History of Tourism

The earliest
forms of leisure tourism can be traced as far back as the Babylonian and
Egyptian empires. A museum of “historic antiquities” was open to the public in
the sixth century BC in Babylon, while the Egyptians held many religious
festivals attracting not only the devout, but many who came to see the famous
buildings and works of art in the cities. The local towns accommodated tourists
by providing services such as: vendors of food and drink, guides, hawkers of
souvenirs, touts and prostitutes. 

From around the
same date, Greek tourists travelled to visit the sites of healing gods. Because
the independent city-states of ancient Greece had no central authority to order
the construction of roads, most of these tourists travelled by water, hence
seaports prospered. 

The lands of the
Mediterranean Sea produced a remarkable evolution in travel. People travel for
trade, commerce, religious purposes, festivals, medical treatment, or education
developed at an early date. 

Guidebooks became
available as early as the fourth century BC, covering a vast area of
destinations, i.e. Athens, Sparta and Troy. Pausanias, a Greek travel writer,
produced a noted “description of Greece” between AD 160 and 180, which, in its
critical evaluation of facilities and destinations, acted as a model for later
writers. Advertisements, in the form of signs directing visitors to wayside
inns, are also known from this period. However, under Romans rule is where
international travel became first important. With no foreign borders between
England and Syria, and with the seas safe from piracy due to the Roman patrols,
conditions favoring travel had arrived. Roman coinage was acceptable
everywhere, and Latin was the common language. Romans travelled to Sicily,
Greece, Rhodes, and Troy, Egypt and from the third century AD, to the Holy
Land. 

Domestic tourism
also flourished within the Roman Empire. Second homes were built by the wealthy
within easy travelling distance...

2000 years Before Christ, in India and
Mesopotamia

Travel for trade was an important feature
since the beginning of civilisation. The port at Lothal was an important centre
of trade between the Indus valley civilisation and the Sumerian civilisation.

600 BC and thereafter

The earliest form of leisure tourism can be
traced as far back as the Babylonian and Egyptian empires. A museum of historic
antiquities was open to the public in Babylon. The Egyptians held many
religious festivals that attracted the devout and many people who thronged to
cities to see famous works of arts and buildings.

In India, as elsewhere, kings travelled for
empire building. The Brahmins and the common people travelled for religious
purposes. Thousands of Brahmins and the common folk thronged Sarnath and
Sravasti to be greeted by the inscrutable smile of the Enlightened One- the
Buddha.

500 BC, the Greek civilisation

The Greek tourists travelled to sites of
healing gods. The Greeks also enjoyed their religious festivals that
increasingly became a pursuit of pleasure, and in particular, sport. Athens had
become an important site for travellers visiting the major sights such as the
Parthenon. Inns were established in large towns and seaports to provide for
travellers' needs. Courtesans were the principal entertainment offered.

  

This era also saw the birth of travel writing. Herodotus was the worlds' first
travel writer. Guidebooks also made their appearance in the fourth century
covering destinations such as Athens, Sparta and Troy. Advertisements in the
way of signs directing people to inns are also known in this period.

The Roman Empire

With no foreign borders between England and
Syria, and with safe seas from piracy due to Roman patrols, the conditions
favouring travel had arrived. First class roads coupled with staging inns
(precursors of modern motels) promoted the growth of travel. Romans travelled
to Sicily, Greece, Rhodes, Troy and Egypt. From 300 AD travel to the Holy Land
also became very popular. The Romans introduced their guidebooks (itineraria),
listing hotels with symbols to identify quality.

Second homes were built by the rich near Rome,
occupied primarily during springtime social season. The most fashionable
resorts were found around Bay of Naples. Naples attracted the retired and the
intellectuals, Cumae attracted the fashionable while Baiae attracted the down
market tourist, becoming noted for its rowdiness, drunkenness and all- night
singing.

Travel and Tourism were to never attain a
similar status until the modern times.

In the Middle Ages

Travel became difficult and dangerous as
people travelled for business or for a sense of obligation and duty.

Adventurers sought fame and fortune through
travel. The Europeans tried to discover a sea route to India for trade purposes
and in this fashion discovered America and explored parts of Africa. Strolling
players and minstrels made their living by performing as they travelled.
Missionaries, saints, etc. travelled to spread the sacred word.

