United Nations World Tourism And The Economic Aspects Of Tourism

More and more people travel every year. International tourist arrivals grew by 5% in 2013, reaching a record 1,087 million arrivals according to the latest United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) World Tourism Barometer (UNWTO, 2014). UNWTO also forecasts a 4% to 4.5% for 2014 (UNWTO, 2014). But do we know what tourism is? When asked to define tourism, people tend to think first about all the economic aspects of tourism, such as accommodations, food and beverage…and so on. It is true that the most visible parts of tourism are very often linked to the industry of tourism. This is even more straightforward nowadays, while the economy seems to rule the world, deciding which is the most powerful country and which is the least powerful one. However, a question is can we say that tourism is limited to its economic aspects only. When looking at tourism from a closer perspective, everything starts to appear more diversified and more complex. As Morin (1990) says, “tourism

The demand-side includes what the customer is looking forward to doing while it is considered a tourist. This includes a wide range of activities such as eating in a restaurant, visiting a museum…and so on. In other words, “tourism demand refers to the willingness and ability of consumers to buy different amounts of a tourism product at different prices during any period of time” (Dwyer, Forsyth & Dwyer, 2010). From the supply-side, the industry of tourism is defined by what tourists pay (Theobald, 1994). In the supply-side perspective, tourism actors provide the tourists with an experience that they are willing to pay for.

With this approach, tourism could therefore be defined as a meta-market in which appear different needs, linked to tourism, and various activities which could be considered as products elaborated for the only purpose to satisfy those needs (Demen-Meyer,