Tourism Concepts and History of Travel
What it is
Unit I is the conceptual floor of tourism studies: who counts as a visitor, how travel grew from trade and pilgrimage into the package holiday, the models of tourism as a system and of a destination as a life cycle, the industry and its impacts, and the bodies that govern and promote it. UGC-NET tests it through definitions, chronology and author-to-model and body-to-role matching.
Core concepts
Tourist, visitor, traveller and excursionist. A traveller moves between places for any purpose and duration. A visitor (UNWTO, IRTS 2008) travels to a main destination outside the usual environment for under a year, for any purpose other than employment by a resident entity there. An overnight visitor is a tourist; a same-day visitor is an excursionist. The League of Nations (1937) set the 24-hour rule; the UN Rome Conference (1963) made "visitor" the umbrella term. Hunziker and Krapf (1942) defined tourism as the relationships arising from non-residents' travel and stay, with no permanent residence or earning activity. Migrants and commuters are travellers, not visitors.
Early and medieval travel. Texts credit the Sumerians (money, cuneiform, the wheel) with the start of the travel business. Greeks travelled to the Olympic Games (from 776 BCE); Herodotus (5th century BCE) is called the first travel writer; Romans had paved roads, itineraria and spas. Medieval travel was pilgrimage (Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago, Canterbury, Mecca), with Marco Polo (13th century) and Ibn Battuta (14th century) as great travellers. Visitors to India include Megasthenes (Indica), Fa-Hien (5th century CE), Hiuen Tsang (7th century, Harsha) and Al-Biruni (11th century).
Renaissance, the Grand Tour and mass tourism. The Renaissance made travel a form of education, producing the Grand Tour (17th–18th centuries) of young British aristocrats through France and Italy, then spa towns (Bath, Spa) and sea-bathing resorts (Brighton). Railways made Thomas Cook's excursion of 5 July 1841, Leicester to Loughborough, the start of organised mass travel; tours abroad (from 1855) and circular notes (1874) followed, earning him the title father of modern tourism. Post-1945 paid holidays, jets and package tours made tourism a mass activity. Poon (1993) contrasts old tourism (mass, standardised) with new (flexible, experienced, green, IT-enabled).
Forms, nature, scope and measurement. UNWTO's forms are domestic, inbound and outbound; internal = domestic + inbound, national = domestic + outbound, international = inbound + outbound. The product is intangible, perishable, inseparable, heterogeneous and composite, with rigid supply and seasonal, price-elastic demand. Measurement (volume, value, visitor profile) serves planning and policy; the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA:RMF 2008) isolates tourism's share of GDP, since national accounts do not show it as one industry. Goeldner and Ritchie list institutional, product, historical, managerial, economic, sociological, geographical and systems approaches.
Tourism systems. Leiper (1979): a traveller-generating region (push), transit route region and tourist destination region (pull), linked by tourists and the industry within a wider environment. Mill and Morrison (1985): Market, Travel, Destination and Marketing in a loop. Mathieson and Wall (1982): a dynamic element (demand), static element (traits of tourist and destination) and consequential element (impacts, then controls). Gunn: demand matched with attractions, services, transportation, information and promotion, plus organic versus induced images.
Butler, Doxey and the demonstration effect. Butler's Tourism Area Life Cycle (1980) runs exploration, involvement, development, consolidation (visitors outnumber residents), stagnation (capacity reached), then decline or rejuvenation. Doxey's Irridex (1975) tracks resident attitudes: euphoria, apathy, annoyance, antagonism. The demonstration effect is residents copying visitors' consumption and dress; the term comes from Duesenberry (1949).
Crompton, Plog and travel motivators. Crompton (1979) found seven socio-psychological push motives (escape, self-exploration, relaxation, prestige, regression, kinship, social interaction) and two cultural ones (novelty, education). Push says why one travels; pull says where. Plog (1974) runs a normal curve from psychocentric (familiar) to allocentric (adventurous), later dependables and venturers. McIntosh and Goeldner's motivators are physical, cultural, interpersonal, and status and prestige. In the sociology of tourism, Cohen (1972) typed four roles, from organised mass tourist to drifter, and MacCannell (1973) coined staged authenticity.
