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Cambridge IGCSE Travel and Tourism
While on holiday, you may have visited natural and built tourist attractions and used the services of a local Tourist Information Centre (TIC) or guide. The holiday may have been booked through a travel agency or directly with a tour operator. It is important to understand and appreciate that development of travel and tourism can take place at a variety of scales. This means that you should be aware of developments within your immediate local area as well as within your country as a whole. Furthermore, an international perspective is also required. It should be remembered that in examinations candidates will always obtain credit for providing specific details about facilities and locations that are appropriate to a particular question.
Structure of the international travel and tourism industry What is tourism? Industry definitions Defining tourism is not really helpful unless we understand who the tourist is, so it is worthwhile to consider the definition of the word ‘tourist’. In 1995, the World Tourism Organisation provided the following clarification: Any person who travels to a country other than that in which s/he has his/her usual residence, but outside his/her usual environment for a period of at least one night but not more than one year and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the country visited. This term includes people travelling for leisure, recreation and holidays, visiting friends and relatives, business and professional health treatment, religion pilgrimages and other purposes. There have been many attempts to define tourism and one of the more straightforward definitions is the one used by the UK Tourism Society: Tourism is the temporary short term movement of people to destinations outside places where they normally live and work, and their activities during their stay at these destinations. The United Nation’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) provides simple definitions of terms commonly used in the travel and tourism industry. Tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not
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