ABSTRACT
Tourism and the various components of tourism services have become an integral part of everyone's social pattern of consumption. In both developed and developing countries, social life has incorporated some aspects of hospitality, tourism, and leisure service consumption. This can take many forms, such as vacation, holiday, travel, recreation and eating out, etc. Consequently, tourism as a social phenomenon has gained recognition and acceptance in almost all social systems around the world. Williams and Shaw (1992) indicate that more than 637 million tourists were expected to cross international boundaries by the year 2000, and according to the World Tourism Organization (1999), tourism is currently the world's largest industry, earning over US$444.7 billion in 1998. Thus we can expect continued growth in tourism.
