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What is Tourism Product? Definition, Types, Characteristics

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What is Tourism Product?

Tourism Products are a combination of goods and services demanded by a tourist during travel to and stay at a destination. These include natural, cultural and manmade attractions and facilities such as hotels, transport and ancillary services.

In this process, tourists derive an experience which varies from individual to individual. From a broader perspective, the sum total of experiences derived by the tourists during the entire trip can be considered as the product.

Table of Content

  • 1 What is Tourism Product?
  • 2 Definition of Tourism Product
  • 3.1 Natural Tourism Product
  • 3.2 Man-Made Tourism Product
  • 3.3 Symbiotic Tourism Product
  • 3.4 Event Based Tourism
  • 3.5 Site Based Tourism Product
  • 4.1 Intangibility
  • 4.2 Inseperatability
  • 4.3 Perishability
  • 4.4 Heterogeneity
  • 4.5 Essentially of Users Presence
  • 4.6 Complexity in Marketing
  • 4.7 Absence of Ownership

Definition of Tourism Product

Burkat and Medlik say tourism products to an array of integrated products, which consist of objects and attractions, transportation, accommodation and entertainment, where each element of the tourism product is prepared by individual companies and are offered separately to consumers (tourist/tourist).

The tourism “product” is not the destination, but it is about the experiences of that place and what happens there. – Chris Ryan

Economist M. Sinclair and Mike Stabler define the tourism product as a “composite product involving transport, accommodation, catering, natural resources, entertainment and other facilities and services, such as shops and banks, travel agents and tour operators.”

According to Suswantoro (2007:75) on substantially the understanding of tourism products “is obtained and the overall service felt or enjoyed by tourists since he left his residence to the tourist destination of his choice and to return home where she originally departed”.

Types of Tourism Products

Following figure describes the classification of Tourism Product:

Natural Tourism Product

Man-made tourism product, symbiotic tourism product, event based tourism, site based tourism product.

These are the products connected to the natural environment. Natural environment that constitutes natural resources which is related to area, climate and its settings, and the landscapes. These natural resources are the most important elements in a destination’s attraction. Such as countryside, climate, natural beauty, water, flora and fauna, wildlife, beaches, deserts, islands or any scenic attraction.

Some examples of natural tourism products in India are Marina beach- Chennai, Darjeeling hill station-West Bengal, Islands of Andaman & Nicobar- Andaman & Nicobar, Deserts of Thar-Rajasthan, etc

Something which is not natural, found in the destinations to attract the tourists. These are man-made creations. As per the tourism point of view they are made for pleasure, leisure or business.

Man-made tourism products are further divided into three subtypes:

  • Sites and areas of archaeological interest
  • Historical buildings and monuments
  • Places of historical significance l museums and art galleries
  • Political and educational institutions
  • Religious institutions
  • Fairs and festivals
  • Arts and handicrafts
  • Folklore l native life and customs
  • Amusement and recreation parks
  • Sporting events
  • Zoos and oceanariums
  • Cinemas and theatres
  • Night life l cuisines

Examples of Man-made tourism products are Ajanta and Ellora cave-Maharashtra (Cultural), Surajkund Craft Mela-Haryana (Traditional), Essel World-Mumbai, etc

This type of tourism product do not fall in any particular category because they are a blend of nature and man but the core attraction is nature. These are the natural resource that has been converted into a tourism product by maintaining and managing them.

In other words man has taken initiative to preserve the natural aspects of earth and also managed in a way to provide best possible services to the tourists who come for the visit, for example, accommodation, parking facilities, etc. Some examples are National Park or Wildlife Sanctuaries, Flower Festival, Marine Park, Aero and Water Sports, Botanical Garden etc.

In India, there are many national parks like Ranthambhore-Rajasthan, where tigers and many animals are preserved and tourists are given facilities like a jungle safari.

Product Here event is the main source of attraction. Tourist comes to observe and participate in the events. Events are temporary in nature and are often mounted in order to increase the number of tourists to a particular destination.

Some events are for a short time scale while other last for longer days. Sometimes events are mounted in those places where the tourist’s eye usually don’t reach such as unusual exhibitions.

Some examples of event-based tourism product include Camel Polo at Jaisalmer- Rajasthan, Kite flying in Ahmedabad-Gujarat, where tourists also participate and observes. In Snake boat race-Kerela, one can enjoy witnessing it. Short time scale event includes Republic day parade-New Delhi and long days event include Khajuraho dance festival-Madhya Pradesh.

It is a particular site or a place, permanent in nature which is the main source of attraction for the tourists. In India examples are like Taj Mahal, Beaches of Goa, Sunset at Kanyakumari, Temples of Khajuraho, etc.

Characteristics of Tourism Product

Following are the main characteristics of tourism products:

Intangibility

Inseperatability, perishability, heterogeneity, essentially of users presence, complexity in marketing, absence of ownership.

As discussed earlier in this chapter, tourism products are actually the services that are being sold to the tourists, and it’s not the goods. Services can’t be seen, smelled, felt or touched, it can only be experienced. What can be seen is their effect.

For example, a guide’s comments can be heard. A travel agents books a ticket from place A to B. The ticket is just a piece of paper, an entry pass for using the service. An airline provides the service of transportation, comfort and leisure. A thorough evaluation of the service before buying it is therefore impossible and leads customers to use other cues to help them assess the service like the interior of the restaurant, the appearance of the hotel entrance or the behaviour of the receptionist.

A service of a tourism product cannot be separated from the provider of the service. For most services, the producer and the seller are the same people. Services are manufactured and consumed at the same time. In the case of products, consumption takes place after production and often far away from the factory.

In the case of tourism products for example a guide has to be present to explain the attraction. A pilot has to be present to fly a plane. Both service providers and the service user have to be physically present for mutually satisfying the exchange of service. The visitor to a national park cannot experience counter service if the receptionist is not present, nor can the receptionist render the service is the visitor is absent.

The tourism product is highly perishable, which means it cannot be stored. For example, a hotel room or an aeroplane seat that is not sold on a particular day, is a lost sale. If the tourists don’t visit a particular place, the opportunity is lost. If the opportunity is lost, the moment is lost. This adversely affects the tourism business.

The demand has to be managed by the marketer in such a way as to ensure that as little capacity as possible is lost. The problem is unique for the tourism industry. Due to these reason sometimes heavy discount is offered by hotels or transport generating organization.

Services offered by most people are never the same. There is some degree of variability present in almost all types of services. This may be due to the extensive involvement of people in the production of service. This issue is not present when a machine dominates. Depending on the mood, behaviour, working style, efficiency and knowledge of the people variability exist.

For example, all air hostesses cannot provide the same quality service like the other. Yet again the same individual air hostess may not perform the same uniform service both in the morning as well as in the evening.

Even the tour package and the aircraft can’t be consistent of equal standards because an aircraft can de-shape the travelling pleasure into a nightmare and a holiday seaside is ruined by the prolonged rainy spell.

Another reason for variability of service is the involvement of customers in the process of product delivery and consumption system. For example, a musician performing at a program may not perform with uniformity. His performance will depend on the response and appreciation of the audience. Hence service varies from person to person, time to time and from situation to situation.

In travel and tourism businesses, service quality depends on uncontrollable factors and there is no sure way of knowing whether the service delivered matched what was planned or promoted, or what was expected by the customer.

Presence of the user is necessary to avail the service. The customer or the guest has to be personally present on the spot. It can’t be brought to the user. As in the case of other tangible goods, the buyer can avail the service from anywhere or from his home. But in the case of tourism products, it is not at all possible. The tourist has to go to the tourist attraction to experience the tour.

However the marketers here need an in-depth study of users behaviour, tastes, preferences, likes and dislikes so that expectations and realities coincide and satisfaction is made possible.

Tourism product involves complexity in marketing. It requires a lot of effort to convince a buyer. As in the case of travel agents. In order to sell their tour package they need to convince the customer by introducing various facilities, discounts and services. Product demonstration is bit difficult in the case of tourism product.

As in the case of tangible goods like television. As soon as we buy it, we become the owner of it. But this is not the case with tourism products. A tourism product when sold to the customer or tourist, he can only avail the service but can’t be its owner.

For example, while buying a hotel room, while buying a seat in an aircraft or a luxurious train, you can only take the facilities of the service for a certain time. You can’t be its owner for lifelong.

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Profile image of Dimitris  Koutoulas

The aim of this paper is to propose a marketing-oriented definition of the tourist product as well as a classification system of its components based on an extensive review and analysis of tourism marketing literature. Tourist products satisfy the tourist needs and are the objects of the transactions between tourists and businesses. Determining the tourist products is most helpful for social scientists interested in understanding the aforementioned transactions and the benefits derived by consuming these products. This proves to be a challenging task, though, due to the lack of a common understanding among the authors who have explored this issue as well as due to the different levels of tourist products and their complex nature. For instance, tourist products can be determined on two distinct levels: ➢ The total tourist product comprises a combination of all the elements, which a tourist consumes during his/her trip. ➢ The specific products are components of the total tourist product and can be sold as individual offerings such as accommodation, transport, attractions and other facilities for tourists. This paper focuses on the total tourist products, that can be understood as bundles of tangible and intangible components, based on an activity at a destination. It is the consumption of such a bundle that allows engaging in specific activities at the destination(s) and that creates the travel experience of each individual. Thus, the tourist product can be equated with the total travel experience. Tourist products are characterised by their complex nature. They consist of numerous components ― most of which constitute products themselves ― with each one playing a distinct functional role in this “amalgam of tangible and intangible elements”. These components complement each other, i.e. they are functionally interdependent as each one provides only a part of the total sum of benefits sought by tourists.

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Book cover

Cruise Tourism and Society pp 39–46 Cite as

Branding Strategy for Specialist Tourism Products

  • Neven Seric 4 &
  • Mate Perisic 5  
  • First Online: 14 November 2012

2299 Accesses

Branding strategy is very complex on the field of specialized tourist products. Each specialized tourist brand need to be more differentiated on the global market. Applying of the branding concepts to the touristic business could be different from product to product. But few of them treat in a wider sense branding strategy toward the brand management. Choosing a right branding strategy for the brand management is paramount for achieving a substantial growth that ensures a steady future development of the national income of tourism. Some specialized tourist products are nearby crowded tourist route, some others are far from there. The branding strategies for each of them need to be different. Specialized tourist product is a promise for a kind of the magical vacation, sometimes on very attractive destination. Branding strategy needs to interact with the brand identity of such destination. It is suggested the evaluation of the brand from the standpoint of the marketing strategy. Right branding strategy of the specialized tourist product is the only way for the commercialization on the global market. The main premise of such brand is creating added value for the specialized tourist product. For that reason the right branding strategy has become the biggest intangible asset of the tourist brand. If tourist has not enough time to search for exact tourist product, he judges it by its brand. It is very difficult for a brand to convince tourist what to think about. The paper deals with issues that define how branding strategy can protect and preserve the integrity of the specialized tourist brand through the effective evaluation of the brand implied by the chosen branding strategy. The success of the tourist brand depends on the application of the branding strategy. The main hypothesis is that efficient branding strategy for the specialized tourist product need to be primarily influenced by the perception of potential demand.

