Historical Trends and Developments in the Tourism Industry

FUNDAMENTALS
OF
TOURISM, HOSPITALITY
AND
LEISURE
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Title: Critically discuss the historical trends and developments which have contributed to
the formation of the tourism industry as it is known today.
Tourism refers to the activities of people which includes travelling and staying in places
outside their regular environment for business, leisure or any other purposes. It can be expressed
as the act of travelling for different locations for either pleasure or work (Abram and Waldren,
2021). Tourism can be domestic where people travel within their country, or they can be
international where people travel across borders. Whereas hospitality means the industries which
are engaged in generous and friendly treatment of travellers, guests. It includes the services of
hotels, catering services and event planning (Al-Ababneh, 2017). Leisure means the freedom or
time free from the duties or activities which are focused on entertainment related services and
products such as shopping. These aspects together form a tourist industry. This essay will discuss
the tourism industry's overview and the trends and development which have formed or
transformed the tourism industry what it is now. Brief detailing about these trends and
developments will be discussed.
The tourism industry consists with people travelling for different purposes like business
or leisure, staying in the destination for at least one night and returning. The Sectors involved in
tourism industry are; Transportation, Accommodation, food beverage sector and entertainment
sector. These aspects together form a tourism industry (Camilleri, 2018). In the transportation
sector includes the ways in which people can move from one location to another. It can include
following methods of travel; Airways i.e. via airlines, Roadways i.e. via road services like buses,
cars or trains, Waterways i.e. via boats and ferries. In accommodation sectors includes the
services for stay at a destination. The industry provides various accommodation facilities which
the customers can choose as per their preferences and budgets such as hotels, hostels, shared
accommodations, camping or farmhouses etc.
The food and beverage sector caters the food and drinking needs of the travellers. It
provides the customers an array of options such as restaurants, catering, cafe, bars and nightclubs
which the customers can select according to their preferences. In entertainment sector the
industry caters the needs of the customers related to entertainment after they arrive at their
destination. They can be major attractions which attracted the tourists to travel (Holloway and
Humphreys, 2019). They include casinos, shopping and guides and tours. In the modern era
adventure tourism and recreation, events and conferences have also been included in tourism
industry. Tourists seek entertainment in which they attend festivals, concerts, clubs, cinema or
major events as a part of their travel. They want the hospitality services included in their travels
such as spa or fitness.
The tourism industry has been growing since the ancient times when people used to travel
by walking or riding domestic animals to hunt for food. It is popular from the beginning,
although its meaning has been changed from time to time. Natives moved their forces around the
world to conquer other areas and control various resources (Nagy-Zekmi, 2019). They wanted to
spread their civilizations and various other reasons like education, religious or commercial
purposes. Until that time, travel was not identified as the means to leisure. As the commercial
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activities grew people started going out of their towns because of generic curiosity. When people
from wealthy classes started to travel to different places to see buildings and works of art or to
learn new languages or experiencing new cultures, the grand tour era began to rise. It became a
status symbol and fashionable. As time moved and economy grew which increased the leisure
time and tourism started to boom. After the World Wars the modern era of tourism started which
is still growing till today.
The trends in the tourism industry are major elements which enhanced the tourism sector.
In all the history of mankind people have exchanged cultural experience, ideas, values and goods
through their arts, trades and migrations. Cultural changes or diversification always causes
interest generation in people. This curiosity generated various trends occurring from time to time
which formulated the tourism industry as it is now (Ateljevic, 2020.).
The tourism industry begin to rise when people started travelling for seeing the different
cultures and communities and the trend to travel for knowledge came into existence. Historical
potentials of the country were main factors of tourism, because they were the important for
involvement of tourists as acquaintance to historical and cultural heritage which is considered as
a strong incentive tourist motive. The cultural and historical heritages are still an important asset
of the cities which are used to generate profit significantly, to influence the economic
development. It also helps in creating favourable image of the region and branding of historical
and cultural heritage which is used as the effective tool of attraction on the tourist area (Richards,
2018). Tourism allowed combining knowledge, life, history, culture, traditions, customs of own
and other people of different cultures and traditions helps to create real picture of the world in a
better way.
The most important trend in the history of tourism industry was the introduction of
globalization. With the grown trends of globalization, every industry whether small or large have
managed somehow to make their businesses international. This brought the trend of Bleisure
travel. It is the trend where people travel for their work and businesses while including some
time for leisure in the destinations. The bleisure travel can be preplanned or sometimes they
come as an afterthought (Lukianenko and et.al., 2019.). Sometimes the companies offer their
employees tourists experiences during their work trips and sometimes when the work gets done
the employee might think to extend their stay and explore the destination for leisure. A new trend
of millennials is growing rapidly which is called as the digital nomad. In this travel the online
workers and freelancers adopts a lifestyle of travel while they are still working.
Experience tourism is another trend which is popular till today. In this trend the tourists
have a lifetime experience or gain some emotional connection connected with cultures and
nature in the destination. The tourists look for an authentic experience and spends time with the
locals (Kachniewska, 2019). Though this they get real experiences of traditions and cultures of
that destination. This can also include living with the locals in their homes instead of living in
their accommodations such as hotels. This gives the tourist the chances to look at world in a
whole different way. It is the most recent and popular development in the tourism industry.
People nowadays do not want tours for just leisure, they want to experience something which can
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