Tourism. Tourist Places

Tourism is travel undertaken for recreation rather than for business purposes. In the contemporary developed countries, large numbers of people go on tours to experience landscapes and activities outside their ordinary everyday experience. Some places are valued by tourists for their natural surroundings while others are favored for religious, historical, or recreational reasons. Many tourists commemorate their experiences by compiling diaries, writing letters, taking photographs and movies, or purchasing souvenirs.

Tourism is a major source of income for many places. In Britain alone, the tourist industry generates over a million jobs. Over 15 million tourists visit the British Isles annually, and foreign tourists spend over fifteen billion British pounds, or nearly thirty billion dollars in Britain every year. In recent years, many communities throughout the world have undertaken concerted efforts to establish and expand tourism in order to increase their revenue bases.

Like popular culture, tourism developed in conjunction with and in response to the Industrial Revolution. Until the nineteenth century, however, tourism was largely restricted to the nobility and the upper classes. The majority of people had little leisure time and little money to spend on long-distance travel.

By the twentieth century, the idea that regular vacations were important to worker productivity had been accepted throughout Western culture, and paid vacation leave was provided for many industrial workers in the developed countries. Railroads, steamboats and other mechanized forms of transportation made it possible for people to travel long distances at relatively low cost. The importance of steadily over the past century.

Many economists believe that it will be the number-one industry, worldwide, by the year 2000. In the United States, it is the second largest single source of jobs, generating $344 billion in revenue in 1992, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.

Tourist Places. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, spas and beach resorts in Western Europe and the United States were first developed as tourist places for the wealthy. French Lick, Indiana; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Saratoga Springs, New York were well-known tourist destinations in the nineteenth century. The spa can be considered the forerunner of today's modern beach resort. Today, the French Riviera, Tahiti, Cancun, Atlantic City, Waikiki, and many other communities have become world-famous beach resorts.

Natural settings such as those conserved in the U.S. National Park System remain popular tourist destinations as well. Other popular tourist sites have developed in and near historic settings. Examples include Washington, D.C. colonial Williamsburg, the missions of California, and the medieval castles of Europe. Large cities such as London, Paris. Vienna, New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco are also very popular tourist destinations (Figure 9-15).

Figure 9-15 Tourist Attractions. Tourism is a major source of income for many countries and cities. Tourists from around the world come to 10 Downing Street when vacationing in London, England

The United States was the first country to establish a system of national parks, beginning with Yellowstone National Park in 1872. Although there was consensus among the general public as to the need for such a system, the case was argued on different grounds. Some argued that national parks were necessary to preserve pristine wilderness areas from eventual development. The State Forest Preserve in northern upstate New York is stipulated to remain "forever wild." Tourism was a low priority for those who advocated the establishment of national parks for preservation purposes.

Another group of advocates argued for the establishment of national parks for other reasons. This group felt that national parks helped to create and preserve a sense of national unity. In contrast to the preservation-minded group, these people argued for increasing access to national parks and government-sponsored construction of railroads, hotels, and concessions to encourage tourists. Over the years, many development schemes were considered. Among those rejected were proposals to construct cable car lines across the Grand Canyon (Figure 9-16) and a cable car to Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park.

Figure 9-16 Cable Cars across the Grand Canyon. Imagine what this would look like with cable cars and theiraccompanying wires stretched across the canyon

Throughout the twentieth century, attendance at national parks has continued to grow, in part because of mass diffusion of the automobile. Between 1917 and 1926, automobile traffic at national parks mushroomed from 55,000 to nearly half a million cars annually. Today Virginia's Shenendoah National Park alone draws 3 million visitors each year.

Meanwhile, the debate between proponents of wilderness preservation and those of tourism continues to rage. Many have argued that excessive use of the national parks has resulted in extensive environmental damage in recent years. Access to many national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, has been limited by the National Park Service because of the large nearby population of park users and the potential for environmental degradation.

For generations, visitors to Yellowstone National Park enjoyed the antics of partially domesticated bears that had become dependent on human handouts. The bears became safety hazards, however, and finally had to be shot or moved to more remote areas, away from campers. Similarly, the tourist value of such pristine lakes as Lake Tahoe may be diminishing as sewage from the numerous hotels along the shore continues to pollute the water.

In recent years, the coral-reef ecosystem of some Caribbean islands has been disturbed because of pollution and the continued sale of coral and tropical fish to tourists. Throughout the world, environmentalists have complained that tourist activities have placed unnecessary pressure on fragile ecosystems. Indeed, the loving-a-place-to-death syndrome may be tourism's greatest threat.

By no means do tourists always focus on unique natural or cultural features of their destinations. Some tourist places provide visitors with the opportunity to cut loose from convention or to engage in activities that may be illegal or frowned upon at home. Gambling is a major activity in many resort areas. The state of Nevada has long encouraged tourists to gamble in the legal casinos of Reno, Las Vegas, and other cities (Figure 9-17). The small countries of Lesotho and Swaziland adjacent to South Africa became established as tourist centers because they permitted interracial socialization outside the constraints of South Africa's rigid apartheid-system.

Figure 9—17 Nevada's Border Communities. Gambling is a major contributor to the economy of Nevada. Many of Nevada's gambling-oriented communities are located near the borders to increase patronage from out-of-state residents

Developers have invested heavily in the creation of landscapes that enable tourists to experience exotic places without leaving their home countries. The prime example of such a place is Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, which has become the world's most popular tourist destination. The visitor to Epcot Center at Walt Disney World can experience the rugged outback of Australia, the charming fishing villages of Europe, the romance of the South Pacific, and many other exciting and exotic parts of the world within the safe confines of American culture and without the inconvenience of foreign languages, currencies, customs, and government officials.

The popularity of most tourist places depends in large part on the quality of service provided to visitors. More than half of all tourists are repeat visitors who are returning to a favorite destination, and few will return to a place where they were not treated well. Adequate service delivery is space- and time-dependent. Tourists expect hotel rooms and rental cars to be ready upon arrival.

They expect hot meals to be available in restaurants when they are hungry, and they expect accurate directions to tourist attractions and prompt assistance in dealing with foreign cultures. Tour guides are expected to be friendly and knowledgeable, and in some cases dressed in authentic costume. Rigid standards of behavior defining appropriate relations between tourist hosts and their guests have developed in some tourist places.