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Seric, N., Perisic, M. (2012). Branding Strategy for Specialist Tourism Products. In: Papathanassis, A., Lukovic, T., Vogel, M. (eds) Cruise Tourism and Society. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32992-0_4

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Marketing Cultural Resources as a Tourism Product

Submitted: 20 June 2020 Reviewed: 03 September 2020 Published: 23 September 2020

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This chapter presents the marketing aspect of cultural tourism resources by taking evidence from Sidama, Southern Ethiopia. It identifies the major cultural tourism resources of Sidama, and assesses their market readiness state through the lenses of tourists. It also presents the profile of cultural tourists visiting endowments in Sidama using descriptive research approach. Brief introduction of marketing approaches to cultural tourism and a review of literature on cultural tourism products and cultural tourists is also provided. As to its significance, the chapter offers analysis of cultural tourism assets and their marketability as a tourism product in a developing destination context. Practical implications for sound cultural tourism marketing are also discussed in the chapter.

  • cultural tourism
  • cultural tourism products

Author Information

Amare yaekob chiriko *.

  • MA in Tourism and Development, Hawassa University, Hawassa, Ethiopia

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected];, [email protected]

1. Introduction

Tourism has experienced unprecedented growth over recent years and in 2020, international tourist arrivals are expected to exceed 1.6 billion [ 1 ]. Cultural Tourism’s popularity is continuously increasing on a faster pace than most of the other tourism segments, faster than the growth rate of tourism worldwide [ 2 ]. Because culture is a key tourism asset [ 3 ]; the unique cultural offer provided by destinations has become a major driver and motivation for visitors worldwide, inspiring millions of tourists to visit new destinations each year [ 4 ].

According to [ 5 ], cultural tourism includes the unique features of a place which reflect its culture, history, or environment, and by their experiential nature, promote the rich tapestry of cultural traditions, ethnic backgrounds and landscapes. A cultural resource can be defined as any cultural feature, tangible (material) or intangible (non-material), available within a country, region or area, which makes a positive contribution to cultural tourism [ 6 ]. These resources are not cultural tourism commodities unless they transform themselves into products that could be consumed by tourists [ 7 ] because, in a marketing concept, a product is considered as anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need [ 8 ]. Hence when culture as a product is brought into transaction in the market, it therefore is useful to analyze what is transferred to the consumer by the seller [ 9 ].

Although cultures exist independently and for reasons other than tourism, there is a clear role for tourism in the process of expressing culture and cultural difference [ 10 ]. Because marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and exchanging the products of value with others [ 8 ]; the concept of product scope is extended to include anything, which is capable of satisfying a need. Culture as product would be consumed to satisfy the enhancement of knowledge need of tourists, who own the product culture during their experience of immersion in a cultural context [ 9 ].

Hence, cultural tourism product can be defined as anything that can be offered to tourists for participating in cultural tourism to satisfy their cultural needs and wants by using the cultural tourism resource as basis [ 5 ]. According to [ 11 ], the cultural tourism product can be defined as a composition of the core product and the additional product, being the general tourism product elements and the related tourist services (general tourist facilitates and services; and transportation infrastructure). In order to attract more tourists, cultural tourism providers always position their products uniquely by focusing on their core cultural element, whose elements include cultural tourism destination, cultural environment or cultural events which involve the special cultural themes and unique characteristics [ 7 ].

Though the emergence of cultural tourism as a social phenomenon and as an object of academic study can be traced back to the surge in post-World War 2 leisure travel, modern cultural tourism has only been studied in detail since the 1980s [ 12 ], after being recognized as a tourism category by the ICOMOS Charter of Cultural Tourism in 1976 [ 13 ]. Limited interest had been shown by academics, particularly in the social sciences, regarding the relationship between tourism and cultural heritage. However, over recent years, the inter-relationships between tourism and culture have attracted considerable scholarly attention [ 14 ].

Although the concept of culture appears to be complicated and multifaceted, it has been examined in a number of academic disciplines [ 9 ]. According to him, though such disciplines as anthropology, sociology, philosophy and management have analyzed the relationship between tourism and culture as a symbiotic combination generating cultural products or commoditized culture, little attention has been directed to the analysis of the characteristics of culture from a marketing view when culture becomes a product.

The first organized cultural tourism survey was conducted by European Association for Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS) in 1991 when it launched transnational cultural tourism project in Europe [ 13 ], Since then, interest has been growing in cultural tourism studies focusing on analysis of profile and behavior of cultural tourists, covering several destinations across Europe, US and Asia. Especially in Europe, several research publications [ 15 , 16 , 17 ] have come up on national, regional and local level cultural tourism scenarios, using ATLAS survey as a springboard. In Asia cultural tourism was studied in the context of religious tourism [ 18 ] while it drew attention in Africa from heritage and indigenous perspective [ 19 ].

After conducting baseline research on inter-linkages between tourism and intangible cultural heritage, [ 4 ] urged policy makers and academia for further research on marketing of cultural products in order to foster tourism development through the promotion of cultural heritages. Furthermore, [ 1 ] points to a number of areas of future cultural tourism issues including commoditization and marketing of culture. Out of global studies, research findings indicate that only gastronomy and culinary heritage are fairly well promoted by National Tourism Authorities (NTAs), while products based on oral traditions or knowledge of the universe require more attention [ 4 ].

This study focuses on the marketability of cultural tourism resources of Sidama. Sidama people are among the 86 nations and nationalities in Ethiopia, with their own culture and tradition. They their own unique administrative system called Luwa which plays an important role in solving every aspect of problems in the nation. The people of Sidama also have their own date counting method, calendar. The new year day, which is decided by traditional astrologers called ayanto, is called fiche, and was registered in 2015 by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. The new year fiche cambalala is colorfully celebrated in the state capital Hawassa and other parts of the area [ 20 ].

In Sidama, the extent of turning cultural endowments into marketable tourism products has not been researched. Little research work exists regarding promotion, in local and international media, of the cultural resources of local communities. Though fiche cambala , Sidama’s new year, is registered by UNESCO, the intangible products of rural lifestyle, music, dancing, local status, and other customs have not been assessed in academic enquiry with regard to their market readiness to end users and the profile of cultural tourists consuming them. Tourism related research works conducted in Sidama and its surroundings have focused on identification of cultural potentials; and conservation of heritages [ 21 ]. These studies, while capitalizing on exploratory aspects tourism and related sectors inquiry, have failed to specifically address culture and cultural tourism from a marketing perspective. This study was conducted to partly fill the gap apparent in this regard. The study objectives were two-fold: (1) to assess the market readiness of cultural tourism products of Sidama; and (2) to identify the major cultural tourists consuming cultural tourism products of Sidama.

2. Literature review

2.1 cultural tourism products.

The tourism product is complex as the varied elements of service, hospitality, free choice, consumer involvement, and consumption of experiences must be actualized in some way [ 22 ]. According to [ 23 ] people do not buy products for the sake of the product itself, they buy them for the benefits they provide or the problems they solve. Hence any discussion of products must be made from the perspectives of consumer.

From marketing perspective, the term product is defined as anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a need or want [ 24 ]; and by applying this to tourism context, [ 5 ] defined cultural tourism products as anything that can be offered to tourists for participating in cultural tourism to satisfy their cultural needs and wants by using the cultural tourism resource as basis”. According to [ 11 ], the cultural tourism product is composed of two products. First there is the core product, which is the major cultural tourism supply (monuments, cultural events, local culture and etc.) and the related specific cultural tourist services, such as information and education. Secondly there exists the additional product, which includes the general tourism product elements and the related tourist services (general tourist facilitates and services and transportation infrastructure).

Further extending the definition provided by [ 11 , 23 ] conceptually viewed products as having three levels: a core product which specifies the benefits of use, a tangible product which transforms these benefits into something to be consumed, and an augmented product that adds extra value.

According to them, the core product is the most important feature for it describes the core benefit or solution provided by its use. As they contend,

“It answers the questions of ‘what personal needs is the product really satisfying’ and ‘what benefits does it offer ME’? …… The appeal of adopting a marketing approach is that the core problem being solved can vary widely, even for largely similar products. This variation enables different providers to position their product uniquely according to the benefits being promoted.” ([ 23 ], p. 155).

The tangible product according to them represents the physical manifestation of the core product that facilitates the need satisfaction. They give examples detailing,

“It is the historic fort that is entered, the battlefield site that is visited, the museum that is seen, the cultural tour that is joined, or the festival that is attended. The tangible product is not the core experience provided. It is the means by which the core need can be satisfied.” ([ 23 ], p. 155).

The final level in their classification constitutes augmented products, which provide additional features above and beyond the tangible product that add value and facilitate easier satisfaction of the core need. It could be something such as a free shuttle to and from the hotel, the provision of umbrellas for rainy days, a souvenir at the end of a tour, or a money back guarantee.

Slightly different approach developed by [ 9 ], which is called ‘product culture model’ views cultural tourism products in terms of four elements. These are essence of product , which the consumer receives to fulfill a need; real product , which encompasses those features that distinguish a product from those in the market; processed real product, where marketing interventions via promotional materials are done; and additional product , which explain the additional benefits and services added to the core one. At the heart of the model is real product , which encompasses the five product lines: tangible symbolic representations, intangible symbolic representations, staged symbolic representations, replicated symbolic representations, and transferable symbolic representations.

It can be concluded that though several cultural tourism product definitions and models exist [ 19 ], almost all of them place culture at the heart of the models with learning being the major core product.

2.2 Cultural tourists

Cultural tourists are an easily recognizable market niche [ 25 ]; and in wide body of literature [ 23 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ], they are highly regarded as visitors who tend to stay longer, spend more and travel in low seasons. In addition to this, they are also older, better educated, and more affluent than the traveling public as a whole [ 13 ] where women constitute a significant share. Furthermore, cultural tourists join in more activities than other tourists [ 26 ]. However, according to [ 30 ], these characteristics do not reliably represent cultural tourists; and as a result of this, there are several cultural tourism typologies [ 12 ].

The majority of cultural tourist typologies that exist these days are either adopted or elaborated versions of framework developed by [ 23 ]. This typology, which was tested in Hong Kong in 1999 and adopted widely by governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, identifies five types of cultural tourists based on centrality of trip purpose and depth of experience at destinations. First there is the purposeful cultural tourist to whom cultural tourism is the primary motive for visiting a destination, and the individual has a deep cultural experience. Then they identified the sightseeing cultural tourist to whom cultural tourism is a primary or major reason for visiting a destination, but the experience is shallower. The serendipitous cultural tourist is the one who does not travel for cultural tourism reasons, but who, after participating, ends up having a deep cultural tourism experience; while to the casual cultural tourist, cultural tourism is a weak motive for visiting a destination, and the resultant experience is shallow. Finally there is the incidental cultural tourist, who tourist does not travel for cultural tourism reasons but nonetheless participates in some activities and has shallow experiences. They concluded that most cultural tourists at a multi-product destination can be classified as casual or incidental; and that the share of purposeful cultural tourists at most places is quite small, meaning products must be geared for a tourist seeking a shallower experience.

