ABSTRACT
Tourism is an experience of near-universal proportions in today’s world. Whether as tourists, as residents in countries where tourism is a significant economic factor, or as people engaged directly or indirectly with aspects of the tourist trade, most of us have had experience of tourism at one time or another. So widespread and diversified is the experience, however, that formal definitions are hard to come by, and a little reflection shows that there are many possible approaches to the subject: the economic effects of encouraging tourism from overseas, the ecological effects of “cheap” air travel, the role of tourism in shaping cultural values, and many other topics, could all provide starting points for in-depth studies of tourism. To begin this discussion, let us start with Smith’s definition (1989: 1) of a tourist as “a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change.” This simple definition includes a number of important distinctions between tourism and other forms of travel: to be temporarily leisured is not to lead a nomadic or peripatetic existence in which travel is a constant, nor is it to be engaged on business travel, travel for study or work, or any kind of forced migration or movement.