Tourism industry and integration. Inputs (resources, labour, capital) yield the visitor experience. Direct providers are airlines, hotels and agents; indirect ones are caterers, laundries and publishers; support comes from governments and financiers. The basic components are transport, accommodation, and facilities and amenities. Horizontal integration joins firms at one stage; vertical integration joins stages, backward (an operator buys an airline) or forward (it buys agencies). Liberalisation and globalisation brought the 1991 reforms, tourism under GATS (1995), the National Tourism Policy (2002), and 100 per cent automatic-route FDI in tourism (as of 2026-10).
Impacts and seasonality. Economic gains are foreign exchange, jobs and the multiplier; losses are leakage, inflation and over-dependence. Socio-cultural gains are pride and revival; losses are commodification and acculturation. Environmental losses are pollution, congestion and habitat damage. Seasonality is natural (climate) or institutional (school holidays, festivals), with peak, shoulder and off-seasons. The future of the business turns on technology, ageing, security, pandemics, climate change and visa policy.
International organisations. UNWTO grew from IUOTO (1947); its statutes were adopted on 27 September 1970 (World Tourism Day), and it began work in 1975; it is based in Madrid. It became a UN agency in 2003 and adopted the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (1999); it now brands itself "UN Tourism" (as of 2026-10). IATA (Havana, 1945; Montreal) is the airlines' trade body: codes, fare rules and agency accreditation. ICAO (Chicago Convention, 1944; Montreal) sets aviation standards for governments. UFTAA (1966) federates agents' associations, ASTA (1931) is the US agents' body, PATA (1951) serves Asia-Pacific, WTTC is the chief-executive forum of private firms, and IHA serves hotels.
Indian organisations. TAAI (1951) represents travel agents and IATO (1982) inbound tour operators. FHRAI (1955) federates four regional hotel associations. ITDC (1966) runs Ashok hotels and duty-free shops. ICPB (1988) promotes MICE; state corporations run hotels and packages. AAI (1995) manages airports and air navigation. ASI (1861, Cunningham), under the Ministry of Culture, guards monuments. The Ministry of Tourism runs Incredible India (2002) and Swadesh Darshan 2.0 and PRASHAD (as of 2026-10). Railways acts through IRCTC; Civil Aviation through the DGCA.
Worked example
Classifying trips and building UNWTO aggregates. Country X records 40 million domestic trips (28 million overnight), 9 million inbound (7.5 million overnight) and 6 million outbound.
| Case | Overnight | Classification |
|---|---|---|
| Delhi resident, two nights in Jaipur | Yes | Domestic tourist |
| Cruise passenger tours Kochi, sleeps on board | On ship only | Inbound excursionist |
| Foreigner hired by an Indian firm for eight months | Not relevant | Not a visitor |
| Daily commuter to an office | No | Not a visitor |
| Aggregate | Formula | Millions |
|---|---|---|
| Internal | Domestic + inbound | 40 + 9 = 49 |
| National | Domestic + outbound | 40 + 6 = 46 |
| International | Inbound + outbound | 9 + 6 = 15 |
Same-day trips are 40 − 28 = 12 domestic and 9 − 7.5 = 1.5 inbound. Internal tourists = 28 + 7.5 = 35.5 and excursionists = 12 + 1.5 = 13.5. Check: 35.5 + 13.5 = 49, matching internal tourism.
Common traps
- Treating "tourist" as the umbrella term: it is visitor, which covers tourists and excursionists.
- Swapping internal (everything inside the country) and national (everything by residents).
- Confusing Leiper's regions with Mill–Morrison's four parts or Mathieson–Wall's impacts framework.
- Reversing Plog: allocentrics seek the new, psychocentrics the familiar.