These categorizations of cultural tourists reflect the difference between formal and more informal modes of learning [ 12 ]. This classification scheme by [ 23 ] is more comprehensive in that it incorporated deeper discussions on cultural tourist typology efforts that had been conducted previously [ 31 , 32 ] who entirely emphasized on motivation aspect. [ 31 ] for example identified three types of cultural tourists: the genuine cultural tourist, who chooses a holiday because of its cultural opportunities; the culturally inspired tourist, who makes a once in a life visit to a specific site or attraction; and the culturally attracted tourist, who would like a few cultural attractions at destination they choose for other reasons. This classification was more or less similar to ATLAS study that identified ‘specific’ and ‘general’ cultural tourists [ 26 , 33 ].

3. Methodology

Sidama Region is one of the 14 administrative states in Ethiopia. The region covers a total area of 72,000 square kilometers and is located in southern hemisphere around Equator in Horn of Africa at 6°14’N and 7°18’N latitude and 37°92′E and 39°19′E [ 20 ]. With the population of over 4 million inhabitants, the administrative structure of Sidama region constitutes 21 woredas (districts), 532 rural kebeles (counties) and 4 town administrations. With over 592, 539 households, the region has a population density 452p/km 2 , which makes it one of the mostly densely populated areas in the state [ 20 ]. The cultural and ethnographical riches of Sidama make it attractive to academic and industrial inquiries and this is the major reason the researcher was drawn to the study area ( Figure 1 ).

specific tourist products represent

Map of Sidama region, Ethiopia.

This research adopted a descriptive research design employing a survey-based quantitative research approach. This is because quantitative approaches are common in cultural tourism research and have been in use since [ 34 ] work on the motivations of American cultural travelers. As [ 11 ] contend, the practice of conducting surveys of cultural tourists is well established in destinations around the world. This is mainly because of the advantages surveys provide in studying visitor activities, motivations, behavior and expenditure patterns. Surveys are also a useful means of monitoring trends over time. Several surveys in cultural tourism involve visitors and in most cases, foreign tourists [ 11 ].

Because including whole population in surveys is impossible or unfeasible due to factors associated with data management and cost [ 11 ], taking samples becomes a necessity. As the subjects of this study were international tourists to Sidama Zone, convenient sampling method was employed to target them. This was done with the view to catch cultural tourists as representatively as possible given the limited international visitor flow the area. Across the survey, questionnaire was administered to 375 international tourists who visited Sidama zone during the study period. The sample size of was determined by applying the [ 35 ] formula, n = N/1 + N(α 2 ); Where, n = Expected Sample Size, N = Population Size and α = Level of Confidence Interval 0.05 or 95% level of confidence, out of 8100 international tourists who visited Sidama in 2015/16 based on the data obtained [ 20 ].

The questionnaire was designed either as an interviewer-assisted or self- completion one; and questions were translated in to German and French in addition to original English versions. International tourists were approached for data collection after trips to cultural tourist villages and other cultural attractions in Sidama and on fiche cambalala festival. The data collection was conducted between January and October 2018 as these months embrace most cultural festivals which attract international tourists [ 20 ].

Data analysis was conducted on 302 questionnaires after 7 of them had been excluded because of partial completion out of a 309 collected papers. The data was analyzed using statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22; and tables have been used to present outputs of processed data.

4. Results and discussion

4.1 demographic profile of tourists.

The inbound tourism market to Sidama is largely comprised by German and American tourists which together account for about 48% of the total sample. This is because Germany and USA are the leading tourist generating countries internationally [ 1 ] and according to Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ethiopia also receives tourists from these countries in bulk [ 36 ]. Ethiopian Diaspora who constitute a significant portion of the county’s inbound tourism [ 36 ] largely live in these countries. Hence the same logical proportion is represented in tourist flow to Sidama. About 29% of tourists are from European countries other than Germany. Tourists in this group include nationals from Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom, which is a manifestation that traditional powers of USA and Europe remain the main tourist sources for Ethiopia in general and Sidama in particular, as opposed to other mature destinations receiving tourists from emerging BRICS, Arab and other Asian markets.

The gender distribution in the survey showed that the number of females exceeds that of males. According to Silberberg [ 32 ], women constitute an important part of cultural tourism market and this works for Sidama, an area endowed with cultural riches [ 21 ]. The survey also agrees with [ 26 ] observation that older tourists prefer cultural sites than the youth and children. With increase in age, people’s interest in culture increases prompting them to explore historic things and develop a greater understanding of the past [ 37 ] ( Table 1 ).

Respondent demographics.

Cultural tourists are better educated and more affluent than the traveling public [ 13 ]; and the same has been evidenced in the survey with about 71% of tourists attending graduate and/or postgraduate degree programs. This confirms the contention of [ 23 ] that there is direct correlation between education level and interest in such activities as cultural and heritage tourism. According to them, the desire to learn about things beyond one’s own backyard, to learn about alternative lifestyles and cultures, and to experience different things is directly related to educational levels. As illustrated by [ 38 ], cultural enrichment and self-enlightment inspire a better-educated global public. However, findings from the survey appear to be at odds with tourism literature that suggests cultural tourists tend to stay longer at a destination. Only about 3% of them have length of longer than 5 nights, which could be explained by lack of developed festivals and cultural routes in Sidama [ 21 ].

Tourist demographics in the survey reveal the exact resemblance of inbound visitors of Ethiopia in terms of nationality, gender, age, educational level and travel experiences.

4.2 Cultural tourism products of Sidama

This section presents the major cultural endowments in Sidama zone which are developed to a certain extent in order to be consumed by visitors in general and cultural tourists in particular. Discussion of major cultural attractions and perceived level of market readiness by tourists is provided. Survey and the resulting narrative discussion is based on sources from promotional booklet published by [ 20 ].

4.2.1 Fiche cambalala festival

In past, it is believed that Sidama nation had different political, cultural and ideological structure of its own, one of the major manifestations of this being fiche cambalala [ 20 ]. According to the zone’s department, fiche cambalala is a new year celebration and stands out as one of the most interesting holidays of Sidama. As it marks change of the nation’s calendar, it is celebrated in great feast and community rituals. All community members involve in washing away the old year by reciprocal change of meals in hamlet. The festival, which lasts nearly for two weeks, is believed to have been celebrated for about 2000 years and features the making and playing of cultural songs; dancing and chanting on various market places [ 21 ]. Fiche cambalala is often performed in two levels: household and community level. Household level celebration involves feast with neighbors and beatification of girls, boys and the elderly by home-made jewelries. At community level, locals, led by the elderly called cimeye, head to Gudumale Park in Hawassa to perform thanksgiving ceremony.

Local astrologers called ayyantos determine the date of new year by investigating the positions, movement, color, volume, directions of moon and stars. This is often done one month ahead of the festival as community elders begin month-long fasting. Declaration of the first day of first day of New Year ( fiche ) will be announced when the ayantos see close approximation of the moon to five constellations of stars with defined movements in relation to each other and to the moon [ 20 ]. The celebration at Hawassa Gudemale Park features the eve ( fiixaari hawarro ) and first day of the New Year ( cambalala ) where horsemen; boys, girls and the elderly appear decorated with jewelleries. Once the festival is over, there comes post cambalala event featuring elders’ dancing on “ shashiga ” day and girls playing “ hore ” dance.

The major finding from the survey is that fiche cambalala festival, Sidama’s new year celebration stands out cultural icon of the area (see Table 2 ). With a mean value of 4.61, fiche cambalala is judged by tourists as the most market-ready attraction of Sidama zone. Possible explanations for this include its registration in UNESCO under intangible cultural heritage in 2016 and the associated level of planning and marketing to the festival at varying levels. It is common among destinations that UNESCO registered heritages often attract more tourists and generate higher spending than non-registered counterparts [ 1 ].

Market readiness of cultural tourism products.

4.2.2 Sidama-Hanafa cultural tourist village

This tourist village is located 325 km South East of Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital, around Yirgalem town. The village was set up for community based tourism by Sidama Communication, Culture, and Tourism Department; and features specially designed tourist facilities that cater to benefit women, youth, and the physically handicapped section of society in the area. The village boasts such services as production and processing of Sidama cultural foods; traditional coffee ceremony; coffee collection; village trekking; bird watching; and hot and cold mineral spring water facilities. According to the department, the village provides tourists with participatory activities where they can take part in coffee collection, production and serving; and water fetching from nearby streams. Tourists can also experience guided excursions of nearby localities [ 20 ]. A mean value of 3.77 indicates that the village is among the tourist spots of the zone and its market readiness state relatively matches tourists’ judgment of a developed cultural tourist product. This confirms the contention that in cultural attractions of developing countries, products which offer collective and one-stop experience often get market appeal advantages over those with single attraction resources [ 3 ].

4.2.3 Sidama cultural house

Like many other traditional houses in Ethiopia, Sidama cultural house features two types of housing construction: highland and lowland houses [ 20 ]. There exists no much difference in house set up, style and interior design, except for the purpose they are built for (lowland houses are built with much ventilation openings). While both houses have heelicho (a pillar at the center), the highland house ( sheeka ) features the wall and its roof is constructed from the ground to the top, with the splinted bamboo wafted together like a basket. The lowland house has wooden walls with roofs thatched from the top to the ground with grass and its waft bamboo is wafted with sheath called “ honce ” [ 20 ]. With a mean value of 2.77, traditional Sidama house exhibits a modest level market readiness as a cultural product in the eyes of international tourists. Because the ultimate purpose of cultural tourists is learning [ 9 ], tourists prefer to visit tangible heritages out of which they make learning of concepts like construction. Traditional house of Sidama stands out to be a good example of this sort at the zone.

4.2.4 Built cultural resources

Attractions other than fiche cambalala festival, the Hanafa-Cultural village and Sidama traditional house stand at varying levels of market readiness stage as perceived by tourists. Among these are built resources which include Sidama Cultural Centre and Gudumale Park. Sidama Cultural Centre boasts resources in similar standings with Hanafa cultural tourist village; and exhibits collection of traditional costumes, cultural and historical ornaments. Currently the center serves as a mini-museum of Sidama. It lies on a huge park featuring statues of the zone’s heroes who lost their lives fighting for independence and freedom from ethnic oppression. The center also has an exhibition and bazaar staging corridor and a meeting hall decorated by paintings reflecting Sidama cultural clothes and other traditional riches [ 20 ]. The Centre does not match a minimum cultural tourist product state of market readiness as perceived by the tourists. An arithmetic mean value of 2.33 is a good indication here. Another tangible attraction belonging to this category is the Gudumale Park. An extensive park at the north-western shore of Lake Hawassa, Gudumale is the main venue of event staging for fiche cambalala festival [ 20 ]. It is also fenced with colorful walls and colons which demonstrate the different jewelries worn by girls, boys and the elderly in Sidama. Gudumale Park often hosts large-scale religious and sporting gatherings [ 21 ]. However, with a mean score of 1.47, it is rated not ready for market to be consumed as a cultural tourism product.

