Worldwide Destinations

The Geography of Travel and Tourism

Brian Boniface, Chris Cooper, Robyn Cooper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429534980
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Management

Worldwide Destinations: The Geography of Travel and Tourism is a unique text that explores tourism demand, supply, organisation and resources for every country worldwide. The eighth edition is brought up to date with features such as:

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• An exploration of current issues such as climate change, overtourism, expedition cruises, film tourism, economic and cultural impacts of tourism.

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• New and updated case studies throughout.

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• More emphasis on South-east Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

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• Online resources for lecturers and students including PPTs, web links, video links and meditations on the evolving implications of COVID-19 for tourism.

The first part of the book comprises thematic chapters which detail the geographic knowledge and principles required to analyse the tourism appeal of destinations. The subsequent division of the book into regional chapters enables the student to carry out a systematic analysis of a particular destination, by providing insights on cultural characteristics as well as information on specific places.

Worldwide Destinations: The Geography of Travel and Tourism is an invaluable resource for studying every destination in the world, by explaining tourism demand, evaluating the many types of tourist attractions and examining the trends that may shape the future geography of tourism. This thorough guide is a must-have for any student undertaking a course in travel and tourism.

PART I The geographical principles of travel and tourism

1 An introduction to the geography of travel and tourism

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Define and use the terms leisure, recreation and tourism and understand their interrelationships
• Distinguish between tourism, migration and other types of mobility
• Distinguish between the different forms of tourism, and the relationship of different types of tourist with the environment
• Appreciate the importance of scale in explaining patterns of tourism
• Identify the three major components of the tourism system
• Explain the push and pull factors that give rise to tourist flows
• Appreciate the methods used to measure tourist flows and be aware of their shortcomings.

Leisure, recreation and tourism

Tourism is seldom the dream world of the holiday brochure, and it is the connection with the real world that makes the geography of travel and tourism such an exciting and vibrant area to study. Travellers to remote places and backpackers often do not regard themselves as tourists –which they are – and tourism is intimately linked with the leisure activities that play such an important role in our lives.

What exactly is meant by the terms leisure, recreation and tourism, and how are they related? Leisure is often seen as a measure of time, and usually means the time left over after work, sleep, household chores and personal obligations have been completed (Figure 1.1). In other words, leisure is free time for individuals to spend as they please. This does, however, introduce the problem of whether all free time is leisure. A good example of this dilemma is whether the unemployed feel that their free time is in fact ‘enforced’ leisure, or whether volunteers at a sporting event see their activity as ‘serious leisure’. This has led to the view that leisure is as much an attitude of mind as a measure of time, and that an element of ‘choice’ has to be involved. In fact the relationships between work and leisure have changed over the last two centuries in most of the world; the Industrial Revolution brought about a sharp contrast between the home, the workplace and the leisure environment, which became more widely separated as transport facilities improved. In pre-industrial societies the pace of life is attuned to the rhythm of the seasons rather than being governed by the clock, and personal mobility is limited. In post-industrial countries such as Britain and the United States, one aspect of the so-called ‘24/7 culture’ is the blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure, and the work-life balance is increasingly under threat as a result. Highly paid executives are expected to be in contact with the office during their vacations, while some corporate employers provide leisure opportunities based at the workplace.

Recreation is normally taken to mean the variety of activities undertaken during leisure time (Figure 1.1). Basically recreation refreshes a person’s strength and spirit and can include activities as diverse as watching television at home to holidaying abroad. We can make a useful distinction between leisure pursuits that involve the arts, cultural activities and entertainment, and physical activities. We can further distinguish sports from other types of physical recreation as they involve competition and participants must follow rules laid down by a recognised authority.

Figure 1.1
Leisure, recreation and tourism.

If we accept that leisure is a measure of time and that recreation embraces the activities undertaken during that time, then tourism is simply one type of recreation activity. It is, however, more difficult to disentangle the meaning of the terms recreation and tourism in practice. Perhaps the most helpful way to think about the difference is to envisage a spectrum, with at one end recreation based at home or the local area, and at the opposite end recreational travel where some distance is involved and overnight accommodation may be needed. This is based on the time required for the activity and the distance travelled, and it places tourism firmly at one extreme of the recreational activity spectrum (Figure 1.1). The spectrum also allows us to consider the role of same-day visitors or excursionists. These travellers are increasingly a consideration in the geography of tourism – they visit for less than 24 hours and do not stay overnight. In other words, they utilise all tourism facilities except accommodation, and put pressure on the host community and the environment.

Clearly tourism is a distinctive form of recreation and demands separate consideration. In particular, from the geographical point of view, tourism is just one form of temporary or leisure mobility, recognising that technology and changes in society have given people the capacity to travel extensively. In other words we can think of tourism as a form of voluntary, temporary mobility in relation to where people live.

Discussion point: tourism and mobilities – a new way of thinking

Geography is rediscovering tourism as an area for research by combining social and spatial elements in a new ‘mobilities’ approach. This views tourism as but one form of ‘mobility’, located within a spectrum ranging from permanent migration to daily shopping, where tourism is re-examined as a form of ‘voluntary temporary mobility in relation to home’. In other words the mobilities approach views tourism as one dimension of our ‘connections’ with the world, ranging across many different localities. The key message from the idea of tourism ‘as a form of mobility’ is that tourism is no longer treated as a distinct and special activity, but simply one that is a part of a range of other activities in society. The mobilities approach however creates a number of issues for tourism:

• First, the approach puts movement centre-stage and increases our understanding of the underlying processes driving patterns of tourism movement. The key question is to understand and explain what influences these movements, from personal resources at a micro scale to geo-politics at a macro scale.
• Second, mobilities blur the distinction between home, work and tourist destinations, and between differing types of traveller – whether they are commuters, shoppers or migrants. This makes reconciling the ‘mobilities’ approach with drawing up ‘definitions’ of tourism problematic – particularly when we go back to the definitions of tourism designed by the UNWTO which we deal with below.
• Not everyone can be part of this world of movement. To travel involves mustering the personal resources needed and yet some argue that the mobilities approach ignores these inequalities. Only 2 or 3 per cent of the world’s population engage in international tourism, and some that do are ‘hypermobile’ engaging in many trips in any one year.
• Much of this world of movement is also involuntary. In addition to refugees fleeing political or religious discrimination, there are economic migrants seeking a better life, and a modern form of the slave trade – women and children trafficked to provide unpaid labour or forced into prostitution.

Is tourism still a ‘special’ activity or does the mobilities approach devalue it to being a part of everyday life and expectations?

The mobilities approach brings into focus the international debate as to the definition of tourism. There are two ways to investigate the problem:

1. First we can define tourism from the demand side, i.e. the person who is the tourist. This approach is well developed and the United Nations Statistical Commission now accepts the following definition of tourism: ‘The activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes’. This definition raises a number of issues:
   • What is a person’s usual environment?
   • The inclusion of ‘business’ and ‘other’ purposes of visit demands that we conceive of tourism more widely than simply as a recreational pursuit.
   • Certain types of traveller are excluded from the definition. Tourism is only one part of the spectrum of travel, which ranges from the daily journey to work, or for shopping, to migration, where the traveller intends to take up permanent or long-term residence in another area (see Figure 1.2).

     

     Figure 1.2
     Classification of travellers.

2. We can also define the tourism sector from the supply-side point of view. Here the difficulty lies in disentangling tourism businesses and jobs from the rest of the economy. After years of debate, the accepted approach is the tourism satellite account (TSA), adopted by the United Nations in 2000. The TSA measures the demand for goods and services generated by visitors to a de...