ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a number of definitions and ideas about tourism that help us to understand the extent of its complexities. The chapter is not intended to be a full-scale exploration, but rather to provide a tourism context for this book. Specifically, this chapter aims to:
• define tourism and discuss it from a systems perspective; • identify the main approaches to the analysis of tourism;
(and) • provide an insight into some of the major issues of
contemporary tourism.