4.2.5 Countryside cultural resources

This category of resources includes traditional music and dancing; cultural foods and drinks; and traditional dresses. As product development and marketing normally go hand-in-hand, poor efforts exerted from development stage appear to hamper the amount and volume of marketing works in Sidama [ 21 ] and hence the result is poorly marketed countryside resources. Traditional music for example falls among these poorly marketed components. Despite a considerable growth and spread in the volume of production and promotion of authentic music in Ethiopia in general and Southern Ethiopia in particular [ 21 ], their packaging does not match the current demands of cultural tourists. Traditional dances (3.04), which are often performed and presented in fiche cambalala festival and other cultural events, seem to be at better market readiness than the music (1.54). This could be due to the participatory nature of dancing activities and their role in helping tourists get immersed in the culture being visited [ 39 ]. Other resources under this category include traditional foods and drinks which are served mostly in traditional restaurants in Hawassa and the surrounding towns. While dishes like Bursame , Chukame and Omolcho, all products of enset (false banana leaf common in Southern Ethiopia), are widely available in restaurants in Hawassa, traditional drinks are seldom served in bars. The short length of stay coupled with absence of tour packages involving cultural nights led to this modest level market readiness of traditional foods and drinks, which are rated with 3.11 mean score. Cultural dresses and other souvenirs do not make up a major part of tourist itinerary in Sidama, and mean value of 1.79 shows their market readiness as a tourism product is far below tourists’ expectation. The presentation and perception of cultural clothes and souvenirs as icons of culture in developed destinations [ 33 ], is not a case in Sidama.

4.2.6 Intangible cultural resources

Turning the discussion to the intangibles category, we find Sidama languages, arts and literature, which normally draw attention of learning-minded tourists [ 33 ]. These attractions, which are very difficult to measure and quantify [ 25 ], are regularly presented in Annual Sidama Cultural Symposium held every year in Hawassa. This resource appears to be of modest market readiness stage as a cultural tourism product with a mean value of 3.03.

Rural life style and cultural ceremonies are also among attractions at low market readiness state as cultural tourism products. Because trips to poorly marketed destinations in developing countries often avoid deep authentic experience of local and aboriginal communities [ 33 ], tourists end up getting only superficial holiday experience and hence their knowledge of rural life and other life ceremonies is limited [ 25 ]. In slight contrary to this result, brushing of enset , which is common and day-to-day household activity in southern Ethiopia, has a mean score of 3.71 and is in relatively better state of market readiness. Because cultural tourists demand blended products, they seek to experience demonstrations of traditional life style by visiting lodges and eco-lodges, which present commercialized versions rural life. For example market readiness state of eco-lodges found in Sidama, has a mean score of 2.99, reflecting a moderate tourist perception and impression. Lodges like Aregash Lodge and Blen Lodge, found around Yirgalem town, attract a reasonable share of cultural tourists to Sidama. In a similar accord, cultural ceremonies like weddings, funerals and rituals remain at poor market readiness level, with a mean score of 1.32. these ceremonies, which are often left out of tourist itineraries and are often organized to be presented to and performed before tourists, are thought lead to commercialization and acculturation of authentic traditions of societies [ 19 ].

To conclude, the majority cultural tourism attractions of Sidama are found at low level of market readiness state to be consumed by tourists as cultural products. Though few attractions including fiche cambalala , cultural icon of Sidama; Hanafa cultural tourist village; and enset brushing have relatively better score of market readiness, they merely constitute one-third of the areas’ tourist appeal. Most attractions ranging from rural life to cultural ceremonies; from music to rural lifestyle and traditional ceremonies; from cultural centers and parks to clothes and souvenirs all exist in poor state of market readiness. In between these two extremes lie moderately marketed attractions like cultural foods and drinks, and Sidama dancing.

4.3 Cultural tourists to Sidama: profile

The profile of cultural tourists was analyzed out of a survey which was mainly adopted from cultural tourist typologies model developed by [ 23 ]. To suit it into the context of Sidama as a cultural tourist destination, few variables related to visitor attributes were also incorporated. The first part of tourist profile presents the proportion of each cultural tourist component while visitor attributes as a cultural tourist are portrayed in the second section (see Table 3 ).

Cultural tourists to Sidama.

Study findings showed that the casual cultural tourists (33.77%), to whom cultural tourism is a weak motive for visiting a destination, and the resultant experience is shallow, make up the largest part of visitors. They are followed by the incidental cultural tourists (24.5%) , who do not travel for cultural tourism reasons but nonetheless participate in some activities and get shallow experiences. The share of serendipitous cultural tourists, those who do not travel for cultural tourism reasons, but who, after participating, end up having a deep cultural tourism experience, is 3.97%. Simple summation of these three typologies of tourists yields the finding that about 62% of international tourists have trip purposes other than culture while visiting Sidama. They are either motivated by natural riches of the area or are on a package tour covering cultural visit to South Omo tribes, the biggest recipients of Ethiopia’s cultural tourism [ 36 ]. As [ 40 ] contends, this group includes people traveling to a destination without a plan to visit a heritage site or any other cultural offering, but do so when some other factors force them to cultural visitation.

The rest 38% of tourists surveyed indicated that motives related to cultural tourism played an important role in visiting Sidama. This figure is closer to the percentage of tourists who consider themselves as being of culture holiday while visiting attractions in Sidama (35.43%). These tourists fall in either the sightseeing cultural tourists (22.51%), whose primary purpose of visiting Sidama is culture, but who ended having a shallow experience of the destination; or the purposeful cultural tourists (15.23%), to whom visiting cultural resources of Sidama is their primary purpose of trip while enjoying deep level of cultural experience at the same time. These are people who are ‘highly motivated’ and travel to a destination specifically because of, for example, its museums, cultural landscapes, churches or festivals [ 40 ].

Though learning is a primary motive of cultural tourists in standardized destinations [ 9 ], problems of proper destination development and marketing in Sidama zone have appear to show an opposite figure. This is manifested in small number of tourists who learned few Sidama language words/phrases out of trip (17.88%); and who tasted cultural foods and drinks of Sidama. This is mainly due to the very short length of tourist stay in the area and the resulting shallow touring experience of attractions [ 41 ].

Findings from typologies of cultural tourists to Sidama area reveal two main conclusions. First over one-third of tourists to the area could be regarded as cultural tourists. But to the significant majority of them, cultural tourism plays no role in their decision to visit Sidama. In fact, the share of those tourists, to whom cultural tourism is the primary trip purpose and who have deep experience, is very low [ 42 ].

5. Conclusion

The current study has found that the inbound tourism market to Sidama is an undeviating reflection of Ethiopia’s international tourism industry in terms of nationality and other demographic indicators. Except for length of stay, the variables of gender, age, and level of education conform to what the wider literature of cultural tourism depicts about tourists. Regarding marketability, the findings uncovered that most of cultural tourism products of Sidama exist at low level of market readiness. The few exceptions in this regard include fiche cambalala festival, Hanafa cultural tourist village, and enset brushing ceremonies. As far typology of tourists is concerned, cultural tourist flow to Sidama is largely characterized by holidaymakers to whom cultural tourism plays no role in their visitation decision making. As an opening inquiry in to marketability of cultural tourism assets in Ethiopia, the study provides significant theoretical and practical implications. From theoretical point of view it analyses cultural tourism assets and their marketability as a tourism commodity in a developing destination context. Practically, study findings offer helpful inputs to governments and destination marketing practitioners in Sidama to make the cultural tourism resources of the area market-ready and learn profiles of tourists consuming them. Academia and future researchers especially in tourism, marketing and anthropology disciplines are encouraged to undertake thorough analysis into cultural tourism through, for example, segmentation of tourists, typologies of cultural tourism products; level of efforts exerted in product development and marketing in Sidama and Ethiopia at large.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Hawassa University, Ethiopia for funding this study through its NORAD (HU-NIMBU-IV) project.

This book chapter is a modified version of an article published in African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (2020), Volume 9, Issue 1 as “Assessing the marketability of cultural resources as a tourism product: a case of cultural tourism resources of Sidama, Ethiopia”.

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© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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UN Tourism | Bringing the world closer

Glossary of tourism terms

UN standards for measuring tourism

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Glossary of tourism terms

Tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or non-residents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which involve tourism expenditure.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Activity/activities : In tourism statistics, the term activities represent the actions and behaviors of people in preparation for and during a trip in their capacity as consumers ( IRTS 2008, 1.2 ).

Activity (principal): The principal activity of a producer unit is the activity whose value added exceeds that of any other activity carried out within the same unit ( SNA 2008, 5.8 ).

Activity (productive): The (productive) activity carried out by a statistical unit is the type of production in which it engages. It has to be understood as a process, i.e. the combination of actions that result in a certain set of products. The classification of productive activities is determined by their principal output.

Administrative data : Administrative data is the set of units and data derived from an administrative source. This is a data holding information collected and maintained for the purpose of implementing one or more administrative regulations.

Adventure tourism : Adventure tourism is a type of tourism which usually takes place in destinations with specific geographic features and landscape and tends to be associated with a physical activity, cultural exchange, interaction and engagement with nature. This experience may involve some kind of real or perceived risk and may require significant physical and/or mental effort. Adventure tourism generally includes outdoor activities such as mountaineering, trekking, bungee jumping, rock climbing, rafting, canoeing, kayaking, canyoning, mountain biking, bush walking, scuba diving. Likewise, some indoor adventure tourism activities may also be practiced.

Aggregated data : The result of transforming unit level data into quantitative measures for a set of characteristics of a population.

Aggregation : A process that transforms microdata into aggregate-level information by using an aggregation function such as count, sum average, standard deviation, etc.

Analytical unit : Entity created by statisticians, by splitting or combining observation units with the help of estimations and imputations.

Balance of payments : The balance of payments is a statistical statement that summarizes transactions between residents and non-residents during a period. It consists of the goods and services account, the primary income account, the secondary income account, the capital account, and the financial account ( BPM6, 2.12 ).

Bias : An effect which deprives a statistical result of representativeness by systematically distorting it, as distinct from a random error which may distort on any one occasion but balances out on the average.

Business and professional purpose (of a tourism trip): The business and professional purpose of a tourism trip includes the activities of the self-employed and employees, as long as they do not correspond to an implicit or explicit employer-employee relationship with a resident producer in the country or place visited, those of investors, businessmen, etc. ( IRTS 2008, 3.17.2 ).

Business tourism : Business tourism is a type of tourism activity in which visitors travel for a specific professional and/or business purpose to a place outside their workplace and residence with the aim of attending a meeting, an activity or an event. The key components of business tourism are meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. The term "meetings industry" within the context of business tourism recognizes the industrial nature of such activities. Business tourism can be combined with any other tourism type during the same trip.

Business visitor : A business visitor is a visitor whose main purpose for a tourism trip corresponds to the business and professional category of purpose ( IRTS 2008, 3.17.2 ).

Central Product Classification : The Central Product Classification (CPC) constitutes a complete product classification covering goods and services. It is intended to serve as an international standard for assembling and tabulating all kinds of data requiring product detail, including industrial production, national accounts, service industries, domestic and foreign commodity trade, international trade in services, balance of payments, consumption and price statistics. Other basic aims are to provide a framework for international comparison and promote harmonization of various types of statistics dealing with goods and services.

Census : A census is the complete enumeration of a population or groups at a point in time with respect to well defined characteristics: for example, Population, Production, Traffic on particular roads.

