Case Study: International Tourism Systems and Vatican City Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the international tourism system in Vatican City. It begins with a historical overview of tourism development, highlighting the city's evolution as a major tourist destination, particularly for religious tourism. The report then delves into the analysis of international tourist visitation, examining statistical data and trends related to tourist numbers, key attractions such as St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel, and visitor behavior. Furthermore, it explores the destination's attractiveness, discussing factors that draw tourists to Vatican City, including religious significance, cultural sites, and economic considerations. The report also analyzes the impacts of tourism on the host community, assessing both positive and negative effects, such as economic growth, employment, and the challenges posed by increased crime rates and language barriers. Destination development issues are examined, focusing on challenges like the impact on the quality of life of local people, language barriers, and the promotion of Christian heritage. Finally, the report addresses tourism policy issues, offering insights into strategies for sustainable tourism development and management. Overall, the report offers a detailed examination of the Vatican City's tourism industry, its key drivers, and its implications for the city and its visitors.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEMS
INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SYSTEMS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Historical Over view of tourism development...........................................................................2
Analysis of International Tourism Visitation.............................................................................3
Destination for Tourist Attractiveness.......................................................................................4
Analyse of host community impacts of tourism activity...........................................................5
Destination Development issues analysis..................................................................................6
Tourism Policy issue analysis....................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Reference..................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The case study focuses on the Vatican City, located in Rome. It is known for its large
tourist attraction site mainly for Catholic people. The Catholics visit that place to see where
their pope is buried. They are the religious tourists who visit Vatican City and helps to
increase the economy and revenue of that city (Attila 2016). This paper mainly focuses on the
international tourist attractions in Vatican City and what factors encourages its tourism. It
highlights the statistical analysis where it analyses the tourist ratio every year. The traditional
tourists are the main source to increase the revenue of the city during Christmas.
Historical Over view of tourism development
The historical development of tourism in Vatican City is due to its international
tourists. The international tourists mainly visits the city during holy season, and election
period. The international tourists visits the city because the flight prices are made cheaper in
that region. The city provides housing foreigners that attracts most of the visitors with
benefits. Vatican has been the city for international traders, believers, tourists and traders
where the history of the city is reflected through its museums and through various cultural
activities (Bacsi 2019). It is a city where competent investment is practiced and enriches the
business environment to strengthen its revenue through tourism. The historical development
is due to more number of visitors in that travel a long distance to explore the world. The
economic growth has been increased in the destination cities. The key issue of the destination
is that the tourism have some negative impact on quality of life of various local people (Chen
2015). Another key issue is the language barrier. It is due to foreign tourists and increased
pressure for the urban facilities in the city. Other key issues are the promotion of Christian
heritage identity and their religious activities for tourism. The development is occurred due to
its contribution to the increase of economy of the city. The tourism development have

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enhanced the local government of Italy to form a structured economic development strategy
that increases the revenue of the city. The support of local economy, to promote local
business and to preserve resources. With the introduction of high number of tourists helps to
provide more employment rate and improvises high quality of life for those who live in high
concentrated tourism cities. The case study overviews on the historical development of
economic growth through tourism industry (Din 2016). The development is sustained and
managed with preserving the resources for the future and improving the quality of life of
local people. The tourism development helps to provide a shape to the understanding of
Christian setting in the tourist places. This case study typically overviews on religious
tourism that can impact the economy of the tourist places for holistic approaches.
Analysis of International Tourism Visitation
The tourism in each place increases due to its religious beliefs and values given for
ancient religious cultures. International tourists visits a particular place for trading, for
understanding the traditional cultures their ancient has defined in the past. According to the
statistics, Italy have the most popular tourist sites in Vatican City. In Vatican City, tourism is
considered as the major resource to generate revenue. As through statistical analysis, Vatican
City has high crime rates that enables distrust in the tourists to visit the place for number of
times (Du 2016). The tourists are the major cause of increased ratio of crime rates in the city.
The key attractions of Vatican City are St. Peter’s Basilica church, Vatican Museum, Sistine
Chapel as the greatest treasure of Vatican City and St. Peter’s Square also known as Piazza
San Petro. The statistical analysis of these places states that the Saint Peter’s Square has been
rated 12 %, Raphael Rooms for international visitors has been rated 10 %, Basilica of St.
Peter has been rated 41 % and the Sistine Chapel has been rated 37 % (Du 2017). The
tourism has been developed immensely with double rate as compared to the growth rate of

