Concept of Tourism

One of the earliest definitions of tourism was provided by the Austrian economist Hermann Von Schullard in 1910, who defined it as, “sum total of operators, mainly of an economic nature, which directly relate the entry, stay and movement of foreigners inside and outside a certain country, city or a region.”

The world tourism organization defines tourist as people who “travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited” (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tourism).

     According to William f. Theo bald there are two different types of tourism definitions, each with its own rational and intended uses:

1)              Conceptual definition and

2)              Technical definition   

     Conceptual definition attempts to provide a theoretical framework which identifies the essential characteristics of tourism. Similarly, technical definition helps to standardize comparative international tourism data collection (Upadhyay and Agrawal, 2006).

     Tourism has passed different phases since ancient to modern time. During the time traveling was associated with finding solutions to man’s daily needs like food and shelter. Prior to the industrial revolution, travel was primarily related with trade, with desire for military conquest or with the performance of group. It was principally the traders who in the early historical period blazed the trail by establishing national trade routes and communication which latter extended throughout other regions and finally to other continent. Thus it was trade in the first place that motivated travel in the real sense. Later with the advent of modern means of transportations and communications, tourism was uplifted. Thus this developed traveling in modern terminology is known as tourism (Shrestha, 1998).

          Tourism perceived from the classical economist’s view, it could not be regarded as an industry because it does not produce any tangible goods as such as. But according to the modern economists’ view, tourism is considered as an industry which produce ‘service’ to fulfill tourists’ demand such as service of transport, accommodation, tour operators, travel agents, entertainers and others. Thus tourism has appeared as a new economic sector for rapid economic growth and increase in income level of the country. Hence, tourism plays a prominent role in economy and society of a country creating employment and providing means of livelihood to large number of people of the country (Shrestha, 1999).