We are working with Cambridge Assessment International Education towards endorsement of this resource. CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL AS & A LEVEL TRAVEL AND TOURISM: COURSEBOOK
Other reasons to travel
KEY CONCEPT
Some tourists travel for medical or religious tourism.
Religious tourism includes pilgrimages people make because of their spiritual beliefs. Religious tourists travel to places that are considered to be special in some way, in order to show respect. Examples of religious pilgrimages are the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia (see Figure 1.13), the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and religious visits to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem or to the Hindu holy city of Puri in India.
KEY WORD
Change and development: Travel and tourism is changing. Numbers of tourists and reasons for travel are changing. Many people have more time and money available for travel. However, issues such as disease (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) and security threats such as terrorism have affected tourists’ freedom and confidence to travel.
PL E
Medical tourism involves travelling away from home to another place to seek treatment for a medical condition. Examples of this could be laser eye surgery or dental work. Medical tourists need travel and tourism products and services, including transport, accommodation and catering, and other services. Medical tourism is different from health and wellbeing leisure tourism because medical tourism is for receiving treatment, for example, in a hospital, whereas health and wellbeing leisure tourism is for maintaining health in an enjoyable way, for example at a spa.
Tourism is the business of providing for the needs and wants of tourists. There are different types of tourism: •
domestic, inbound and outbound tourism
•
mass, packaged, unpackaged and specialist tourism
•
short-haul and long-haul travel and tourism
•
independent travel
•
sustainable tourism, ecotourism and responsible tourism.
Domestic, inbound and outbound tourism
M
pilgrimage: a visit to a place considered to be a special in order to show respect
Types of tourism
SA
Domestic tourists visit destinations in the country where they normally live. For example, in Mauritius, a person living on the main island may pay a visit to Rodrigues Island (see Figure 1.14).
Figure 1.13: the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca
Other people travel for legal reasons, such as a court case, or to view and consider an area to move to, perhaps for retirement.
Figure 1.14: Rodrigues Island, Mauritius
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