Coastal, maritime and inland water tourism : Coastal tourism refers to land-based tourism activities such as swimming, surfing, sunbathing and other coastal leisure, recreation and sports activities which take place on the shore of a sea, lake or river. Proximity to the coast is also a condition for services and facilities that support coastal tourism. Maritime tourism refers to sea-based activities such as cruising, yachting, boating and nautical sports and includes their respective land-based services and infrastructure. Inland water tourism refers to tourism activities such as cruising, yachting, boating and nautical sports which take place in aquatic- influenced environments located within land boundaries and include lakes, rivers, ponds, streams, groundwater, springs, cave waters and others traditionally grouped as inland wetlands.

Coherence : Adequacy of statistics to be combined in different ways and for various uses.

Competitiveness of a tourism destination : The competitiveness of a tourism destination is the ability of the destination to use its natural, cultural, human, man-made and capital resources efficiently to develop and deliver quality, innovative, ethical and attractive tourism products and services in order to achieve a sustainable growth within its overall vision and strategic goals, increase the added value of the tourism sector, improve and diversify its market components and optimize its attractiveness and benefits both for visitors and the local community in a sustainable perspective.

Consistency : Logical and numerical coherence.

Country of reference : The country of reference refers to the country for which the measurement is done. ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Country of residence : The country of residence of a household is determined according to the centre of predominant economic interest of its members. If a person resides (or intends to reside) for more than one year in a given country and has there his/her centre of economic interest (for example, where the predominant amount of time is spent), he/she is considered as a resident of this country.

Country-specific tourism characteristic products and activities : To be determined by each country by applying the criteria of IRTS 2008, 5.10 in their own context; for these products, the activities producing them will be considered as tourism characteristic, and the industries in which the principal activity is tourism-characteristic will be called tourism industries ( IRTS 2008, 5.16 ).

Cultural tourism : Cultural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor's essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism destination. These attractions/products relate to a set of distinctive material, intellectual, spiritual and emotional features of a society that encompasses arts and architecture, historical and cultural heritage, culinary heritage, literature, music, creative industries and the living cultures with their lifestyles, value systems, beliefs and traditions.

Data checking : Activity whereby the correctness conditions of the data are verified. It also includes the specification of the type of error or of the condition not met, and the qualification of the data and their division into "error-free data" and "erroneous data".

Data collection : Systematic process of gathering data for official statistics.

Data compilation : Operations performed on data to derive new information according to a given set of rules.

Data confrontation : The process of comparing data that has generally been derived from different surveys or other sources, especially those of different frequencies, in order to assess and possibly improve their coherency, and identify the reasons for any differences.

Data processing : Data processing is the operation performed on data by the organization, institute, agency, etc., responsible for undertaking the collection, tabulation, manipulation and preparation of data and metadata output.

Data reconciliation : The process of adjusting data derived from two different sources to remove, or at least reduce, the impact of differences identified.

Destination (main destination of a trip): The main destination of a tourism trip is defined as the place visited that is central to the decision to take the trip. See also purpose of a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.31 ).

Destination management / marketing organization (DMO) : A destination management/marketing organization (DMO) is the leading organizational entity which may encompass the various authorities, stakeholders and professionals and facilitates tourism sector partnerships towards a collective destination vision. The governance structures of DMOs vary from a single public authority to a public/ private partnership model with the key role of initiating, coordinating and managing certain activities such as implementation of tourism policies, strategic planning, product development, promotion and marketing and convention bureau activities. The functions of the DMOs may vary from national to regional and local levels depending on the current and potential needs as well as on the decentralization level of public administration. Not every tourism destination has a DMO.

Documentation: Processes and procedures for imputation,  weighting,  confidentiality  and suppression rules, outlier treatment and data capture should be fully documented by the  survey provider.  Such documentation should be made available to at least  the body financing the survey.

Domestic tourism : Domestic tourism comprises the activities of a resident visitor within the country of reference, either as part of a domestic tourism trip or part of an outbound tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39 ).

Domestic tourism consumption : Domestic tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a resident visitor within the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Domestic tourism expenditure : Domestic tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a resident visitor within the economy of reference, (IRTS 2008, 4.15(a)).

Domestic tourism trip : A domestic tourism trip is one with a main destination within the country of residence of the visitor (IRTS 2008, 2.32).

Domestic visitor : As a visitor travels within his/her country of residence, he/she is a domestic visitor and his/her activities are part of domestic tourism.

Durable consumer goods : Durable consumer goods are goods that may be used repeatedly or continuously over a period of a year or more, assuming a normal or average rate of physical usage. When acquired by producers, these are considered to be capital goods used for production processes, as is the case of vehicles, computers, etc. When acquired by households, they are considered to be consumer durable goods ( TSA:RMF 2008, 2.39 ). This definition is identical to the definition of SNA 2008, 9.42 : A consumer durable is a goodthat may be used for purposes of consumption repeatedly or continuously over a period of a year or more.

Dwellings : Each household has a principal dwelling (sometimes also designated as main or primary home), usually defined with reference to time spent there, whose location defines the country of residence and place of usual residence of this household and of all its members. All other dwellings (owned or leased by the household) are considered secondary dwellings ( IRTS 2008, 2.26 ).

Ecotourism : Ecotourism is a type of nature-based tourism activity in which the visitor's essential motivation is to observe, learn, discover, experience and appreciate biological and cultural diversity with a responsible attitude to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and enhance the well-being of the local community. Ecotourism increases awareness towards the conservation of biodiversity, natural environment and cultural assets both among locals and the visitors and requires special management processes to minimize the negative impact on the ecosystem.

Economic analysis : Tourism generates directly and indirectly an increase in economic activity in the places visited (and beyond), mainly due to demand for goods and services thatneed to be produced and provided. In the economic analysis of tourism, one may distinguish between tourism's 'economic contribution' which refers to the direct effect of tourism and is measurable by means of the TSA, and tourism's 'economic impact' which is a much broader concept encapsulating the direct, indirect and induced effects of tourism and which must be estimated by applying models. Economic impact studies aim to quantify economic benefits, that is, the net increase in the wealth of residents resulting from tourism, measured in monetary terms, over and above the levels that would prevail in its absence.

Economic territory : The term "economic territory" is a geographical reference and points to the country for which the measurement is done (country of reference) ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Economically active population : The economically active population or labour force comprises all persons of either sex who furnish the supply of labour for the production of goods and services as defined by the system of national accounts during a specified time-reference period (ILO, Thirteenth ICLS, 6.18).

Economy (of reference): "Economy" (or "economy of reference") is an economic reference defined in the same way as in the balance of payments and in the system of national accounts: it refers to the economic agents that are resident in the country of reference ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Education tourism : Education tourism covers those types of tourism which have as a primary motivation the tourist's engagement and experience in learning, self-improvement, intellectual growth and skills development. Education Tourism represents a broad range of products and services related to academic studies, skill enhancement holidays, school trips, sports training, career development courses and language courses, among others.

Employees : Employees are all those workers who hold the type of job defined as "paid employment" (ILO, Fifteenth ICLS, pp. 20-22).

Employer-employee relationship : An employer-employee relationship exists when there is an agreement, which may be formal or informal, between an entity and an individual, normally entered into voluntarily by both parties, whereby the individual works for the entity in return for remuneration in cash or in kind ( BPM6, 11.11 ).

Employers : Employers are those workers who, working on their own account with one or more partners, hold the type of job defined as a "self-employment job" and, in this capacity, on a continuous basis (including the reference period) have engaged one or more persons to work for them in their business as "employee(s)" (ILO, Fifteenth ICLS, pp. 20-22).

Employment : Persons in employment are all persons above a specified age who, during a specified brief period, either one week or one day, were in paid employment or self-employment (OECD GST, p. 170).

Employment in tourism industries : Employment in tourism industries may be measured as a count of the persons employed in tourism industries in any of their jobs, as a count of the persons employed in tourism industries in their main job, or as a count of the jobs in tourism industries ( IRTS 2008, 7.9 ).

Enterprise : An enterprise is an institutional unit engaged in production of goods and/or services. It may be a corporation, a non-profit institution, or an unincorporated enterprise. Corporate enterprises and non-profit institutions are complete institutional units. An unincorporated enterprise, however, refers to an institutional unit —a household or government unit —only in its capacity as a producer of goods and services (OECD BD4, p. 232)

Establishment : An establishment is an enterprise, or part of an enterprise, that is situated in a single location and in which only a single productive activity is carried out or in which the principal productive activity accounts for most of the value added ( SNA 2008, 5.14 ).

Estimation : Estimation is concerned with inference about the numerical value of unknown population values from incomplete data such as a sample. If a single figure is calculated for each unknown parameter the process is called "point estimation". If an interval is calculated within which the parameter is likely, in some sense, to lie, the process is called "interval estimation".

Exports of goods and services : Exports of goods and services consist of sales, barter, or gifts or grants, of goods and services from residents to non-residents (OECD GST, p. 194)

Frame : A list, map or other specification of the units which define a population to be completely enumerated or sampled.

Forms of tourism : There are three basic forms of tourism: domestic tourism, inbound tourism, and outbound tourism. These can be combined in various ways to derive the following additional forms of tourism: internal tourism, national tourism and international tourism.

Gastronomy tourism :  Gastronomy tourism is a type of tourism activity which is characterized by the visitor's experience linked with food and related products and activities while travelling. Along with authentic, traditional, and/or innovative culinary experiences, Gastronomy Tourism may also involve other related activities such as visiting the local producers, participating in food festivals and attending cooking classes. Eno-tourism (wine tourism), as a sub-type of gastronomy tourism, refers to tourism whose purpose is visiting vineyards, wineries, tasting, consuming and/or purchasing wine, often at or near the source.

Goods : Goods are physical, produced objects for which a demand exists, over which ownership rights can be established and whose ownership can be transferred from one institutional unit to another by engaging in transactions on markets ( SNA 2008, p. 623 ).

Gross fixed capital formation : Gross fixed capital formation is defined as the value of institutional units' acquisitions less disposals of fixed assets. Fixed assets are produced assets (such as machinery, equipment, buildings or other structures) that are used repeatedly or continuously in production over several accounting periods (more than one year) ( SNA 2008, 1.52 ).

Gross margin : The gross margin of a provider of reservation services is the difference between the value at which the intermediated service is sold and the value accrued to the provider of reservation services for this intermediated service.

Gross value added : Gross value added is the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 3.32 ).

Gross value added of tourism industries : Gross value added of tourism industries (GVATI) is the total gross value added of all establishments belonging to tourism industries, regardless of whether all their output is provided to visitors and the degree of specialization of their production process ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.86 ).

Grossing up : Activity aimed at transforming, based on statistical methodology, micro-data from samples into aggregate-level information representative of the target population.

Health tourism : Health tourism covers those types of tourism which have as a primary motivation, the contribution to physical, mental and/or spiritual health through medical and wellness-based activities which increase the capacity of individuals to satisfy their own needs and function better as individuals in their environment and society. Health tourism is the umbrella term for the subtypes wellness tourism and medical tourism.