Leisure travel in India was introduced by the
Mughals. The Mughal kings built luxurious palaces and enchanting gardens at
places of natural and scenic beauty (for example Jehangir travelled to Kashmir
drawn by its beauty.

Travel for empire building and pilgrimage was
a regular feature.

The Grand Tour

From the early seventeenth century, a new form
of tourism was developed as a direct outcome of the Renaissance. Under the
reign of Elizabeth 1, young men seeking positions at court were encouraged to
travel to continent to finish their education. Later, it became customary
for education of gentleman to be completed by a 'Grand Tour' accompanied by a
tutor and lasting for three or more years. While ostensibly educational, the
pleasure seeking men travelled to enjoy life and culture of Paris, Venice or
Florence. By the end of eighteenth century, the custom had become
institutionalised in the gentry. Gradually pleasure travel displaced
educational travel. The advent of Napoleonic wars inhibited travel for around
30 years and led to the decline of the custom of the Grand Tour.

The development of the spas

The spas grew in popularity in the seventeenth
century in Britain and a little later in the European Continent as awareness
about the therapeutic qualities of mineral water increased. Taking the cure in the spa rapidly acquired the nature of a
status symbol. The resorts changed in character as pleasure became the
motivation of visits. They became an important centre of social life for the
high society.

In the nineteenth century they were gradually
replaced by the seaside resort.

The sun, sand and sea resorts

The sea water became associated with health
benefits. The earliest visitors therefore drank it and did not bathe in it. By
the early eighteenth century, small fishing resorts sprung up in England for
visitors who drank and immersed themselves in sea water. With the overcrowding
of inland spas, the new sea side resorts grew in popularity. The introduction
of steamboat services in 19th century introduced more resorts in the circuit.
The seaside resort gradually became a social meeting point

Role of the industrial revolution in
promoting travel in the west

 The rapid urbanisation due to
industrialisation led to mass immigration in cities. These people were lured
into travel to escape their environment to places of natural beauty, often to
the countryside they had come from change of routine from a physically and
psychologically stressful jobs to a leisurely pace in countryside.

Highlights of travel in the nineteenth
century 

·       
Advent of railway initially catalysed business travel and later leisure travel.
Gradually special trains were chartered to only take leisure travel to their
destinations.

·       
Package tours organised by entrepreneurs such as Thomas Cook.

·       
The European countries indulged in a lot of business travel often to their
colonies to buy raw material and sell finished goods.

·       
The invention of photography acted as a status-enhancing tool and promoted
overseas travel.

·       
The formation of first hotel chains; pioneered by the railway companies who
established great railway terminus hotels.

·       
Seaside resorts began to develop different images as for day-trippers, elite,
for gambling.

·       
Other types of destinations-ski resorts, hill stations, mountaineering spots
etc.

·       
The technological development in steamships promoted travel between North
America and Europe.

·       
The Suez Canal opened direct sea routes to India and the Far East.

·       
The cult of the guidebook followed the development of photography.

Tourism in the Twentieth Century

The First World War gave first hand experience
of countries and aroused a sense of curiosity about international travel among
less well off sector for the first time. The large scale of migration to the US
meant a lot of travel across the Atlantic. Private motoring began to encourage
domestic travel in Europe and the west.  The sea side resort became annual
family holiday destination in Britain and increased in popularity in other
countries of the west. Hotels proliferated in these destinations.

The birth of air travel and after

The wars increased interest in international
travel. This interest was given the shape of mass tourism by the aviation
industry. The surplus of aircrafts and growth of private airlines aided the
expansion of air travel. The aircraft had become comfortable, faster and
steadily cheaper for overseas travel. With the introduction of Boeing 707 jet
in 1958, the age of air travel for the masses had arrived. The beginning of
chartered flights boosted the package tour market and led to the establishment
of organised mass tourism. The Boeing 747, a 400 seat craft, brought the cost
of travel down sharply. The seaside resorts in the Mediterranean, North Africa
and the Caribbean were the initial hot spots of mass tourism.

A corresponding growth in hotel industry led
to the establishment of world-wide chains. Tourism also began to diversify as
people began to flock alternative destinations in the 70s. Nepal and India
received a throng of tourists lured by Hare Krishna movement and transcendental
meditation. The beginning of individual travel in a significant volume only
occurred in the 80s. Air travel also led to a continuous growth in
business travel especially with the emergence of the MNCs.

