ABSTRACT
By m ost m easures, tourism is the w o rld ’s largest industry and, until Septem ber 2001, it was also one of the w o rld ’s fastest growing industries. Tourism is an um brella industry com prised of diverse services sectors, which has grow n substantially in the final q uarte r of the tw entieth century. Between 1950 and 2000, the overall global tourism industry experienced an average annual grow th rate of 11 percen t (W T O 2001a). The grow th of the industry owes to the rise of ‘mass tou rism ,’ w hich has been m ade physically possible especially in the final q uarte r of the tw entieth century by revolutions in trans po rta tion and com m unications technologies, especially the je t aircraft and, later, com puter reservations systems. Based on its industry definition, tourism encompasses
the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environm ent for not m ore than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes no t related to the exercise of an activity rem unerated from within the place visited.
