Concept Of Virtual Tourism example essay topic

Tourism is a major economic and social significant that has been recognized in both developed and developing countries. Tourism is the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal places of work and residence. The activities undertaken during their stay in these destinations by facilities are meant to cater the needs of the consumer. The act of traveling for pleasure is a luxury. Until recently only a restricted few had the time and money to travel. Increasing leisure, higher incomes and greatly enhanced mobility have combined to enable more people to partake in travel.

The concept of wide-scale travel away from home is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past few people enjoyed free time, and any was usually attributed to religious reasons, hence the word holidays (holy days). Early travel often consisted of pilgrimages and later health spas became very popular. As social and economic development of countries accelerated, so did wages and work conditions.

Railways in the nineteenth century made transportation easier and presently air transportation put the whole world at reach. What motivates a tourist? The world is vast and ready to be explored and many people with the means to travel enjoy not only the relaxation aspect of vacationing but also exploring various geographical locations to benefit from learning of a different culture, society and practices of a diverse globe. The importance of consumer behavior within the tourism market is essential in analyzing where people want to go.

Central to the theory of motivation is the concept of need. It is necessary to know what people consider a need so that we can discover how these can be fulfilled. These can include: physiological needs (ex. hunger, thirst, sleep... ), safety needs (ex. freedom from threat of danger), love / social needs (ex. feeling of belonging, affection, friendship... ), esteem needs (ex. self-respect, achievement, self confidence, reputation... ), and self -actualization needs (ex. self-fulfillment and realizing one's potential). People are motivated to travel t leave behind the personal or interpersonal problems of their environment and to obtain personal or interpersonal rewards.

The personal rewards are mainly sense of competence, challenge, learning, exploration and relaxation. The interpersonal rewards surface from social interaction. There has probably never been a more exciting time for the study of tourism geography than the present. Both as an industry and as a social phenomenon, tourism is renowned for the speed and scale of change. But at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the challenges of change seem more daunting than ever. These are especially evident in terms of globalization, the new consumer, and the democratic challenge.

Globalization represents the intensification of the linkages between places, which increasingly shape the global as well as being shaped by it. Above all it signifies the deepening of competition in the tourism industry, as both the reach of transnational capital and the tourist's imagined world are globalize. Globalization promises to transform the productivity of tourism capital, and - through the concept of virtual tourism - challenges the meaning not only of place but also of tourism itself. Although the demise of mass tourism is greatly exaggerated, consumers have become increasingly differentiated, as much in terms of their values as by their socio-economic profiles, and this has an impact on the map of tourism, with few places escaping the increasingly conflicting demands of diverse groups of tourists.

Finally, societies are faced with the task of constructing new models of democracy which can both regulate and allow engagement with the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly globalize differentiated world. This has led to a growing interest in models of participatory democracy that, in the realm of tourism, has been especially evident in the debate about constructing effective and equitable partnerships in the pursuit of sustainable tourism. How do consumers select there destination choice? Many studies have analyzed values to determine the answer.

There are methodological limitations in collecting such personal data because of the fact that people are reluctant to assign a low priority to what is obviously supposed to be an important factor in peoples lives.