E&T Ch.1 Thinkpoints and Open Questions Flashcards
How are people travelling for hedonistic purposes? Name some examples and how this attitude towards tourism can negatively impact the environment.
If pleasure is the highest aim in life for hedonism, they are not travelling for the purposes of anything other than that. This could often mean abusing the industry, nature, the environment … often without care for who or what they’re harming in the process.
How does the desire to learn as a reason for travel benefit the tourism industry?
Increased awareness about nature, the environment and how the industry can negatively impact cultures and the world at large regarding overconsumption and improper treatment to natives who lived there previously. They could learn while abroad and do good work upon arriving home to help other see the environment as something to be preserved.
How do trends and different lifestyles affect why and how people travel? What are some positive and negative implications of this for the tourism industry at large?
Places, adventures and types of trips go out of fashion quickly. There has been a trend as of lately for travelling with respect to the environment and nature at large (choosing ‘greener’ flights is now possible, for example), but a negative impact could easily be how one resource could be completely spent while the trend is popular (if a getaway to Peru for example suddenly becomes popular, the industry there would have to quickly support a mass number of people seeking vacation!)
Why would you say that tourism is so hard to define?
So many parts! There are feelings, emotions, experiences, desires, natural and cultural attractions; suppliers of transport, accommodation, tours and other services; and government policy and statutory frameworks that all have to be considered.
What are some positive and negative implications of ‘transforming nature and cultures into resources’?
Positive - economic gain for the host country, the tourism industry at large, and those affected positively by its profit. Also the new exposure that people get to a new place with its new ecology.
Negative - nature can be seen as something not to monetize so heavy off of. There aren’t many places left that have been untouched.
How could tourism be defined as a ‘system’?
Leiper - a geographically linked system (the region, transit zone and destination region)
Gunn - every part is related to every other part, there isn’t a manager or an owner.
Mill and Morrison said it was like a spiders web, all linked together.
Laws: thinking of it as a system avoids one-dimensional thinking and facilitates a multi-disciplinary perspective
Think point: why is it more appropriate to think of tourism as a ‘system’ rather than an industry’
- The interconnectedness of all the factors involved
- It’s not just pumping out a product, every stage of the tourist’s journey has an affect on an industry, a community, the environment or another industry
How is tourism like an industry (versus as a system)?
Travel and tourism contributes so much money to the global economy, but it’s hard to name one part of it as a ‘product,’ so it’s started much debate. Some say it doesn’t exist - since some of the services like transport are available to residents of that host country, not just tourists (Murphy), there are more factors involved in this ‘industry’ than just tourism like the government and NGO’s (Cooper and Hall), and there isn’t a measurable product at the end of it all (Lickorish and Jenkins).
On the other hand, since the tourism industry produces tourists technically, it would be called an industry (Krippendorf), and there’s technically mass production not unlike the manufacturing industry with high-profit low-consideration aspects (Poon), it could go both ways.
Can you tell me about the “Grand Tour” during the early 17th century until the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century? How did this change our view of tourism?
a direct outcome of the freedom and quest for learning heralded by the Renaissance, a period marked by a rediscovery of the classical teachings of the civilizations of Rome and Greece. Accompanied by tutors who were noted philosophers typically, wealthy aristocratic young men (and eventually females) would learn European culture. Typically lasted for three years.
It changed tourism because by the end of the 18th century, travel for amusement and pleasure was part of the Tour - viewing nature, spiritual and romantic qualities of ‘wildscapes’ where no humans were.
How did the rise of the Industrial Revolution affect the tourism industry? (last quarter of the 18th century onwards)
Rise In urban population, society became more time-conscious, work and leisure started to mean different things, a right to vacation leave from work was a pre-requisite for recreational tourism. England even passed “Bank Holiday Acts” in 1871 and 1875 to implement a 4-day holiday. We also have better transportation now - railways and steamship and jet engine services. Tour operators like Thomas Cook and American Express emerged too.
Mass participation in tourism happened quickly in two phases - first is in the 19th century where domestic tourism happened - families living on the coast and working in the cities, and second is after WWII making travel no longer for the elite, and many people moved from the UK to Spain
Think Point: Describe the changes that have occurred in the environments of societies where tourists originate from which help to explain the growth in demand for international tourism.
- Rise of technology, ease of travel
- Urbanization after industrial revolution
- Tourism now seen as a ‘holiday’
- Rise in paid time off for vacation
