The definition and scope of tourism: a necessary inquiry

• Author(s): Cunha, Licínio
• Date: 2012
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10437/5239
• Origin: ReCiL - Repositório Científico Lusófona
• Subject(s): TURISMO; POTENCIAL TURÍSTICO; ESTATÍSTICA; ATRACÇÕES TURÍSTICAS; ECONOMIA DO TURISMO; TOURISM; STATISTICS; TOURIST ATTRACTIONS; TOURISM POTENTIAL; TOURISM ECONOMICS
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

Throughout the 20th century international bodies recognized the need to define the basic concepts of tourism with a view to obtaining comparable statistics. At the same time, scholars and researchers tried to define tourism, no longer with the concern of compiling statistics,but in the attempt to characterize a complex activity which emerged at the beginning of the century. However, these definitions do not provide a clear understanding of the phenomenon of tourism, nor do they comprehend the whole reality. The present paper aims to identify the insufficiencies of various definitions with the purpose of contributing to finding a definition which may merit acceptance from the scientific community.