Tourism Definitions & Concepts

Raja Ampat, Indonesia. source  : http://www.indonesia.travel/

Tourism is highly complex phenomenon and only can be understood by adopting multidisciplinary approach. In fact, tourism has been studied by many disciplines such as economics, business, management, geography, history, sociology, archaeology, and other disciplines. 

In my subject, we focused in economics as a point of view. In terms of economic, tourism has contributed in 10% of global GDP and 8% of world employment, meanwhile in 2016 tourism sector in Indonesia also has contributed 10% of GDP and grew by 4,8% from last year, which is the highest one in ASEAN countries. Nevertheless, measuring tourism in national economy is not an easy task. There is some issue related to statistically which needed to be discussed. Particularly about classification and definition of supply and demand in tourism.

From the demand side, we can consider that the food and meal are consumed by tourists as a demand of product of tourism, but this purchasing activity is not specific of tourism, let's say tourists might be can buy that food in their area of residence. However, it's possible that tourists could modify the composition and value of the purchase since different types of goods and prices are available in the destination. For example, tourists consume more rice when they travel to Indonesia rather than in their home country. 

From the supply side, there are particular companies that related in tourism sector, although their target market is not only tourists. In other word, they can still exist without tourists, for example shopping center and transportation company.

The tourism itself has defined by many literature, but we refer to UNWTO as an official world organization in tourism. According to UNWTO 1994 "Tourism is the activities of a person travelling to and staying in other place which is not their residence area for no more than one year with particular purpose such as business, conference, leisure, and other personal purpose differently to be employed in that country or place visited. 

Taxonomy (Classifications) of Tourism

Firstly, we can classify the types of tourism according to the length of stay:

1. Excursionist (day trippers) is visitors who stay in the destination no more than 2 hours

2. Tourists is the visitors who travel more than 24 ours in the destination

so we can also distinguish between short holiday and long holiday.

If tourists spend no more than 3 days we can say short holiday

If tourists spend more than 3 days it means long holiday 

Secondly, we classified tourists by motivations of visit:

1. Leisure purposes : tourists who have  a free time at their own expense. 

2. Professional reasons : the trips where usually paid by a company, institution, or organization.

3. Other personal purpose: education, training, health, religious, shopping. 

Next, we can classified tourism into 4 basic types of tourism:

1. Domestic tourism : activities the resident visitor within the region of reference.

i.e Jakarta resident travelling to Bali, both places are in the same region of reference (Indonesia)

2. Inbound tourism : activities non resident visitor within the region of reference.

i.e Italian residence travelling to Indonesia

3. Outbound tourism : activities the resident visitor travelling to the other region of reference in the world. 

i.e Italian resident travelling to Indonesia (its counted as outbound tourism from area of residence point of view (Italy)

4. In transit tourism : activities of visitor while cross neither the region of origin nor the region of destination.

i.e Indonesian residence travelling to Italy, but the airplane transits in Dubai for 1 day, so tourist can do city tour while waiting for flight to Italy.

Based on 4 basic types of tourism above, we can difference between international and national tourism. The classification is following:

1. National Tourism : the sum both domestic and outbound tourism, in other words it corresponds the tourism activities by residence of the region reference

2. International Tourism: The sum both domestic and inbound tourism, in other words it corresponds tourism in specific region by resident and non resident visitors.

3. International tourism : The sum both inbound and outbound tourism. ii corresponds tourism that implies crossing over the borders of region.

References:
Candela, G., & Figini, P. (2012). The Economics of Tourism Destination. Bologna: Springer.
UNWTO Report 2016
Badan Pusat Statistik RI 2016