in
Germany:
Yacht Harbour Residence in
Rostock,
MecklenburgThere has been an up-trend in tourism over the last few decades, especially in Europe, where international travel for short breaks is common. Tourists have a wide range of budgets and tastes, and a wide variety of resorts and hotels have developed to cater for them. For example, some people prefer simple beach vacations, while others want more specialized holidays, quieter resorts, family-oriented holidays, or niche market-targeted
destination hotels. The developments in
air transport infrastructure, such as
jumbo jets,
low-cost airlines, and more
accessible airports have made many types of tourism more affordable. A major factor in the relatively low cost of air travel is the
tax exemption for aviation fuels. The
WHO estimated in 2009 that there are around half a million people on board aircraft at any given time. Some sites have now started to offer
dynamic packaging, in which an inclusive price is quoted for a tailor-made package requested by the customer upon impulse. There have been a few setbacks in tourism, such as the
September 11 attacks and
terrorist threats to
tourist destinations, such as in
Bali and several European cities. Also, on 26 December 2004, a
tsunami, caused by the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, hit the
Asian countries on the
Indian Ocean, including the
Maldives. Thousands of people died including many tourists. This, together with the vast clean-up operations, stopped or severely hampered tourism in the area for a time. Individual low-price or even zero-price overnight stays have become more popular in the 2000s, especially with a strong growth in the
hostel market and services like
CouchSurfing and
airbnb being established. There has also been examples of jurisdictions wherein a significant portion of GDP is being spent on altering the primary sources of revenue towards tourism, as has occurred for instance in
Dubai.
Sustainable tourism Ecotourism Ecotourism, also known as ecological tourism, is responsible travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low-impact and (often) small-scale. It helps educate the traveller; provides funds for conservation; directly benefits the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, and fosters respect for different cultures and for human rights.
Take only memories and leave only footprints is a very common slogan in protected areas. Tourist destinations are shifting to low carbon emissions following the trend of visitors more focused in being environmentally responsible adopting a sustainable behavior.
Volunteer tourism Volunteer tourism (or voluntourism) is growing as a largely Western phenomenon, with volunteers travelling to aid those less fortunate than themselves in order to counter global inequalities. Volunteer tourism is defined as applying to “those tourists who, for various reasons, volunteer in an organised way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society” (Wearing, 2001). VSO, founded in 1958 in the UK, and the US Peace Corps, founded in 1958, were the first large-scale voluntary organisations sending groups, initially arising to modernise less economically developed countries, which it was hoped would curb the influence of communism. This form of tourism is largely praised for being a more sustainable approach to travel, with tourists attempting to assimilate into local cultures and avoiding the criticism of consumptive, exploitative mass tourism. However, increasingly, voluntourism is being criticised by scholars who suggest that volunteer tourism may have negative effects as it begins to undermine local labour and force unwilling host communities to adopt Western initiatives. While host communities without a strong heritage fail to retain volunteers who become dissatisfied with their experiences, volunteer shortages persist. Increasingly, organisations such as VSO have been concerned with community-centric volunteer programmes where power to control the future of the community is in the hands of local people.
Pro-poor tourism Pro-poor tourism, which seeks to help the poorest people in developing countries, has been receiving increasing attention by those involved in development; the issue has been addressed through small-scale projects in local communities and through attempts by Ministries of Tourism to attract large numbers of tourists. Research by the Overseas Development Institute suggests that neither is the best way to encourage tourists' money to reach the poorest as only 25% or less (far less in some cases) ever reaches the poor; successful examples of money reaching the poor include mountain-climbing in
Tanzania and cultural tourism in
Luang Prabang,
Laos. There is also the possibility of pro-poor tourism principles being adopted in centre sites of regeneration in the developed world.
Recession tourism Recession tourism is a travel trend which evolved by way of the world economic crisis. Recession tourism is defined by low-cost and high-value experiences taking place at once-popular generic retreats. Various recession tourism hotspots have seen business boom during the recession thanks to comparatively low costs of living and a slow world job market suggesting travellers are elongating trips where their money travels further. This concept is not widely used in tourism research. It is related to the short-lived phenomenon that is more widely known as
staycation. In general, studies have primarily focused on the short-term effects of the crisis on tourism demand, often overlooking the long-term implications for the competitive positioning of the impacted destinations.
Medical tourism When there is a significant price difference between countries for a given medical procedure, particularly in
Southeast Asia,
India,
Sri Lanka,
Eastern Europe,
Cuba and
Canada where there are different regulatory regimes, in relation to particular medical procedures (e.g.
dentistry), travelling to take advantage of the price or regulatory differences is often referred to as "medical tourism".
Educational tourism , Poland Educational tourism is developed because of the growing popularity of teaching and learning of knowledge and the enhancing of technical competency outside of the classroom environment. Brent W. Ritchie, publisher of Managing Educational Tourism, created a study of a geographic subdivision to demonstrate how tourism educated high school students participating in foreign exchange programs over the last 15 years. In educational tourism, the main focus of the tour or leisure activity includes visiting another country to learn about the culture, study tours, or to work and apply skills learned inside the classroom in a different environment, such as in the International Practicum Training Program. In 2018, one impact was many exchange students traveled to America to assist students financially in order to maintain their secondary education.
