This article is about travel. For other uses of Tourism and Tourist, see Tourist (disambiguation) .
Tourism is
travel
for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the
business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and
the business of operating tours.
[1] Tourism may be international, or within the traveller's country. The
World Tourism Organization
defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common
perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as
people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual
environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business
and other purposes".
[2]
Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's
balance of payments.
Today, tourism is a major source of income for many countries, and
affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases
being of vital importance.
[3]
Tourism suffered as a result of a strong economic slowdown of the
late-2000s recession, between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and the outbreak of the
H1N1 influenza virus,
[4][5] but slowly recovered. International tourism receipts (the travel item in the
balance of payments) grew to
US$1.03 trillion (740 € billion) in 2011, corresponding to an increase in
real terms of 3.8% from 2010.
[6] International tourist arrivals surpassed the milestone of 1 billion tourists globally for the first time in 2012,
[7] emerging markets such as
China,
Russia and
Brazil had significantly increased their spending over the previous decade.
[8] The
ITB Berlin is the world's leading tourism
trade fair.
[9]