysis is adapted. Namely, we need to define the principal customer (tourist), describe that person, define their trip, define the tourism businesses that serve the tourist and help to make the trips successful, and finally describe the principal components of the resulting 'tourist industry'.

The tourist

As with all sound business practice, community strategic tourism management should start with the definition of its principal customer – the tourist, but as will be discussed at a later stage another important customer is the local clientele. According to the World Tourism Organisation a tourist is a visitor who travels either internationally, by crossing an international border, or domestically by travelling within her/his own country. In both cases the visitor travels to a place other than her/his usual (home) environment, is away from home for at least one night and the purpose of the visit is not paid for by the place visited. Tourists that stay for a few hours but not overnight are called excursionists (World Tourism Organisation, 1991).

Distances travelled

Even this most recent definition of a tourist is not completely satisfactory, especially from an analytical and planning perspective. For example, there is no consistency regarding what area constitutes a usual (home) environment, because different countries and jurisdictional levels possess different scale needs. Therefore, to provide a technical-spatial description of the distance a person must travel from home before they become classified as a tourist varies from one country to another. In the United States the distance is 160 kms (100 miles), in Canada 80 kms (50 miles), and in Australia 40 kms (25 miles). Within these national classifications there is nothing to prevent state and local jurisdictions from further revising the actual cut-off distances to suit local scale conditions, so it is not uncommon to find a range of values from 30–50 kms being used to classify a traveller as a tourist. Furthermore, the remuneration clause can cause difficulties for occasions like Australia's recent and successful Olympic Games. In some cases the athletes and officials had their expenses covered by the Sydney Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, yet most would classify them as tourists to Sydney and Australia.

Masberg (1998) has explored the definition of a tourist from an interesting perspective – that of a user. She notes how the various official definitions of a tourist vary around the world and from publication to publication, so she asked managers of convention and visitors bureaux how they defined their customers. Most selected to do it by distance, a distance that 'fluctuates between 20 and 150 miles', but a considerable proportion also used 'purpose of trip', 'residence of the traveller' and 'length of stay' (Masberg, 1998: 68).

The trip

Having defined the tourist, it is also important to define the trip, which is the essence of the tourist experience. A trip can be considered to occur each time an individual or group leave their place of residence, travel a specified distance, and return home. It can involve one or more destinations, or be a circuit with no single destination. As such a trip is so intertwined with the tourist that the British Tourist Authority has long preferred to use tourist trips rather than tourist numbers as its guide to industry size and growth.

The tourism business

If there are still some difficulties associated with the definition of a tourist there is even more difficulty in defining the range of industries that serve and supply the tourist. Since the tourism business has grown into such a broad range of activities and penetrated every corner of the globe everyone is agreed that defining the business is a major and complex undertaking. Leiper (1979: 400) considers' (t) he tourist industry consists of all those firms, organizations, and facilities which are intended to serve the specific needs and wants of tourists'. Goeldner et al. (2000: 26) have developed an integrated systems model to capture the essential elements of what they call 'the tourism phenomenon'. In addition to the regular industry sectors of tourism, such as transport and accommodation, they included government and quasi-government agencies, the built environment, the natural environment and its resources, as well as activities such as research...