Types of Tourism

Published on: Dec 31 2010 by Shenron

Basically, the term ‘tourism’ is defined as to travel for recreation, leisure or for business purposes. Tourism is a popular global leisure or recreational activity and is taken an effective mean of satisfying one recreational demand. Tourism is a combination of several different recreational activities that accomplish goals like enrichment of knowledge, recovery of health, or restoration of one’s productive capacity. Tourism also possesses some other benefits which add to the intellectual, cultural and social development of the individual.

The term ‘tourist’ is used to refer to those people who temporarily and voluntarily change their usual environment for any reason except to involve in activities for financial reward. He who spends less than 24 hours at that place doesn’t come under the term ‘tourist’, instead he will be considered as a visitor. According to the World Tourist organization, it is essential for the tourism that a person will stay or spend more than 24 hours away from its usual environment. Tourism can be a travel undertaken domestically (within a country) or it can be to any other country. The data of international official tourist agencies state that domestic tourism in the mid-seventies responsible for 75-80 percent of a worldwide total, i.e. 700-800 million tourists and the figures of international tourists in 2008 were 922 million.

Pleasure Tourism: Pleasure tourism is tourism where one travel with the aim of getting pleasure relaxation and/or recreation refreshment. The development in industrialization and urbanization has developed great pleasure seeking opportunities for the modern society.

Health Tourism: With the every passing day, people are becoming more and more health conscious and taking more interest in health improving activities. Health tourism evolved from such concept. To meet the people needs. You have to be careful here not to confuse health tourism with medical tourism. Health tourism is a broader term which involves the resorts or places designed to improve and pamper the body and relax the mind.

Sports Tourism: Sport tourism is a kind of tourism which is related viewing or participating in any sporting event while staying apart from their usual environment. Sport tourism is one the rapid growing travel industry throughout the world and is accountable for $600 billion revenue a year. People visit different places to primarily indulge into some sort of sport activity such as mountaineering, boating, sailing, tracking etc.

Curiosity and Culture Tourism: Being curious about different and new things is in the nature of humans. There are variable reasons behind it such as interest in the art, music, folklore, historical remains and monuments. People often get curious about knowing about foreign lands, culture, places and people. Perhaps the major reason behind this curiosity is education.

VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives): Most of the people travel to visit their friends, family members or other relatives far from their usual environment, even abroad and the length of the stay is normally longer than 24 hours. The VFR tourism is not frequent and has low expenditures.

Spiritual and Religious Tourism: Religious and Spiritual practices are wide spread in many parts of the world where people travel away from their usual environment to visit the religious places. For instance, India has so many religious places which pilgrimage visit to perform religious rituals. Similarly, Muslims from all over the world gather in Mecca once a year, the holy city to perform ‘Hajj’.

Status and Prestige Tourism: A travel which is undertaken by the people to talk about their recent achievement or status or even about a foreign tour is known as status and prestige tourism. Their aim is to impress their friends and relatives by relating them their experiences. They feel proud by doing so.

Educational Tourism: Educational tourism, as the name suggest is a travel for gaining more knowledge or higher educational degrees. Educational tourism can be of various types. It can be something within a country or visiting abroad. Locally, teachers, organize tour for students to visit different places to gather knowledge about these places or its other important aspects. The students or professionals travel abroad to get higher degrees or to specialize in their subjects or relevant fields.

Industrial Tourism: In such tourism, the tours are arranged to attend the conferences or seminars or conventions related to the industry and commerce. These conventions and conferences are organized in major hotels or business complexes to accommodate maximum number of people who travel for business and commerce.

Vocational/Seasonal Tourism: Vocational or seasonal tourism is getting popular these days. Many people across the globe arrange tours to the places with pleasant weather conditions to spend their summers. People travel to the hilly areas or resorts to get relief from the blazing summer season.

Professional or Business Tourism: It is very close to the industrial tourism where the business class travels to different countries or places to attend the meetings, seminars, conferences and conventions. Apart from the large hotels, in many countries, grand conventions complexes with all kind of modern facilities are established to organize such business events.

International Tourism: with the development and advancement along with the modern facilities of the air transport, the international tourism has become more of a routine than ever. International tourism involves so many things where people travel for meeting friends, relatives or for business purposes.

Association Tour: Association tour is another type of tourism where the tour is arranged by the government for the members of the association. The members are also chosen by the government in this case.

Group Tour: Group tours are organized by the students, groups of employees in an office or by the workers of an industry. These groups are given special discounts or concessions which can be of great help for the low income or middle income group.

Relaxation, Rest & Recreation: The purpose of tourism as we have noticed above are numerous and it depends on us that how we utilize the benefits of a tour in a best possible way. Apart from business or professional sort of tourisms, the tourism is the name of getting rid of your stress and strain and enjoys the relaxing time which is important for your health and body.

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