Imputation : Procedure for entering a value for a specific data item where the response is missing or unusable.

Inbound tourism : Inbound tourism comprises the activities of a non-resident visitor within the country of reference on an inbound tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39 ).

Inbound tourism consumption : Inbound tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a non-resident visitor within the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Inbound tourism expenditure : Inbound tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a non-resident visitor within the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.15(b) ).

Innovation in tourism : Innovation in tourism is the introduction of a new or improved component which intends to bring tangible and intangible benefits to tourism stakeholders and the local community, improve the value of the tourism experience and the core competencies of the tourism sector and hence enhance tourism competitiveness and /or sustainability. Innovation in tourism may cover potential areas, such as tourism destinations, tourism products, technology, processes, organizations and business models, skills, architecture, services, tools and/or practices for management, marketing, communication, operation, quality assurance and pricing.

Institutional sector : An aggregation of institutional units on the basis of the type of producer and depending on their principal activity and function, which are considered to be indicative of their economic behaviour.

Institutional unit : The elementary economic decision-making centre characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function.

Intermediate consumption : Intermediate consumption consists of the value of the goods and services consumed as inputs by a process of production, excluding fixed assets whose consumption is recorded as consumption of fixed capital ( SNA 2008, 6.213 ).

Internal tourism : Internal tourism comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident and non-resident visitors within the country of reference as part of domestic or international tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(a) ).

Internal tourism consumption : Internal tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of both resident and non-resident visitors within the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism consumption and inbound tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Internal tourism expenditure : Internal tourism expenditure comprises all tourism expenditure of visitors, both resident and non-resident, within the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism expenditure and inbound tourism expenditure. It includes acquisition of goods and services imported into the country of reference and sold to visitors. This indicator provides the most comprehensive measurement of tourism expenditure in the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.20(a) ).

International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities : The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) consists of a coherent and consistent classification structure of economic activities based on a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, principles and classification rules. It provides a comprehensive framework within which economic data can be collected and reported in a format that is designed for purposes of economic analysis, decision-taking and policymaking. The classification structure represents a standard format to organize detailed information about the state of an economy according to economic principles and perceptions (ISIC, Rev.4, 1).

International tourism : International tourism comprises inbound tourism and outbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident visitors outside the country of reference, either as part of domestic or outbound tourism trips and the activities of non-resident visitors within the country of reference on inbound tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(c) ).

International visitor : An international traveller qualifies as an international visitor with respect to the country of reference if: (a) he/she is on a tourism trip and (b) he/she is a non-resident travelling in the country of reference or a resident travelling outside of it ( IRTS 2008, 2.42 ).

Job : The agreement between an employee and the employer defines a job and each self-employed person has a job ( SNA 2008, 19.30 ).

Measurement error : Error in reading, calculating or recording numerical value.

Medical tourism : Medical tourism is a type of tourism activity which involves the use of evidence-based medical healing resources and services (both invasive and non-invasive). This may include diagnosis, treatment, cure, prevention and rehabilitation.

Meetings industry : To highlight purposes relevant to the meetings industry, if a trip's main purpose is business/professional, it can be further subdivided into "attending meetings, conferences or congresses, trade fairs and exhibitions" and "other business and professional purposes". The term meetings industry is preferred by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and Reed Travel over the acronym MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) which does not recognize the industrial nature of such activities.

Metadata : Data that defines and describes other data and processes.

MICE : See meetings industry.

Microdata : Non-aggregated observations, or measurements of characteristics of individual units.

Mirror statistics : Mirror statistics are used to conduct bilateral comparisons of two basic measures of a trade flow and are a traditional tool for detecting the causes of asymmetries in statistics (OECD GST, p. 335).

Mountain tourism : Mountain tourism is a type of tourism activity which takes place in a defined and limited geographical space such as hills or mountains with distinctive characteristics and attributes that are inherent to a specific landscape, topography, climate, biodiversity (flora and fauna) and local community. It encompasses a broad range of outdoor leisure and sports activities.

National tourism : National tourism comprises domestic tourism and outbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident visitors within and outside the country of reference, either as part of domestic or outbound tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(b) ).

National tourism consumption : National tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of resident visitors, within and outside the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism consumption and outbound tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

National tourism expenditure : National tourism expenditure comprises all tourism expenditure of resident visitors within and outside the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism expenditure and outbound tourism expenditure ( IRTS 2008, 4.20(b) ).

Nationality : The concept of "country of residence" of a traveller is different from that of his/her nationality or citizenship ( IRTS 2008, 2.19 ).

Non-monetary indicators : Data measured in physical or other non-monetary units should not be considered a secondary part of a satellite account. They are essential components, both for the information they provide directly and in order to analyse the monetary data adequately ( SNA 2008, 29.84 ).

Observation unit : entity on which information is received and statistics are compiled.

Outbound tourism : Outbound tourism comprises the activities of a resident visitor outside the country of reference, either as part of an outbound tourism trip or as part of a domestic tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39(c) ).

Outbound tourism consumption : Outbound tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a resident visitor outside the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Outbound tourism expenditure : Outbound tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a resident visitor outside the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.15(c) ).

Output : Output is defined as the goods and services produced by an establishment, a) excluding the value of any goods and services used in an activity for which the establishment does not assume the risk of using the products in production, and b) excluding the value of goods and services consumed by the same establishment except for goods and services used for capital formation (fixed capital or changes in inventories) or own final consumption ( SNA 2008, 6.89 ).

Output (main): The main output of a (productive) activity should be determined by reference to the value added of the goods sold or services rendered (ISIC rev.4, 114).

Pilot survey : The aim of a pilot survey is to test the questionnaire (pertinence of the questions, understanding of questions by those being interviewed, duration of the interview) and to check various potential sources for sampling and non-sampling errors: for instance, the place in which the surveys are carried out and the method used, the identification of any omitted answers and the reason for the omission, problems of communicating in various languages, translation, the mechanics of data collection, the organization of field work, etc.

Place of usual residence : The place of usual residence is the geographical place where the enumerated person usually resides, and is defined by the location of his/her principal dwelling (Principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses of the United Nations, 2.20 to 2.24).

Probability sample : A sample selected by a method based on the theory of probability (random process), that is, by a method involving knowledge of the likelihood of any unit being selected.

Production account : The production account records the activity of producing goods and services as defined within the SNA. Its balancing item, gross value added, is defined as the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption and is a measure of the contribution to GDP made by an individual producer, industry or sector. Gross value added is the source from which the primary incomes of the SNA are generated and is therefore carried forward into the primary distribution of income account. Value added and GDP may also be measured net by deducting consumption of fixed capital, a figure representing the decline in value during the period of the fixed capital used in a production process ( SNA 2008, 1.17 ).

Production : Economic production may be defined as an activity carried out under the control and responsibility of an institutional unit that uses inputs of labour, capital, and goods and services to produce outputs of goods or services ( SNA 2008, 6.24. ).

Purpose of a tourism trip (main): The main purpose of a tourism trip is defined as the purpose in the absence of which the trip would not have taken place ( IRTS 2008, 3.10. ). Classification of tourism trips according to the main purpose refers to nine categories: this typology allows the identification of different subsets of visitors (business visitors, transit visitors, etc.) See also destination of a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 3.14 ).

Quality of a tourism destination : Quality of a tourism destination is the result of a process which implies the satisfaction of all tourism product and service needs, requirements and expectations of the consumer at an acceptable price, in conformity with mutually accepted contractual conditions and the implicit underlying factors such as safety and security, hygiene, accessibility, communication, infrastructure and public amenities and services. It also involves aspects of ethics, transparency and respect towards the human, natural and cultural environment. Quality, as one of the key drivers of tourism competitiveness, is also a professional tool for organizational, operational and perception purposes for tourism suppliers.

Questionnaire and Questionnaire design : Questionnaire is a group or sequence of questions designed to elicit information on a subject, or sequence of subjects, from a reporting unit or from another producer of official statistics. Questionnaire design is the design (text, order, and conditions for skipping) of the questions used to obtain the data needed for the survey.

Reference period : The period of time or point in time to which the measured observation is intended to refer.

Relevance : The degree to which statistics meet current and potential users' needs.

Reliability : Closeness of the initial estimated value to the subsequent estimated value.

Reporting unit : Unit that supplies the data for a given survey instance, like a questionnaire or interview. Reporting units may, or may not, be the same as the observation unit.

Residents/non-residents : The residents of a country are individuals whose centre of predominant economic interest is located in its economic territory. For a country, the non-residents are individuals whose centre of predominant economic interest is located outside its economic territory.

Response and non-response : Response and non-response to various elements of a survey entail potential errors.

Response error : Response errors may be defined as those arising from the interviewing process. Such errors may be due to a number of circumstances, such as inadequate concepts or questions; inadequate training; interviewer failures; respondent failures.

Rural tourism : Rural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor's experience is related to a wide range of products generally linked to nature-based activities, agriculture, rural lifestyle / culture, angling and sightseeing. Rural tourism activities take place in non-urban (rural) areas with the following characteristics:

  • Low population density;
  • Landscape and land-use dominated by agriculture and forestry; and
  • Traditional social structure and lifestyle

Same-day visitor (or excursionist): A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Sample : A subset of a frame where elements are selected based on a process with a known probability of selection.

Sample survey : A survey which is carried out using a sampling method.

Sampling error : That part of the difference between a population value and an estimate thereof, derived from a random sample, which is due to the fact that only a subset of the population is enumerated.

Satellite accounts : There are two types of satellite accounts, serving two different functions. The first type, sometimes called an internal satellite, takes the full set of accounting rules and conventions of the SNA but focuses on a particular aspect of interest by moving away from the standard classifications and hierarchies. Examples are tourism, coffee production and environmental protection expenditure. The second type, called an external satellite, may add non-economic data or vary some of the accounting conventions or both. It is a particularly suitable way to explore new areas in a research context. An example may be the role of volunteer labour in the economy ( SNA 2008, 29.85 ).

SDMX, Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange : Set of technical standards and content-oriented guidelines, together with an IT architecture and tools, to be used for the efficient exchange and sharing of statistical data and metadata (SDMX).

Seasonal adjustment : Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique to remove the effects of seasonal calendar influences on a series. Seasonal effects usually reflect the influence of the seasons themselves, either directly or through production series related to them, or social conventions. Other types of calendar variation occur as a result of influences such as number of days in the calendar period, the accounting or recording practices adopted or the incidence of moving holidays.

Self-employment job : Self-employment jobs are those jobs where remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits (or the potential of profits) derived from the goods or services produced.

Self-employed with paid employees : Self-employed with paid employees are classified as employers.

Self-employed without employees : Self-employed without employees are classified as own-account workers.

Services : Services are the result of a production activity that changes the conditions of the consuming units, or facilitates the exchange of products or financial assets. They cannot be traded separately from their production. By the time their production is completed, they must have been provided to the consumers ( SNA 2008, 6.17 ).