Alternative tourism

Alternative
tourism can be defined as ‘forms of tourism that set out to be consistent with
natural, social and community values and which allow both hosts and guests to
enjoy positive and worthwhile interaction and shared experiences’. It involves
traveling to relatively remote, undisturbed natural areas with the objective of
admiring, studying and enjoying the scenery and its wild plants and animals and
cultural attributes. It also considers the conservation of the environment and sustenance
and well-being of local people. Further, clients are expected to be
individuals. Accommodations are locally owned and small-scale. In general, alternative tourism is an alternative to the
mass standard tourism as philosophy and attitude. The main accent in these
travels is the preserved natural environment, authentic atmosphere and cuisine,
and local traditions. The alternative forms of tourism combine tourist products
or separate tourist services, different from the mass tourism by means of
supply, organization and the human resource involved. These are rural, ecotourism, adventure (biking,
horseback riding, snowshoeing, ski mountaineering, rafting, diving, caving,
climbing), thematic tourism –
connected with the cultural and historical heritage, the esoteric, religion, wine,
traditional cuisine, ethnography and traditional music and handicrafts.

Features of Alternative Tourism

-
The attempted preservation, protection and enhancement of the quality of the resource
base which is fundamental to tourism itself.

-
The fostering and active promotion of development, in relation to additional visitor
attractions and infrastructure, with roots in the specific locale and developed
in ways that complement local attributes.

-
The endorsement of infrastructure, hence economic growth, when and where it improves
local conditions and not where it is destructive or exceeds the carrying capacity
of the natural environment or the limits of the social environment whereby the
quality of community life is adversely affected.

-
Tourism which attempts to minimize its impact upon the environment, is ecologically
sound, and avoids the negative impacts of many large-scale tourism developments
undertaken in areas that have not previously been developed.

-
An emphasis on not only ecological sustainability, but also cultural sustainability.
That is, tourism which does not damage the culture of the host community,
encouraging a respect for the cultural realities experienced by the tourists
through education and organized 'encounters'.

Tourism Product

Definition:

"The products which satisfy tourist’s leisure, pleasure or business needs at places other than their own normal place of residence are known as Tourism Product. " Product in its generic sense can be thing, a place, a person, an event, or an organization which satisfies the needs of a person. The product which is offered should have an intrinsic value for the customer. Therefore, a product is an offering having some need satisfying capacity. This product can be exchanged with some other value, so that there accrues a mutual satisfaction for both the supplier as well as the receiver of the product. A Product could therefore be defined by its three characteristic: 1. The product must be offered 2. It should satisfy some need or needs of the buyer 3. It should be exchanged for some value. Very often the product can be a thing like the ethnic garments of Rajasthan or marble status from Jabalpur. It can also be like a place like Mumbai or Goa. It could be an organization like the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) or FOREX department of a travel agency. Yet again, it can be a person like snake charmer, dancer, a guide or a fictitious character like Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. Events are also tourism products like Snake Boat Race of Kerala or the Elephant Festival of Jaipur or the Kite Festival at Ahmedabad. Products of tourism also encompass activity. This could be paragliding or scuba diving or trekking.

We can divide products into tow categories: 1) Tangible products like car, TV or microwave oven and 2) Intangible products like banking, health service. Therefore, tourism products are intangible products or service having the following distinct characteristics: (i) Intangibility (ii) Inseparability (iii) Perishability (iv) Variability (v) Absence of Ownership (vi) Customer participation 

1. Intangibility: - services can not be touched or seen. What can be seen is their effect. A guide’s comment can be heard. While a travel agent provides a ticket from place A to place B. the ticket is just a piece of paper, only an entry pass for using the service. An airline provides the service of transportation. What we only can see is the aircraft which carries passenger from one place to another. The intangible characteristic poses problems of understanding and evaluating services. The services are promises which can be evaluated after or during use and not before. The difference between the products and services are products are first produced then sold and then consumed. But services first sold then produced and consumed simultaneously.

2. Inseparability: - It is not possible to separate services from the person providing the service. A guide or an interpreter has to be present to provide the service. 

3. Perishability: - Services can not be stored. Fro example hotel rooms not occupied for one particular day are lost for that day. If tourists do not do not come to see the Taj Mahal the view is lost for that day. 

