Table Of Content

World Geography of Travel and Tourism This page intentionally left blank WORLD GEOGRAPHY OF TRAVEL AND TOURISM A REGIONAL APPROACH A lan A. Lew, C. Michael Hall and Dallen J. Timothy AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier B utterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA F irst edition 2008 C opyright © 2008, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved N o part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher P ermissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (⫹44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (⫹44) (0) 1865 853333; email: C ontents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Geography and the Study of Tourism 1 1.2 Physical Geography 4 1.3 Human Geography 11 1.4 The Tourism Industry 22 1.5 Tourist Demand 27 1.6 Tourism Supply 37 1.7 Tourism Landscapes 41 1.8 Overview of This Book 44 2 Europe and Eurasia 49 2.1 The Geography of Europe 51 2.2 Tourism in Western Europe 68 2.3 Tourism in Eastern Europe 112 3 The Old World: Central Asia through Africa 131 3.1 Central Asia 132 3.2 Southwest Asia and North Africa 144 3.3 Sub-Saharan Africa 166 4 Asia and Oceania 193 4.1 South Asia 194 4.2 Southeast Asia 214 4.3 East Asia 232 4.4 Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Antarctica 249 v 5 The Americas 273 5.1 Anglo North America 274 5.2 Latin North America 310 5.3 South America 336 Apendix 353 I ndex 357 vi C O N T E N T S I NTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Geography and the Study of Tourism 1.2. Physical Geography 1.3. Human Geography 1.4. The Tourism Industry 1.5. Tourist Demand 1.6. Tourism Supply 1.7. Tourism Landscapes 1.8. Overview of This Book 1 .1 G EOGRAPHY AND THE STUDY OF TOURISM The old adage of needing a vacation to recover from a vacation trip reflects the often strenuous nature of holiday travels, as we try to squeeze in as many activities as possible within the short period that we are free from work. Travel and tourism, therefore, are typically considered leisure activities and a form of recreation that takes place away from the home place. The fact that tourism involves travel from one place to another, and occurs in places that are often shaped intentionally by the tourism industry, also make it very geographical. 1 L eisure as Non-Work Most people have an inherent sense of what they consider to be a leisure activity. We generally know that it is not work and not something that you must do. In fact, it is easier to define what leisure is not than what it is. In part, this is because leisure is very subjective – what one person considers a leisure activity, another person may not consider leisure at all. A hike in the woods might be considered leisure by some, and work by someone else. Furthermore, the same person can hold these divergent views from one day to the next, depending on the social context and an individual’ s atti- tude. Despite the subjective complexities of leisure, we can generally say that leisure occurs when an individual is undertaking an activity that he or she wants to do and enjoys doing. Leisure, therefore, can be defined as time spent free of obligation and necessity, when one is in control of one’ s own destiny. During pure leisure, there are no overt outside factors or forces that determine what we do and how we spend our time. While we have each been socialized to consider some forms of leisure activities more acceptable than others, we feel that during our leisure time we are free from society’ s expectations and demands of us. This definition of leisure raises some intriguing questions about free will and social expectations. However, it is also limited in that it is not easily quantifiable because it does not specifically address different types of leisure (for counting purposes), nor does it describe to what extent one is free from social obligation (such as when a business trip becomes a tourist holiday). Because defining leisure as the opposite of work and obligation is so vague, we will move on to a second definition of leisure that focuses on activities. L eisure Activities Leisure can also be defined as a specific activity that results in the physical or men- tal relaxation and rejuvenation of an individual. Some popular activities that are nor- mally associated with these results include watching television, participating in sports and other outdoor recreation activities, reading books and magazines, going to the movies, and listening to music. These activities bring relaxation to the mind, body and soul – for most people. As mentioned above, individuals can vary a lot in the types of activities they find relaxing and stressful. For some, work may actually be considered a leisure activity, while for others a leisure activity may be considered work. Defining leisure as a set of specific activities makes leisure quantifiable, but may not address an individual’s motivations and goals for leisure. Therefore, a third definition has also been proposed. L eisure as a State of Mind Leisure can also be defined as a state of mind. This idea was expounded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE), who saw leisure as a form a self-meditation and self-improvement. He saw leisure as the most essential element of humankind because it allows for self-development, creativity and self-actualization. It enables us to step 2 W O R L D G E O G R A P H Y O F T R AV E L A N D T O U R I S M back from the constant struggles of daily life to consider what is really important in life. Only then will we know what areas of our life need improvement. While this view of leisure offers many avenues for humanistic understanding, it shares the challenges of the non-work time definition by leaving a lot of room for subjective interpretation. While each of these views has its flaws, a combination of these views offers a fuller definition of leisure. Leisure is, therefore, an activity that spans a period of time and which is chosen of one’ s own free will instead of a work or social obligation, and which allows for personal relaxation, contemplation and rejuvenation. G eography and Leisure Almost every aspect of life is interwoven with leisure (including both recreation and tourism), either as a leisure activity or as its opposite. Because of this, the study of leisure is undertaken from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, the most prominent being sociology and economics. Geographers have also made major contributions to leisure studies, especially in the area of tourism, because of their interests in the nature and development of places, how people use and behave in places, and the var- ied relationships that exist between places. The study of geography is distinct in that it encompasses both the physical sciences (physical geography) and social sciences (human or cultural geography). T ourism, Mobility and Migration Another way of conceptualizing tourism is as a form of voluntary temporary mobility by which people travel to another location – often for leisure or visiting friends and relations (VFR). This way of thinking about tourism helps differentiate it from forced mobility, as in the case of political or environmental refugees, for example, people hav- ing to move because of a major flood, or permanent migration. The concept of temporary mobility therefore includes a wide range of tourism-related phenomenon such as leisure travel, health tourism, volunteer tourism, educational travel, travel to second homes, working holidays and business travel. T ourism Geography Geography may be defined as the study of the structure and interaction of two major systems: (1) the ecological and social systems that link humans to each other and to their environment and (2) the spatial system that links one area of the earth’ s surface with another. From a geographical point of view, tourism studies requires an understanding of the places of tourist origin (or tourist generating areas), tourist destinations, and the relationship between the place of origin and the destination, which includes transportation routes, business and marketing relationships, and traveler motivations. This chapter introduces many of the essential concepts of tourism geography. The remaining chapters primarily focus on a geographic understanding of tourism regions and destinations. The geographic approach to understanding regions and places is approached from two basic perspectives: physical geography and human geography. I N T R O D U C T I O N 3