Social transfers in kind : A special case of transfers in kind is that of social transfers in kind. These consist of goods and services provided by general government and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) that are delivered to individual households. Health and education services are the prime examples. Rather than provide a specified amount of money to be used to purchase medical and educational services, the services are often provided in kind to make sure that the need for the services is met. (Sometimes the recipient purchases the service and is reimbursed by the insurance or assistance scheme. Such a transaction is still treated as being in kind because the recipient is merely acting as the agent of the insurance scheme) (SNA 2008, 3.83).

Sports tourism : Sports tourism is a type of tourism activity which refers to the travel experience of the tourist who either observes as a spectator or actively participates in a sporting event generally involving commercial and non-commercial activities of a competitive nature.

Standard classification : Classifications that follow prescribed rules and are generally recommended and accepted.

Statistical error : The unknown difference between the retained value and the true value.

Statistical indicator : A data element that represents statistical data for a specified time, place, and other characteristics, and is corrected for at least one dimension (usually size) to allow for meaningful comparisons.

Statistical metadata : Data about statistical data.

Statistical unit : Entity about which information is sought and about which statistics are compiled. Statistical units may be identifiable legal or physical entities or statistical constructs.

Survey : An investigation about the characteristics of a given population by means of collecting data from a sample of that population and estimating their characteristics through the systematic use of statistical methodology.

System of National Accounts : The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity in accordance with strict accounting conventions based on economic principles. The recommendations are expressed in terms of a set of concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules that comprise the internationally agreed standard for measuring indicators of economic performance. The accounting framework of the SNA allows economic data to be compiled and presented in a format that is designed for purposes of economic analysis, decision-taking and policymaking ( SNA 2008, 1.1 ).

Total tourism internal demand : Total tourism internal demand, is the sum of internal tourism consumption, tourism gross fixed capital formation and tourism collective consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.114 ). It does not include outbound tourism consumption.

Tourism : Tourism refers to the activity of visitors ( IRTS 2008, 2.9 ).

Tourism characteristic activities : Tourism characteristic activities are the activities that typically produce tourism characteristic products. As the industrial origin of a product (the ISIC industry that produces it) is not a criterion for the aggregation of products within a similar CPC category, there is no strict one-to-one relationship between products and the industries producing them as their principal outputs ( IRTS 2008, 5.11 ).

Tourism characteristic products : Tourism characteristic products are those that satisfy one or both of the following criteria: a) Tourism expenditure on the product should represent a significant share total tourism expenditure (share-of-expenditure/demand condition); b) Tourism expenditure on the product should represent a significant share of the supply of the product in the economy (share-of-supply condition). This criterion implies that the supply of a tourism characteristic product would cease to exist in meaningful quantity in the absence of visitors ( IRTS 2008, 5.10 ).

Tourism connected products : Their significance within tourism analysis for the economy of reference is recognized although their link to tourism is very limited worldwide. Consequently, lists of such products will be country-specific ( IRTS 2008, 5.12 ).

Tourism consumption : Tourism consumption has the same formal definition as tourism expenditure. Nevertheless, the concept of tourism consumption used in the Tourism Satellite Account goes beyond that of tourism expenditure. Besides the amount paid for the acquisition of consumption goods and services, as well as valuables for own use or to give away, for and during tourism trips, which corresponds to monetary transactions (the focus of tourism expenditure), it also includes services associated with vacation accommodation on own account, tourism social transfers in kind and other imputed consumption. These transactions need to be estimated using sources different from information collected directly from the visitors, such as reports on home exchanges, estimations of rents associated with vacation homes, calculations of financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM), etc. ( TSA:RMF 2008, 2.25 ).

Tourism destination : A tourism destination is a physical space with or without administrative and/or analytical boundaries in which a visitor can spend an overnight. It is the cluster (co-location) of products and services, and of activities and experiences along the tourism value chain and a basic unit of analysis of tourism. A destination incorporates various stakeholders and can network to form larger destinations. It is also intangible with its image and identity which may influence its market competitiveness.

Tourism direct gross domestic product : Tourism direct gross domestic product (TDGDP) is the sum of the part of gross value added (at basic prices) generated by all industries in response to internal tourism consumption plus the amount of net taxes on products and imports included within the value of this expenditure at purchasers' prices ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.96 ).

Tourism direct gross value added : Tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) is the part of gross value added generated by tourism industries and other industries of the economy that directly serve visitors in response to internal tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.88 ).

Tourism expenditure : Tourism expenditure refers to the amount paid for the acquisition of consumption goods and services, as well as valuables, for own use or to give away, for and during tourism trips. It includes expenditures by visitors themselves, as well as expenses that are paid for or reimbursed by others ( IRTS 2008, 4.2 ).

Tourism industries : The tourism industries comprise all establishments for which the principal activity is a tourism characteristic activity. Tourism industries (also referred to as tourism activities) are the activities that typically producetourism characteristic products. The term tourism industries is equivalent to tourism characteristic activities and the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in the IRTS 2008, 5.10, 5.11 and figure 5.1 .

Tourism product : A tourism product is a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the potential customers. A tourism product is priced and sold through distribution channels and it has a life-cycle.

Tourism ratio : For each variable of supply in the Tourism Satellite Account, the tourism ratiois the ratio between the total value of tourism share and total value of the corresponding variable in the Tourism Satellite Account expressed in percentage form ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.56 ). (See also Tourism share).

Tourism Satellite Account : The Tourism Satellite Account is the second international standard on tourism statistics (Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 –TSA:RMF 2008) that has been developed in order to present economic data relative to tourism within a framework of internal and external consistency with the rest of the statistical system through its link to the System of National Accounts. It is the basic reconciliation framework of tourism statistics. As a statistical tool for the economic accounting of tourism, the TSA can be seen as a set of 10 summary tables, each with their underlying data and representing a different aspect of the economic data relative to tourism: inbound, domestic tourism and outbound tourism expenditure, internal tourism expenditure, production accounts of tourism industries, the Gross Value Added (GVA) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attributable to tourism demand, employment, investment, government consumption, and non-monetary indicators.

Tourism Satellite Account aggregates : The compilation of the following aggregates, which represent a set of relevant indicators of the size of tourism in an economy is recommended ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.81 ):

  • Internal tourism expenditure;
  • Internal tourism consumption;
  • Gross value added of tourism industries (GVATI);
  • Tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA);
  • Tourism direct gross domestic product (TDGDP).

Tourism sector : The tourism sector, as contemplated in the TSA, is the cluster of production units in different industries that provide consumption goods and services demanded by visitors. Such industries are called tourism industries because visitor acquisition represents such a significant share of their supply that, in the absence of visitors, their production of these would cease to exist in meaningful quantity.

Tourism share : Tourism share is the share of the corresponding fraction of internal tourism consumption in each component of supply ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.51 ). For each industry, the tourism share of output (in value), is the sum of the tourism share corresponding to each product component of its output ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.55 ). (See also Tourism ratio ).

Tourism single-purpose consumer durable goods : Tourism single-purpose consumer durables is a specific category of consumer durable goods that include durable goods that are used exclusively, or almost exclusively, by individuals while on tourism trips ( TSA:RMF 2008 , 2.41 and Annex 5 ).

Tourism trip : Trips taken by visitors are tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.29 ).

Tourist (or overnight visitor): A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Tourism value chain : The tourism value chain is the sequence of primary and support activities which are strategically fundamental for the performance of the tourism sector. Linked processes such as policy making and integrated planning, product development and packaging, promotion and marketing, distribution and sales and destination operations and services are the key primary activities of the tourism value chain. Support activities involve transport and infrastructure, human resource development, technology and systems development and other complementary goods and services which may not be related to core tourism businesses but have a high impact on the value of tourism.

Travel / traveller : Travel refers to the activity of travellers. A traveller is someone who moves between different geographic locations, for any purpose and any duration ( IRTS 2008, 2.4 ). The visitor is a particular type of traveller and consequently tourism is a subset of travel.

Travel group : A travel group is made up of individuals or travel parties travelling together: examples are people travelling on the same package tour or youngsters attending a summer camp ( IRTS 2008, 3.5 ).

Travel item (in balance of payments): Travel is an item of the goods and services account of the balance of payments: travel credits cover goods and services for own use or to give away acquired from an economy by non-residents during visits to that economy. Travel debits cover goods and services for own use or to give away acquired from other economies by residents during visits to other economies ( BPM6, 10.86 ).

Travel party : A travel party is defined as visitors travelling together on a trip and whose expenditures are pooled ( IRTS 2008, 3.2 ).

Trip : A trip refers to the travel by a person from the time of departure from his/her usual residence until he/she returns: it thus refers to a round trip. Trips taken by visitors are tourism trips.

Urban/city tourism : Urban/city tourism is a type of tourism activity which takes place in an urban space with its inherent attributes characterized by non-agricultural based economy such as administration, manufacturing, trade and services and by being nodal points of transport. Urban/city destinations offer a broad and heterogeneous range of cultural, architectural, technological, social and natural experiences and products for leisure and business.

Usual environment: The usual environment of an individual, a key concept in tourism, is defined as the geographical area (though not necessarily a contiguous one) within which an individual conducts his/her regular life routines ( IRTS 2008, 2.21 ).

Usual residence : The place of usual residence is the geographical place where the enumerated person usually resides (Principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses of the United Nations, 2.16 to 2.18).

Vacation home : A vacation home (sometimes also designated as a holiday home) is a secondary dwelling that is visited by the members of the household mostly for purposes of recreation, vacation or any other form of leisure ( IRTS 2008, 2.27 ).

Valuables : Valuables are produced goods of considerable value that are not used primarily for purposes of production or consumption but are held as stores of value over time ( SNA 2008, 10.13 ).

Visit : A trip is made up of visits to different places.The term "tourism visit" refers to a stay in a place visited during a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.7 and 2.33 ).

Visitor : A visitor is a traveller taking a trip to a main destination outside his/her usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited ( IRTS 2008, 2.9 ). A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Wellness tourism : Wellness tourism is a type of tourism activity which aims to improve and balance all of the main domains of human life including physical, mental, emotional, occupational, intellectual and spiritual. The primary motivation for the wellness tourist is to engage in preventive, proactive, lifestyle-enhancing activities such as fitness, healthy eating, relaxation, pampering and healing treatments.

ScienceDaily

What most attracts us to a tourist destination? Attractions, culture and gastronomy

Tourists' expectations when visiting a particular place are related to several features of the chosen destination: culture, architecture, gastronomy, infrastructure, landscape, events, shopping, etc. These features attract people to the destination and contribute to the overall experience of the trip. As a whole, they are crucial aspects of the destinations and have a profound influence on their success. Therefore, the study of the market segment of urban destinations is particularly important due to the impact on the economic development of cities.

A destination's competitiveness refers to the ability of the brand to successfully occupy a niche in the market in the long term. It is the potential to create and integrate value-added products to maintain the resources while keeping their position in the market compared with other competitors. For the brand image, the uniqueness of the destination is key to its desired positioning and this makes the brand unique and distinguishable for tourists.

Sara Vinyals Mirabent, a researcher of the Communication, Advertising & Society (CAS) Research Group of the Department of Communication at UPF has raised the issue and has studied it at the twelve most popular urban destinations in Europe. This research helps to understand how European cities use their most attractive features to compete in the market segment of urban destinations and to stand out from other competing cities.