- Placing "visitors outnumber residents" at stagnation: Butler puts it at consolidation; stagnation is when capacity is reached.
- Confusing IATA (airlines' trade body, 1945) with ICAO (UN agency, 1944).
Speed technique
- Internal = inside the border; national = by nationals; international = crossing the border.
- Doxey runs E-A-A-A; Butler runs E-I-D-C-S, then decline or rejuvenation.
- Date ladder: ASTA 1931, IATA 1945, TAAI and PATA 1951, FHRAI 1955, ITDC 1966, IATO 1982, ICPB 1988.
- One signature term per author: Leiper regions, Plog allocentric, Butler TALC, Crompton push-pull.
Check yourself
- A cruise passenger tours Kochi by day and sleeps on board. How does UNWTO classify this person?
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Inbound excursionist — no night in the country's accommodation, so not a tourist. - What is the third stage of Doxey's Irridex?
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Annoyance — after euphoria and apathy, before antagonism. - In Plog's model, who seek new, undeveloped destinations?
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Allocentrics — later called venturers. - A tour operator acquires a charter airline. What type of integration is this?
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Backward vertical integration — it moves towards its suppliers. - Which body was created by the Chicago Convention of 1944?
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ICAO — IATA, founded in 1945, is the airlines' trade body.
Try it: Tourism Concepts and History of Travel questions
Real questions from the NET Tourism bank on exactly this skill. Pick an answer to see the full solution — the intuition, the worked steps, the faster methods and the traps.
In UNWTO terminology, which term covers both tourists, who stay at least one night, and excursionists, who return on the same day?
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Answer: option B
UNWTO's International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics (2008) call anyone taking a trip to a main destination outside the usual environment, for under a year and not to be employed there, a visitor.
An overnight visitor is a tourist and a same-day visitor is an excursionist, so both sit under the visitor heading; the 1963 UN Rome Conference first made the word the umbrella term.
So the umbrella term for tourists and excursionists is visitor, option B.
Thomas Cook's railway excursion of 5 July 1841, often taken as the start of organised mass travel, ran between:
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Answer: option B
On 5 July 1841 Thomas Cook hired a train to carry temperance supporters from Leicester to a meeting at Loughborough and back.
Organising the whole trip for a single price set the pattern for his later tours abroad (from 1855) and earned him the title father of modern tourism.
So the 1841 excursion ran between Leicester and Loughborough, option B.
Which of the following are characteristics of the tourism product? I. Intangibility II. Perishability III. Homogeneity IV. Inseparability Choose the correct answer from the options.
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Answer: option A
The tourism product is a service: it cannot be touched before purchase (intangible), an unsold room-night or seat is lost for ever (perishable), and it is produced and consumed at the same time (inseparable).
It is heterogeneous rather than homogeneous, because the experience varies with the staff, the day and the guest, so III is wrong.
So the characteristics are I, II and IV only, option A.
In Mathieson and Wall's (1982) conceptual framework of tourism impacts, the 'static element' refers to:
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Answer: option B
Mathieson and Wall's framework has three elements: a dynamic element (tourist demand and the form of travel), a static element and a consequential element (impacts, followed by control measures).
The static element is the set of characteristics of the tourist and of the destination, which together shape what impacts a given form of tourism will produce.
So the static element covers the traits of the tourist and of the destination, option B.
Country Y records 30 million domestic trips, 8 million inbound trips and 5 million outbound trips in a year. Using UNWTO's forms of tourism, what is the volume of national tourism?
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Answer: option A
National tourism is all tourism by the country's residents, which is domestic plus outbound: 30 + 5 = 35 million.
Internal tourism (domestic + inbound) would be 30 + 8 = 38 million and international tourism (inbound + outbound) 8 + 5 = 13 million; rechecking, residents travel 30 million trips at home and 5 million abroad, which again gives 35 million.
So national tourism is 35 million trips, option A.
Answer above — every one shows its working.