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population of international tourists. Through statistical analysis, it is observed that 2.8 % of
the international visitors are interested to stay in hotels for more than 3 days and 2 nights
(Hall 2016). These places are highly rated as the number of tourist visits are increasing each
year.
Destination for Tourist Attractiveness
Tourism system is a group of interrelated and interacting elements of tourists, tourism
industry and geographical elements that comprises the functional structure. As Vatican City
is the destination for international traders, believers, merchants and tourists. The Vatican City
is known as the biggest attraction for visitors due to its religion matters. Basilica of St. Peter,
Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter’s square, the Raphael Rooms and the Vatican Museums are some
of the tourist attractive places. The tourists likes to visit more on the eve of Christmas or
Easter. As Vatican City offers low flight price, it attracts more tourists to book easily and
visit with large groups during holidays. In Vatican City, the tourists visits the place to see the
pope’s death (Espiner 2017). Motivation among the tourists are increased as they are
interested to move away from their home to visit new places and understand different cultures
and religious beliefs to visit such places. Satisfaction is by visiting Catholic Church, which is
the situated in the heart of Rome. It has arts and museums that reflects the culture of the city
and showcase the religious activities they practice during Christmas or Easter. They are the
main attractive spots to visit. Attractions are the Basilica of St. Peter, Sistine Chapel, and
Saint Peter’s square, the Raphael Rooms and the Vatican Museums where people visit in
large numbers. It is cheaper to visit the Vatican’s Museum at a cost of 15 to 19 Euros. The
Vatican have attractive gardens that attracts most of the visitors to St. Peter’s Basilica and
Apostolic Palace. The Sistine Chapel is famous for its arts and statues, and paintings. It has
most beautiful ceiling painting that mesmerises tourists. Vatican Museum is the gate for

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Raphael room. Sistine Chapel is known for its greatest treasure and architected by most
brilliant people in the world.
Analyse of host community impacts of tourism activity
The analysis of impacts of tourism activity on host community at the destination
states that the Vatican City have been impacted in its GDP rate. As the Vatican City is known
for Roman Catholics, the tourists have increased the statistical value of GDP. Through
tourism activity in Vatican City, the major change could have observed in the increased
economy. The Statistical analysis stated that the total revenue generated through tourism
activities was $315 million and the total expenditure for providing all benefits to tourists are
$348 million (Jere 2017). This result showed that the economic status has been tremendously
increased due to tourism. This has also created jobs for many unemployed person of Vatican
City and outsiders who came to trade as merchants, believers and many more. They believed
that the tourism in the country enables the improvement in economic status that can increase
the standard of living and led a comfortable life. The local have some issues with the
increased tourism as they have some positive and some negative effects on Vatican City
(Khan 2017). With increased tourists at Vatican City has encouraged the tourists for
conducting more crimes. This has been a major issue in tourist places. The crime rates can
drop the flow of tourists in Vatican City which can also impact the revenue of the city.
Although the tourists have increased the GDP rate that has resulted in increased for high
revenue generation. The city have introduces the strategy with break trips that has enhanced
the tourists. The destinations have some credential tourist moves for various places in
Europe. The impact of tourism activity have changed the ratings of some most visited places
due to change in lifestyle of tourists and local people. It is observed that the tourism activity
have made people more productive and mobilized as compared to their past events. Most

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people visit for short holidays from their work during Christmas or Easter. The Vatican City
have developed new growth rate that has provided the opportunity for development of low
budget airlines. The Vatican City have proposed a deal with 40 % cheaper flight prices to a
large tourist visitors compared to last year. The Vatican City has major goals to increase its
revenue and structure its tourist activities to enable the visitors with more benefits and
comfort in visiting all the places (Kim 2018). The city have a problem with unpredictable
visits of tourists during break trips.
Destination Development issues analysis
The key issue of the destination is that the tourism have some negative impact on
quality of life of various local people. The local leaders are responsible to take the
responsibility in managing the resources for promotional activities and to develop the
economic growth without impacting the quality of life of Vatican people. The quality of life
is impacted as the traders, and merchants can promote for high pricing that can discourage the
visitors to buy any product from Vatican tourism activities (Marsiglio 2016). The result may
led to lower the revenue through tourism and may increase the expenditure of the city to
balance the economic growth. The Roman tourism have attracted large Christian tourists and
also attracted people from secular background. The attraction of secular groups have
increased the economy of the city.
Another key issue is the language barrier. It is due to foreign tourists and increased pressure
for the urban facilities in the city. As most of the visitors are from international countries, the
major barrier in Vatican City is they are unable to understand and translate the language
among themselves (Mason 2015). As it is one of the most visited place throughout the world
to visit the famous Catholic Church, the city must have translators who can help the tourist to
understand their culture and religious beliefs easily. Without focusing on the language, one