Vinyals has published the results of her study in the advanced online edition of Journal of Destination Marketing & Management . The aim of this study was twofold. On the one hand, it sought to identify the dominant features of communication to attract visitors to Europe's most popular urban destinations. On the other, the study aimed to determine the most relevant characteristics of the destinations that act as distinguishing elements. It is a baseline study on the most popular destinations in the context of European urban tourism that addresses the limitations of previous studies. The research is part of the ITOURIST research project.

The study performs a content analysis to identify the similarities and differences of the official communication channels of the twelve most popular urban destinations in Europe. The final sample includes twelve official websites operated by official tourism organizations from the following cities: London, Paris, Istanbul, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Milan, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Madrid and Frankfurt.

The results show that to compete in this specific market, tourist products and packages, cultural attractions and gastronomy are the critical elements chosen to attract visitors. The twelve cities studied showed a significant amount of content dedicated to these issues on all of the websites considered (over 40%). The prevalence of these strategies in all cases indicates their crucial role for these competitive urban destinations. The results also identify that strategies related to history, accommodation and leisure attractions are the main sources of differentiation between European cities.

Among the European urban destinations studied, the content analysis revealed three main areas of differentiation (D1, D2 and D3) which can be used to place smaller destinations on the market. The main difference between destinations can be explained by the dichotomy between the advertising strategies related to leisure and culture (D1). However, the areas related to infrastructure (D2) and location near tourist sites (D3) represent a significant source of differentiation. These three main factors among Europe's twelve most popular destinations may explain more than 70% of the differences between destinations.

The results of this study point to the clear need to promote the city's tourist products and packages, its cultural attractions and its gastronomy in the online competition as European urban destination. In addition, infrastructure and transport, landscape and natural resources, events and sports also seem to have a more stable presence through communication practices, although these categories are less important in the discourse than the previous ones.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

  • Sara Vinyals-Mirabent. European urban destinations’ attractors at the frontier between competitiveness and a unique destination image. A benchmark study of communication practices . Journal of Destination Marketing & Management , 2019; 12: 37 DOI: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2019.02.006

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April 9, 2019

What most attracts us to a tourist destination? Attractions, culture and gastronomy

by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona

barcelona

Tourists' expectations when visiting a particular place are related to several features of the chosen destination: culture, architecture, gastronomy, infrastructure, landscape, events, shopping and others. These features attract people to the destination and contribute to the overall experience of the trip. As a whole, they are crucial aspects of the destinations and have a profound influence on their success. Therefore, the study of the market segment of urban destinations is particularly important due to the impact on the economic development of cities.

A destination's competitiveness refers to the ability of the brand to successfully occupy a niche in the market in the long term. It is the potential to create and integrate value-added products to maintain the resources while keeping their position in the market compared with other competitors. For the brand image , the uniqueness of the destination is key to its desired positioning and this makes the brand unique and distinguishable for tourists.

Sara Vinyals Mirabent, a researcher of the Communication, Advertising & Society (CAS) Research Group of the Department of Communication at UPF has raised the issue and has studied it at the 12 most popular urban destinations in Europe. This research helps to understand how European cities use their most attractive features to compete in the market segment of urban destinations and to stand out from other competing cities.

Vinyals has published the results of her study in the advanced online edition of Journal of Destination Marketing & Management . The aim of this study was twofold. On the one hand, it sought to identify the dominant features of communication to attract visitors to Europe's most popular urban destinations. On the other, the study aimed to determine the most relevant characteristics of the destinations that act as distinguishing elements. It is a baseline study on the most popular destinations in the context of European urban tourism that addresses the limitations of previous studies. The research is part of the ITOURIST research project.

The study performs a content analysis to identify the similarities and differences of the official communication channels of the twelve most popular urban destinations in Europe. The final sample includes twelve official websites operated by official tourism organizations from the following cities: London, Paris, Istanbul, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Milan, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Munich, Madrid and Frankfurt.

The results show that to compete in this specific market, tourist products and packages, cultural attractions and gastronomy are the critical elements chosen to attract visitors. The twelve cities studied showed a significant amount of content dedicated to these issues on all of the websites considered (over 40%). The prevalence of these strategies in all cases indicates their crucial role for these competitive urban destinations. The results also identify that strategies related to history, accommodation and leisure attractions are the main sources of differentiation between European cities.

Among the European urban destinations studied, the content analysis revealed three main areas of differentiation (D1, D2 and D3) which can be used to place smaller destinations on the market. The main difference between destinations can be explained by the dichotomy between the advertising strategies related to leisure and culture (D1). However, the areas related to infrastructure (D2) and location near tourist sites (D3) represent a significant source of differentiation. These three main factors among Europe's twelve most popular destinations may explain more than 70% of the differences between destinations.

The results of this study point to the clear need to promote the city's tourist products and packages, its cultural attractions and its gastronomy in the online competition as European urban destination . In addition, infrastructure and transport, landscape and natural resources, events and sports also seem to have a more stable presence through communication practices, although these categories are less important in the discourse than the previous ones.

Provided by Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona

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IMAGES

  1. Basic components of tourism product

    specific tourist products represent

  2. Characteristics of Tourism Products

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COMMENTS

  1. Product Development

    Product Development. As defined by UN Tourism, a Tourism Product is "a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the ...

  2. What is Tourism Product? Definition, Types, Characteristics

    Tourism Products are a combination of goods and services demanded by a tourist during travel to and stay at a destination. These include natural, cultural and manmade attractions and facilities such as hotels, transport and ancillary services. In this process, tourists derive an experience which varies from individual to individual.

  3. PDF UNDERSTANDING THE TOURIST PRODUCT

    Specific Tourist Products Before defining tourist products, a basic distinction should be made considering that they can be determined on two distinct levels (Freyer, 1993:129; Middleton, 1989:573 ...

  4. (PDF) Understanding the Tourism Product

    This paper focuses on the total tourist products, that can be understood as bundles of tangible and intangible components, based on an activity at a destination. It is the consumption of such a ...

  5. Towards a taxonomy of tourism products

    Lines, Types and Sub-types represent exemplars of specific products. Tourism products can be grouped under one of five types of needs being satisfied: pleasure, personal quest, understanding human endeavours, nature and business. A total of 27 Product Families have been identified under the Need Families with just under 90 Product Classes ...

  6. Tourism product development and product diversification ...

    1. Introduction. Destinations depend on their primary tourism products as key pull factors motivating tourists to visit them. The paper's analysis focuses on primary tourism products rather than on products which are less likely to provide a substantial tourist draw to specific destinations, such as accommodation, food services and transportation (Jansen-Verbeke, 1986).

  7. Product, tourism

    In a marketing context, products are bundles of tangible and intangible elements conveying benefits to satisfy needs. They may take the form of goods, services, ideas, events, persons, places, or organizations (Kotler and Armstrong 2008 ), fulfilling two distinct tasks. First, each product satisfies a need through the benefit (s) it incorporates.

  8. The Tour-Operators' Role in the Process of Creating and ...

    The tour-operators suggest and commercialize differentiated tourism products, which meet certain tourism specific needs, and the tourists, through the perception of those cultural products representing the elements of attraction that form the tourism product, can enrich their knowledge base and broaden their own cultural-spiritual universe.

  9. Data, intelligence and trends

    Tourism Products. As defined by UNWTO, a Tourism Product is "a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor ...

  10. Towards a taxonomy of tourism products

    The first is the seemingly endless expansion of the field through ever finer subdivisions of tourism products, with each new type presented as a discrete form that is worthy of extensive research. In reality differences often represent minor variations on a theme rather than new themes (Franklin and Crang 2001).

  11. PDF Module 3 Promotion and Marketing in Tourism

    Module 3 Learning Objectives. 2. Understand the concept, characteristics and relevance of destination marketing. Be able to apply concepts, approaches and basic tools to develop a marketing plan based on the components of the "marketing mix". Understand key criteria and principles in price definition and management.

  12. Sustainability

    This study examines sustainable tourism products in tourism destinations. Based on concepts of sustainable product design, our study proposes a framework for sustainable tourism products by adapting an existing Design for Sustainability Framework to consider and analyze the characteristics and themes of sustainable (tourism) products as well as their impact and scope. Using a pragmatic ...

  13. PDF The Gorgeous Brand: Understanding Consumer Conspicuous Consumption for

    Consumers will buy specific products to be different; specific products represent the unique respect and prestige of consumers. Moreover, when the consumer makes a consumption decision, they are sensitive to measure how much they will pay, and how much value they get. Thus, the tourism products' value will be a key construct of the effects of

  14. (PDF) Understanding the Tourism Product

    Specific Tourist Products Before defining tourist products, a basic distinction should be made considering that they can be determined on two distinct levels (Freyer, 1993:129; Middleton, 1989:573; Tietz, 1980:10): The total tourist product comprises the combination of all the elements, which a tourist consumes during his/her trip.

  15. PDF Classification of products and productive activities for tourism

    Tourism characteristic products (para 5.10): 9 Those that satisfy one or both of the following criteria: − Tourism expenditure on the product should represent a significant share of total tourism expenditure (share-on-expenditure/demand condition) - typical for tourism (see also Box 5.1, p. 45). − Tourism expenditure on the product should ...

  16. Branding Strategy for Specialist Tourism Products

    Through the brand management exact strategy is lead as a process of creating, planning and communicating the brand. The identity of a brand is the main concept of a tourist product. Brand image is the perception of brand in the tourist's consciousness. The right branding strategy interacts of the brand identity.

  17. Marketing Cultural Resources as a Tourism Product

    2.1 Cultural tourism products. The tourism product is complex as the varied elements of service, hospitality, free choice, consumer involvement, and consumption of experiences must be actualized in some way [].According to [] people do not buy products for the sake of the product itself, they buy them for the benefits they provide or the problems they solve.

  18. Glossary of tourism terms

    Country-specific tourism characteristic products and activities: To be determined by each country by applying the criteria of IRTS 2008, ... self-improvement, intellectual growth and skills development. Education Tourism represents a broad range of products and services related to academic studies, skill enhancement holidays, school trips ...

  19. Perceptions of tourism products

    The five tourism product elements were evaluated in disparate tourism sectors, and the results show that physical plant has a mean score of 2.2118 while the other elements are all above 3, ranging from 3.0380 to 3.3021. This finding suggests that the students perceived the physical plant to be the core of tourism products, paralleling Smith's ...

  20. Characteristics of Tourism Product

    The tourism product is a key component of the tourism industry, and it refers to the total package of experiences, products, and services that tourists seek, consume, and perceive as value in a particular destination. Understanding the characteristics of a tourism product is important for creating a unique and appealing experience that will attract and retain visitors.

  21. What most attracts us to a tourist destination ...

    The results show that to compete in this specific market, tourist products and packages, cultural attractions and gastronomy are the critical elements chosen to attract visitors.

  22. What most attracts us to a tourist destination? Attractions, culture

    The results show that to compete in this specific market, tourist products and packages, ... (D2) and location near tourist sites (D3) represent a significant source of differentiation. These ...

  23. Glossary of tourism terms

    Tourism product: A tourism product is a combination regarding tangible and intangible element, that for innate, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, featured, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the your marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional ...