Tourists

Concept of Tourist

The word tour is derived from the Latin word “Tornate” and the Greek, “Tornos” which means circle. A tourist is a person who does the act of tour and to different places, mostly target for various places within the country of outside the country for enjoyments, education purpose, and scenario views and for pleasure during their leisure period.

In other ways, a tourist is the temporary traveler travelling in search of pleasure from the novelty and change experienced during their trip. Tourist as a visitors stay at least 24 hours but no longer than one year in a country where they visit for pleasure, holiday sports, recreation and also came for business, visiting friend etc.

According to different scholars

The oxford dictionary defines “tourist” as a person travelling or visiting place for recreation and “tour” is defined as a journey through a place visiting things of interest so, a tourist is a person travelling different places for recreation purpose.

According to MR. Valen .L. Smith “A tourist is a temporally leisured person who visits different places.”

In short,

• Tourist is that visitor who seeks to visit different places away from their home for a change.
• Tourist must undertake tour during leisure for pleasure.
• Activities of the tourist must vary from that of the locals.
• Tourist is those people who are able to receive the tourist activities/amenities and should have an ability to pay for the target trip.
• Tourist is those who should spend a minimum of 24 hours and not more than 24 hours in the destination visited and should not exceed 1 years.
• Tourist is an important mass of people who generate economy of a country.

Types of Tourist

Different scholars have divided tourist under different headings. Whereas tourists are divided by airlines, hotels, travel agents etc. The researcher had divided tourist according to age group, types of tour, a size of group, economy, and purpose of visit and duration of stay.

According to World tourism organization tourists (WTO) are categorized into following:

1. Recreation tourist: In these types tourist visit places like Club and casino, spa, fun world, sports center which can enjoy them.
   
   
2. Holiday tourist: Most of the tourist visits a different part of a world in their holiday where they prefer to do a Cultural tour, shopping and much more.
   
   
3. Leisure tourist: In these types’ visitors visits Places related historical monuments, museums, art clubs etc.
   
   
4. Student tourist: Student visits many places to Study and research which may be academic or out works.
   
   
5. Religious tourist: These tourists are mainly focused in religious activities like Pilgrimage, religious, charity activities etc.
   
   
6. Adventure tourist: In this type of tourist they prefer exciting and thrilling activities like Jungle safari, rafting, trekking, bungee jumping, sky diving etc.

On the basis of following two dimensions, Cohen has developed fourfold typology of drifters which are as follows:

1.Full-time drifters

Outward oriented: The “adventurer” the original individual drifter.

Inward oriented: The “Itinerant Hippie” the travelling dropout, on his way to some drug sanctuary in Europe or Asia or drifting aimlessly from one hippie's community to another.

2. Part time drifters

Outward oriented: The mass drifter usually the college youth, who spends a limited amount of time to see the world, meet people and “have experienced”, but tends to attach to the drifter tourist establishment of cheap lodgings and eating places and cut-rate fare.

Inward oriented: In this the youth who associates with the “hippies” or other drop outs, and models their behavior in these roles, but remains marginal to the hippies' subculture. They frequently visits the pop discotheques and boutiques, dresses in style, “visits the “hippies” communities for short periods of time , but after completing his trip he returns back to his ordinary places.

Like, Cohen, Valen .L. Smith (1989) has identified seven types of tourist. This typology is based on a theoretical approach limited to empirical information. The types are as follows.

Explore:

Explore tourist are very few in numbers who is seeking for a discovery of new places and involvement with local people. As these types of tourist easily accommodate to a local norm in housing, food, and lifestyles of local people.

Elite:

Elite are the group of people in the community, who are very rich, powerful and have a lot if influence. Tourist if such types move from one place to another for the pleasure and entertainment they want to uphold their influence at the destinations also elite and individually motivated tourists. This tourist seeks for traditional culture and visit exotic places. Where they overnight Kuna Indian homes, sleep in hammock’s and eat native food, get thoroughly bitten by chiggers and chance the tourist “trots”.

Offbeat:

Offbeat tourist is that tourist where the desire to get away from the crowds or heighten the excitement of their vacation by doing something beyond the norm. These types of tourists include those who currently visit Toraja regency to see the funerals, trekking in Himalayan reason, hiking etc.

Unusual:

They visit with peculiar activities such as physical danger or isolation. The group tends to be interested in the primitive culture but are much happier with the “safe” launch box and bottled water which they have brought from their home. This tourist approaches the strong links between visitor expectations, motivations and the structure of destination areas.

Incipient mass:

Tourist visit places for different activities wherein these types, tourist visited in a small group who share the same kind os services from host country but payment is made separate by the visitors.

Mass:

A tourist who visit in large number in tourism industry than it is called as a mass tourist. As they visited different places for pleasure, enjoyments. This types of tourist are built upon middle-class income and values, and the impact of sheer numbers is high. There is a continuous influx of visitors who inundate Hawaii most of the year, and other areas at least seasonally, including European resorts.

Charter:

Tourist travel in mass for relaxation as this types of tourist are looking for standardized western facilities as possible. Different travel agencies provide necessary meal coupons and accommodations to the guest. As they arrived on mass, as in Waikiki, and for every 747 planeloads, there is a fleet of at least ten big buses waiting to transfer them from an airport to well-deigned hotels, in the lobby of which is a special tour desk to provide itineraries card other group services.

Characteristics of Tourist

Characteristic of tourist refers to the nature and identifications of tourist. As tourist behavior is judged by age, sex, culture, nationality, religion etc. their reasons describes the character of tourist. Here are some character of tourist below:

• Visitors should spend at least on one night in the country visited.
• He is a guest but impersonal guest.
• His activities should be of economic in nature.
• Must not involve in any employment or earning purpose.
• A tourist as a person who travel and stay in a different destination.
• He may be a domestic or international tourist.
• The movement should take place outside the usual environment or away from the home.
• Foreign air as ship crew docked or in lay order and who used the accommodation establishment of the country visited

References:

Oli, Gopal Singh and B. B. Chhetri. Hotel management. Kathmandu: Buddha publications Pvt. Ltd., 2015. Book.

Shrestha, Dinesh; K.C, Saroj; karki, karuna; Sharma, Robin; elt. Hotel Management. kathmandu: Arcadia Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 2068,Shrawan.