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can never understand the culture and tradition the Vatican City showcases to their audiences.
Most of the visitors spends more money on food and accommodation, this can a development
issue. If the tourist are unable to understand their language, then they may not be encouraged
to spend a lot on new food items that they are against it. They may not visit to hotels which
will pay high if they are not locals. These issues may lead to discouragement among visitors
in the Vatican City. Thus, it is essential to understand the language to build strong
relationship with the tourists who can be encouraged to visit that place again and again and to
promote religious beliefs among others.
Other key issues are the promotion of Christian heritage identity and their religious activities
for tourism. There has been tremendous change in the economy of the nation through
religious tourism or Roman Tourism and Catholicism. It is observed that most tourists visit
this place to take part in religious activities (Rutty 2019). The participation in religious
activities helps to increase the expenditure that impacts the economy of Rome. The issue is
addressed by modern religious tourists who regularly visits the city in religious festivals eves.
The case study focuses that the religious believers or tourists are the oldest form of tourism
who have first started to visit several places through the world to spread their beliefs among
other groups and to learn the history of several destinations (Pratt 2015). This approach
helped the future generations to understand the history of ancient world. The ancient history
has helped to understand the religious values of the city and monuments designed by creative
artists.
Tourism Policy issue analysis
The tourism policy is a public policy that encourages for effective formulation of
tourism activities in the city. It is regulated by central government and local authorities. The
aim to develop such policy is to achieve the goal by enabling the tourists to follow the

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policies for disciplined tourism activity in the city (Scott 2015). The policy have stipulated
limits on tourists to visit the Museum with regard to safety aspects. It is observed that the
overcrowding in Vatican Museum may lead to rush and deaths without any strict actions on
revision of policy. The analysis of policies issues determines that there is a need of promoting
integral human development that has been promoted by Pope Francis (Saayman 2018). The
tourism have resulted 10 % GDP in economic development of the city through international
tourism. The policy must consider some of the sustainable tourism activities that can protect
the environment and ancient monuments for future. It encourages the visitors such as
believers to change the lifestyle towards a new path to build a relationship with each other.
The policy issues states the inability to maintain safety in such crowded places during tourist
seasons. The safety must be highly maintained so that value for life can be achieved
successfully (Tan 2017). Policies can help to decrease the crime rates during these seasons
and there must be strict actions to avoid such crime rates. Policy for accommodation in hotels
for international visitors must check for security and provide value to the tourists. This can
help the tourist to build trust among the group and they can visit the place without any
discouragements. Policy to trade some products to the international tourism must be followed
by specific rules and regulations that cannot loot a person with high price tags. The tourists
spends more money on accommodation and food, this leads to high economic growth which
must be sustained with developing policies that can protect the rights of tourists (Patiño
2016). Tourist must be educated regarding the policies to safeguard their value and beliefs. It
is observed that the Vatican urged the international tourists to bind with safety, cleanliness
and environmental safety while visiting the place. The policy respects the tourists and value
their visit with great offerings. The Church has been kept under high security to protect its
ancient beliefs for future generations (Zhang 2016). It respects the heritage and safeguard the

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dignity and rights of tourists for continuing the chain of value towards the international
tourists.
Conclusion
The case study concludes that with the introduction of international tourism the
economic growth of the Vatican City has been increased tremendously. The economic growth
has enabled the city with comfortable life for locals and those who migrate their for trading
and merchant business purposes. The aim to develop the economic standard of the city has a
positive growth with large number of visitors visiting Vatican City every year. The visitors
have realised the value and religious beliefs of the city and follows the policies for
sustainable development of the city. The tourism activities have encouraged large visitors to
have a great trip during Christmas or Easter.

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