4. Absence of ownership:-when a person buy a car, the ownership of the car is transferred to him but when that person hire a taxi he only buy the right to be transported to a pre-determined destination at a pre-determined price. Hotel rooms can be used but not owned by the guest. So services can be bought for consumption but the ownership remains with the person or the organization which is providing the service. 

5. Variability: - services are people based products. Services are inseparable from the person who offers it. They are produced and offered by individuals. Due to this, quality of service differs from person to person, and from time to time with the same individual. Therefore services can not be standardized. Another reason for variability of services is involvement of the guest or customer in the process of service production, delivery and consumption system. 

6. Participation of Customer: - in the service delivery system (selling – production – consumption) the customer is involved almost at every stage. A per son who wants to fly from CCU to DEL may ask any one else to book the ticket on flight but that person needs to be present on the flight physically. Otherwise the service for that particular person can not be produced and hence can not be consumed.

Classification of Tourism Products:

1. Natural: beaches, forests, mountains, lakes, deserts.

2. Man Made: fairs, festivals, monuments, paintings.

3. Symbolic: Marine Park, sanctuaries, water sports.

Needs satisfied by Tourism Products: Pleasure, recreation: festivals, wildlife, sports Relaxation, leisure: beaches, hill stations Health: Yoga, Spas Education: heritage, culture Business: conference, convention Special Interest: adventure sports

Folklore and Tourism

Tourism and Folk Dance: Conceptual Developments

Heritage tourism, as a cultural tourism segment, is “the evocation of the past and inherently about visions or understanding of the present, and a key justification for the preservation of both material cultures and traditional practices, in what they can tell contemporary communities or tourists about themselves and others. It is something of a paradox of modernity that at the same time that relentlessly seeks modern people, also hankers after something older, more authentic, or traditional”

Folklore, and its various expressions, namely folk dance, is considered as an intangible cultural heritage3(ICH) or living heritage, built over the triple conjunction of the conceptual framework: folk, nation5 and tradition6. The relationship of folklore with tourism, places it in a touristification process, as a reality in accordance to the post-modern, post-fordist and globalized society we live in.

However, tourism, as an economic activity, must appropriate culture, and namely this kind of heritage – simultaneously traditional and living, in a context “where Economics, Culture and Space are symbiotic of each other” (Santagata 2004). With the recognition that tourists are changing trying to achieve deeper and more meaningful experiences by changing their role – engaging in volunteer tourism or creative tourism, it is important to be aware that folk dance is loosing its traditional role in local/regional communities. But, in post-modernity, it’s not only the memory that is in a loosing risk, identity is too. Recognising identity as a non neutral and evolutionary process,

Folklore, as a body of expressive culture, has been developed as part of the 19th century ideology of romantic nationalism. It was linked with a sense of belonging and cohesion related to a particular local/regional community and to a particular place. In that perspective it was an element of the spirit of place. However, in post-modernity, the tendency is to use folklore with consumption ends, a context in which we explore the relation between folkloric dance and cultural tourism. In post-modernity, folk dance tends to be involved in a touristification process and many of its intrinsic characteristics are getting lost in time.

This has to do with two major aspects. The first one is the use of folk-dance as an entertainment performance oriented to tourist consumption. In the tourist industry, destinations appear as an answer to the expectations of the experience the tourist wishes to live. Folklore groups have then a tendency to acquire the shape of the tourist experience since it is not possible to perform a show without a relationship between actors and public. Any folk-dancing played today will never be a retake of the original because it has been adapted to the needs of new publics, and consequently it gains new uses, functions and values.

The second one concerns the characteristics of resident population that is urban or urbanized to a considerable extent. Consequently, it is embodied in a globalization process that eventually leads to the disintegration of local cultures. This process is related to cultural homogenization and the prevalence of mainly Western consumer culture in which everything is evaluated in terms of its market value. In this context, university students revealed some lack of interest about this kind of dancing showed in the low frequency in their attendance to folklore performances.

Places and local communities are also their cultural past which should be valued it in the present, as our respondents point out. It is our belief that only through a participated cultural and territory planning and management it will be possible to value cultural identity and consequently value the tourist experience. Planning and management should lay on a local/regional cultural dynamic concerned with educational values based on the various expressions of art. Regarding folk dance, it should be recognized that once it is closely linked to many other expressions such as music, rituals, festivities, musical instruments, objects, artefacts, ornaments, to promote the folk dance knowledge is to promote knowledge about identity.