Event tourism , Poland This type of tourism is focused on tourists coming into a region to either participate in an event or to see an organized event put on by the city/region. This type of tourism can also fall under
sustainable tourism as well and companies that create a
sustainable event to attend open up a chance to not only the consumer but their workers to learn and develop from the experience. Creating a sustainable atmosphere creates a chance to inform and encourage sustainable practices. An example of event tourism would be the music festival
South by Southwest that is hosted in
Austin, Texas annually. Every year people from all over the world flock to the city for one week to sit in on technology talks and see bands perform. People are drawn here to experience something that they are not able to experience in their hometown, which defines event tourism.
Creative tourism visitors from Indonesia meeting their hosts in
Hartwell, Georgia, United States Creative tourism has existed as a form of
cultural tourism, since the early beginnings of tourism itself. Its European roots date back to the time of the
Grand Tour, which saw the sons of aristocratic families travelling for the purpose of mostly interactive, educational experiences. More recently, creative tourism has been given its own name by Crispin Raymond and Greg Richards, who as members of the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS), have directed a number of projects for the
European Commission, including cultural and crafts tourism, known as
sustainable tourism. They have defined "creative tourism" as tourism related to the active participation of travellers in the
culture of the host community, through interactive workshops and informal learning experiences. Saying so, the tourist will have the opportunity to take part in workshops, classes and activities related to the culture of the destination. More recently, creative tourism has gained popularity as a form of cultural tourism, drawing on active participation by travellers in the culture of the host communities they visit. Several countries offer examples of this type of tourism development, including the United Kingdom, Austria, France, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Spain, Italy, New Zealand and South Korea. The growing interest of tourists in this new way to discover a culture regards particularly the operators and branding managers, attentive to the possibility of attracting a quality tourism, highlighting the intangible heritage (craft workshops, cooking classes, etc.) and optimizing the use of existing infrastructure (for example, through the rent of halls and auditoriums).
Experiential tourism Experiential travel (or "immersion travel") is one of the major market trends in the modern tourism industry. It is an approach to travelling which focuses on experiencing a country, city or particular place by connecting to its
history, people, food and
culture. The term "experiential travel" has been mentioned in publications since 1985, but it was not discovered as a meaningful market trend until much later.
Dark tourism in
Kudowa-Zdrój,
Lower Silesian Voivodeship,
Poland, is an example of an attraction for
dark tourism. Its interior walls, ceiling and foundations are adorned by human remains. It is the only such monument in Poland, and one of six in
Europe. One emerging area of special interest has been identified by Lennon and Foley (2000) as
"dark" tourism. This type of tourism involves visits to "dark" sites, such as battlegrounds, scenes of horrific crimes or acts of
genocide, for example
concentration camps. Its origins are rooted in fairgrounds and medieval fairs.
Social tourism Social tourism is making tourism available to poor people who otherwise could not afford to travel for their education or recreation. It includes
youth hostels and low-priced holiday accommodation run by church and
voluntary organisations,
trade unions, or in Communist times
publicly owned enterprises. In May 1959, at the second Congress of Social Tourism in Austria,
Walter Hunziker proposed the following definition: "Social tourism is a type of tourism practiced by low-income groups, and which is rendered possible and facilitated by entirely separate and therefore easily recognizable services".
Doom tourism ,
Patagonia,
Argentina Also known as "tourism of doom," or "last chance tourism", involves travelling to places that are environmentally or otherwise threatened (such as the ice caps of
Mount Kilimanjaro, the melting glaciers of
Patagonia, or the coral of the
Great Barrier Reef) before it is too late. The trend emerged in the 21st century, identified in 2007 by travel trade magazine in 2007 and explored in
The New York Times, This type of tourism has been on the rise. Some see the trend as related to
sustainable tourism or
ecotourism due to the fact that a number of these tourist destinations are considered threatened by environmental factors such as global warming, overpopulation or climate change. Others worry that travel to many of these threatened locations increases an individual's
carbon footprint and only hastens problems threatened locations are already facing. As of 2024, climate change has been making Last Chance Tourism more popular, and riskier. In August 2024, an American was killed visiting an ice cave at the foot of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier.
Religious tourism in
Vatican City, the papal enclave within the Italian city of Rome, one of the largest religious tourism sites in the world Religious tourism, in particular
pilgrimage, can serve to strengthen
faith and to demonstrate devotion. Religious tourists may seek destinations whose image encourages them to believe that they can strengthen the religious elements of their
self-identity in a positive manner. Given this, the perceived image of a destination may be positively influenced by whether it conforms to the requirements of their religious self-identity or not.
DNA tourism DNA tourism, also called "ancestry tourism" or "heritage travel", is tourism based on DNA testing. These tourists visit their remote relatives or places where their ancestors came from, or where their relatives reside, based on the results of DNA tests. DNA tourism became a growing trend in 2019.
Sleep tourism Sleep tourism focuses on medical treatments or other approaches, and may focus on people who have difficulty falling asleep, people who experience interrupted sleep, people who don't feel rested after sleeping, snoring, breathing difficulties, and dreaming. ==Effects of tourism==