Tourism in Ancient and Modern Period

Tourism in ancient period

Tourism has been started along before. In ancient Greece, many people would travel every year to visit a series of festivals and games, including but not limited to the Olympic games . Travels were also common from Magna Graciela-the areas in Southern. Italy extensively populated by Greek settlers- to Greece for cultural exchange. In the fifth century BCE, the historian Herodotus travelled to Egypt, Tyre, and Babylon, writing about his journey. During the early nd high middle age travelling to see sites became even more popular, as more people, as did proto-travel literature, in general.

Arab writers Ibn Jubayr, from AL Andalus, and Ibn Battuta, from Morocco, both travelled and wrote about their journeys extensively between the 12^th and 14^th centuries CE. Travel literature was a favourite genre in the Arab world at the time and earlier, and the one thousand nights and a night, a collection of folk tales compiled driving the Islamic Golden Age is replete with an example of strong travels throughout the world.

From the earliest times, travel has fascinated man. Much of travel, in the beginning, was largely unconscious and rather a simple affair. The cumbersome procedures that we witness in travel today were not to be found in olden days. No travel formalities existed. Travel in the distant past was a merchant, a pilgrim, a scholar in search of ancient texts, or even a curious wayfarer looking forward to new and exciting experiences. Trade and commerce were, however, the strongest force in the ancient times; it made people travel to distant lands in order to seek fortunes. Gradually, the opening of the lands started moving about in large numbers and visited many places for the purpose of commerce. With the opening of the trade routes, travel became easier and more regulated. At the marketplaces, travellers made contacts with each other resulting in increased flow of trade and commerce. Trade relations matured into cultural relations and the better understanding of each other’s way of life.

Early travel in the orient, particularly in India and China, was also largely based on trade and commerce. Travel to the orient, especially to India, was undertaken by travellers from all over the world. This was done for a variety of reasons: the most important among them being trade and commerce. India and China enjoyed the reputation of being countries of fabulous wealth. It is on record that long before the Christian era, travellers visited India in search of fortune. The trend continued and became more marked in course of time with Europeans heading towards the Indian shores for the sole purpose of trade and commerce. Not only did India attract a series of invaders starting with Alexander of Macedonia, but also great travellers like Vasco da Gama. Many foreigners, Arabs, and Europeans like came to India to establish trading posts. The great explorer, Christopher Columbus, set out t find a new route to India and in the process discovered the New World. India always held a great fascination for foreign travellers. Mark Twain described it as a fabulous world of “Splendour and rags, the one country under the sun with an imperishable interest, the one land all men desire to see”.

Tourism in Modern Period ( First third of Century, to 1950)

• “Introducing phase” refers to all the developments, structures and innovations of modern tourism.
• Witnessed the beginning of a comprehensive process characterized by a prototypical up surge in a middle-class culture of travel and its formation, popularization and diversification.
• Prepared the way for a mass tourism recognizable to modern concepts of spending leisure time.
• Most important undoubting include not only the advance of industrialization, demographic changes, urbanization and the revolution in transportation but also the improvement of social and labor rights, the rise in real income and the resulting changes in consumer demand.
• The beginning of the 19^th century, the opening up of the central European system of transport brought about enormous change that genuinely deserves the designation as a revolutionary development.
• It also improved the mobility of tourists and created new trends. Short-stay and day trips became popular and made use of the modern advances in transport technology. Steam navigation began in Scotland in 1812; the continuous use of steamship on Greman watercourses followed in 1820 and in 1823, Switzerland received it first steamship on Lake Geneva.

References:

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