In this context, folk dance valorisation, as a touristic resource, should be rethought over so that not only young people but also the ones of other age fringes might integrate this expression of the popular culture as their own more than for the others. This demands several educational dynamics.

Tour Guide and their Role

The terminology of a tour guide its self can be defined as : a person who is hired to conduct a traveler or tourist and point out objects of interest ( general sense of term ). The other definition, state that a tour guide is a person employed , either directly by the traveler, an official or private tourist or organization or a tours and travel agency, to inform, direct and advise the tourist before and during his journey ( the tourist point of view ).

According to the definition of a tour guide, we know that duty and responsibility of a tour guide include all activities related to the tourist activities started from tourist arrival to a country, tour activities until departure activities. In this case off course according to the tour package which is ordered and reserved by a tourist. If we talk about tourist, actually it can be divided into individual tourist ( more familiar with terminology FIT or free individual tourist ) and group tourist ( more familiar with terminology GIT or group inclusive tourist ). In giving this category, we can use an instrument type of transportation is used by tourist. For example, if we use private car, we can say that it is an individual tourist. But if we use bus with many capacities ( 28 seats, 40 or 45 seats, and 54 seats ) we can say that they are group tourists. In this case, actually many consideration, to determine a certain tourist included in individual or group. For example, according to the airliner rules : a total of passenger can be said as a group if fulfill number of passengers are 15 person or more. Even the airliner policy of group category is changed, from 15 persons to 20 person. And this policy is different between one airliner and other airliner.

Total of participants of a tour, have influence for facilities and services that is offered and given to the tourist. Beside that some step in giving service also different although in general there is not different in service. It is caused all of company which related to the tourist industry focus in client satisfaction so they never differ between individual or group tourist on condition that the tourist is satisfied.
Talk about tourists, it can be divided into domestic and foreign tourist. A domestic tourist can be defined that all persons who do traveling to tourist objects either part of them or whole tourist objects that spread out in a region, city, province or country of tourists them self. A foreign tourist can be defined that all persons who do traveling to tourist objects either part of them or whole tourist objects that spread out in a region, city, province or country out of tourists them self ( or with a simple term : tourists who visit tourist object which is in other country ). Either this domestic or foreign tourist, constitute a main aspect in developing a tourism industry with all components related such as transportation, accommodation, tourist object, tours and travel agency and others.

A tour guide as a part of a travel agency also a tourist object, have great roles in developing tourism in any scale either in regional or national. A tour guide has duty to inform about tourist objects and any point of interest in certain regions which spread out in whole country. In this case, he is also as a front liner in developing tourism who is expected to give the best services to the tourists so that they are feel satisfied and have willing to come back to this tourist object in other time. It is hoped that they can come back to the tourist destination not only come alone but also invite their friends, families or colleagues as a prove that they are really satisfied and impressed with the tourist destination that they visit. This is a real duty of a tour guide and this is not an easy duty but a heavy duty.

Role of tour Guide

Tour guides are referred as tourist guides in some country. A tour guide is a person who guides the visitors in the language of their choice. He leads a group of people around the museum, town, and important venue. Guides are representative of the cities for which they are qualified and they interpret the culture and heritage of the area.
Guide helps travelers to understand the culture of the region and the way of life its inhabitants. On one hand their role is to promote the cultural and natural heritage and on other hand making the visitors aware of its importance.
Guide provides full information about the features and history of the location. As the importance of places is known by the guide, he will educate and narrates you all the local stories, history and culture as and when the location comes. The importance is placed on the guide's knowledge; he will try his best to explain you in language you know. While traveling to next location guide entertain you, and gives you relevant information about the place where you will land up next.
On visiting any historical place, a guide with complete knowledge of that place is required. So that he narrate the history of that place in detail. If you move without a guide you will not come to know anything about the place and you will not understand what you are seeing and what does it means. Guide answers all your questions and you can gain lot of knowledge from him. Many times it happens that we ignore small things, but always a small thing contains a big story, so only guide can educate us about the place.
Before going for a trip you can ask your friends and relatives about the place who have been there. But to get the whole insight information it is better to appoint a guide. A guide helps you to know about the climatic condition, culture, language, specialty of the place and also helps us to buy the famous thing available there.