Sector Hotelero en México

In beginning discussions on definitions of terms, their use and meanings, it is usual to draw on the major dictionary definitions to understand the broad cultural sense in which they are understood (Mccabe, 2009).

Tourist-one who travels for pleasure (The American Heritage Dictionary).

Fuster (1971) noted that in 1800, The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary published the first time the word `tourist’: One who make a tour or tours. One who does this for recreation: one who travels for pleasure or culture, visiting a number of places for their objects of interest, scenery or the like (Netto, 2009).

The classificatory system is needed to try to establish the significance of international tourism and to understand broad-based descriptive statistics on the types and reasons for travel. The classification has some recognition of temporal qualities of tourists-same-day visitors, tourist but not permanent or temporary migrants. Types of activities as well as purposes of travel are also identified: leisure, recreation and

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holidays: visiting friends and relatives (VFR); business and professional travel ; health treatments; religious and pilgrimage trips; as well as others, A range of travel activities is also encompassed in the official definition of tourists: crews: returning non-nationals;

day visitors etc.

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)²¹ has spent a great deal of time working with the international community to develop and implement the Tourism Satellite Accounts based on the categories of international travelers and activities outlined in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 gives detailed understanding of travelers who are included in tourism statistics and considered as tourists and the purposes for traveling. As can be seen from the Figure 2.1 it shows also the types of none tourists; those who are not included in tourism statistics.

21-World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the United Nations agency, leading international organization in the field of

tourism, which responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism and promotes tourism as

a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector

in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.

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Figure 2.1: World Tourism Organization Classifications of International Travelers

Source: UNWTO

De Brabander (1992) makes a distinction between the ‘travel’ and ‘stay’ dimensions. As far as the travel component is concerned, he refers to three sub-dimensions:

1. Distance – short-, medium- and long-haul 2. Origin – domestic and international

3. Mode of transport – car, coach, train, plane, boat and other.

For the ‘stay’ dimension, there are another three classifications:

1. Duration: less than 24 hours (excursions) and more than 24 hours; for the latter group a further distinction is very often made between short holidays (one to three nights) and holidays (four nights or more)

2. Purpose: leisure, business, congress and personal (family, religion, health, education)

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3. Accommodation: hotel, boarding house, camping, holiday village, rented apartment or villa, cruise, farm and other.

It is evident that excursions do not involve an overnight stay (cited in Vanhove, 2011).

A demand analysis estimates or predicts the number and/or types of visitors to an area via a use estimation, forecasting or demand model. The number of visitors or sales is generally predicted based on judgement, historic trends (time series methods), or using a model that captures how visits or spending varies with key demand determinants (structural models) such as population size, distance to markets, income levels, and measures of quality & competition (Walsh 1986, Johnson et al. 1992, Stynes, et al, 1997 ).

For better understanding of tourism types regarding to distances/ geography of travel, the definitions of the domestic, inbound, outbound, internal, national and international tourism which was updated²²in UNSD/UNWTO Workshop, Madrid, July, 2006(REC93) are given bellow:

 Domestic tourism: involving residents of the given country traveling only within this country;

 Inbound tourism: involving non- resident traveling in the given country;

 Outbound tourism: involving residents traveling in another country.

 Internal tourism :comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism;

 National tourism: comprises domestic tourism and outbound tourism;

 International tourism, which consists of inbound tourism and outbound tourism

22- Definitions before updating are given bellow:

Domestic tourism: is the tourism of resident visitors within the economic territory of the country of reference.

Inbound tourism: is the tourism of non-resident visitors within the economic territory of the country of reference.

Outbound tourism: is the tourism of resident visitors outside the economic territory of the country of reference.

Internal tourism: is the tourism of visitors, both resident and non-resident, within the economic territory of the country of reference.

National tourism: is the tourism of resident visitors, within and outside the economic territory of the country of reference (REC’00).

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McIntosh and Goeldner (1984) identified four different perspectives of tourism:

1. The tourist. The tourist seeks various psychic and physical experiences and satisfactions. The nature of these will largely determine the destinations chosen and activities enjoyed.

2. The business providing tourist goods and services. Business people see tourism as an opportunity to make a profit by providing the goods and services that the tourism market demands.

3. The government of host community or area. Politicians view tourism as a wealth factor in the economy of their jurisdictions. Their perspective is related to the incomes that their citizens can earn from this business. Politicians also consider the foreign exchange receipts from international tourism as well as the tax receipts collected from tourist expenditures, either directly or indirectly.

4. The host community. Local people usually see tourism as a cultural and employment factor. Importance of this group, for example, is the effect of interaction between large number of foreign visitors and residents. This effect may be beneficial or harmful, or both.

Length of stay is an important determinant of the overall impact of tourism in a given economy. The number of days that tourists stay at a particular destination has influence on the amount of their expenditure, for instance, the number of possible experiences to be undertaken by tourists depends on their length of stay (Menezes et al., 2009). In other words the more day’s tourists spend in the particular destination the more amount of money they spend, even if it is only the daily payment for the accommodation and food.

Tourism consists of the activities undertaken during travel from home or work for the pleasure and enjoyment of certain destinations, and the facilities that cater to the needs of the tourist (Smith, 1989), define tourism ` more by what it is not than by what it is- it

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is not home and it is not work: it is a change of scenery and lifestyle, an inversion of the normal` (cited in Franklin, 2003). Leiper (1979) lists three approaches to the definition of tourism: economic, technical and holistic.

To call tourism as an industry was the biggest arguable discussion among scholars already 4 decades. As noted Smith (1989): it (tourism) is not an ‘industry’ in the conventional sense as there is no single production process, no homogeneous product and no locationally confined market. According to Weaver and Lawton (2002) ‘the tourism industry may be defined as the sum of the industrial and commercial activities that produce goods and services wholly or mainly for tourist consumption.’ However, this definition neglects the purchase of goods and services, which are not produced wholly or mainly for tourists, because tourists also consume goods and services that are not designed for their consumption. Similarly Ashworth and Voogt (1990) describe the tourism product as a bundle of services and experiences (Citied in Vassiliadis, 2008).

Gunn's (1988) define the tourism product as a complex consumptive experience that results from a process where tourists use multiple travel services during the course of their visit (cited in Murphy et al., 2000).

Jefferson and Lickorish (1988) offer another version of the components model of the tourism product. Observing that “the tourism product needs clear definition”, they provide two views: the tourism product is a “collection of physical and service features together with symbolic associations which are expected to fulfil the wants and needs of the buyer” and, more succinctly, the tourism product “is a satisfying activity at a desired destination”.

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From the standpoint of a potential customer, the product may be defined as a bundle or package of tangible and intangible components (the packaged is perceived by the tourist as an experience) (Turtureanu, 2005; Bresler,2001)