Tourist Studies in Context

Abstract

Imagine a nation with a population equal to half that of the United States. Consider the problems of finding housing, food, entertainment and transport if this entire nation decided to leave home on any one evening. Such a massive daily movement of people represents the global scale of the tourism industry as the twenty first century approaches. Our nation of travellers fluctuates in population: in July and August there may be 300 million people involved in travel and tourist activity in the Northern hemisphere with intense pockets of concentration around the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the coastal margins of Europe, Japan and America. In the quieter months of the northern hemisphere winter, the number of travellers adrift at any one time may be of the order of the population of Britain; still sufficient to arrest anyone’s attention. Shortly after World War II the travel scholar Pimlott commented:

“in the present century holidays have become something of a cult… for many they are the principal objects of life - saved and planned for during the rest of the year and enjoyed in retrospect when they are over” (1947:211).