🙋Aloha Travel Practitioners.
Welcome to Day 7 of our Travel business mini-training/workshop.
📍For day 7;
Having a sound idea of the history of tourism is quite important.
It provides you with an appreciation of how far the industry has come.
It enables one to understand its growth over the century.
Ultimately, it gives a clear trajectory of the expected future growth and how one can benefit from it.
Ok now Let’s peruse the history of Tourism; how it all started!
📍Question:
HOW DID TOURISM BEGIN ??
🎯Answer:
When exactly, the history of tourism actually begun? I can’t pinpoint it really.
It is hard to know when simple travel turned into what we would define as tourism and tourism itself can be recognized as being in the equation for as long as far back as people have traveled.
It wouldn’t be until antiquity, or the glory days of the Greek and Roman empires, that tourism, or leisure travel, would be introduced and for obvious reasons, we can only really guess about tourism in ancient times but we do know that people sure did travel in ancient times.
Hence when we wonder why we travel, when, where, and how it all started, it might be comforting to think about our predecessors, and how they moved out first due to necessity, then for religion, migration, emigration, commerce, enlightenment, and finally for pleasure.
Historians have found records that provide insights into the reasons that people traveled, and how this evolved into tourism.
*Nomadic hunters and gatherers moved in search of food following seasonally available wild plants and game.
*In the Neolithic age we saw the first sailing vessels and the invention of the wheel, both designed to move people and goods around in different ways.
*We know that Vikings had a particular skill for sailing and a keen interest in exploring. Through perilous voyages, they conquered areas such as Iceland and Greenland and were even the first to accidentally discover America in 985 A.D. when a ship was blown off course on its way to Greenland.
*Then Ancient man began to build roads to facilitate the movement of troops through empires, and eventually, civilians began to travel in caravans.
Travel for commerce and trade took explorers to strange lands to meet other people and bring back riches of unfathomable value.
The Phoenicians, for example, traveled not only to develop trade routes but also because of curiosity. They had the desire to discover what lay beyond that area of the Mediterranean and other peoples likely did the same.
The Mayas in modern-day Mexico, and members of the Shang Dynasty in modern-day China, traveled to see what was beyond their borders.
*In Medieval times, the most notorious travelers were pilgrims and missionaries. Driven by their religious convictions, pilgrims made dangerous journeys to places like Santiago de Compostela, Canterbury, and Jerusalem while missionaries traveled to heathen areas to evangelize the people, such as the Celts in Ireland and Africans across the Africas.
As the Egyptian, Roman, and, Eastern Mediterranean Empires emerged, necessary travel turned into tourism. Wealthy Greeks and Romans began to travel for leisure to their summer homes and villas by the sea in cities like Pompeii and Baiae.
As time went on, people traveled. They traveled for various reasons:
- commercial,
- educational,
- governmental and
- religious purposes.
With consolidated governments in different central locations established as early as the Egyptian Kingdoms (4850-715 BC), travel was a necessity. Places that were important in terms of government activities turned into what we might call tourist attractions; with shops, places to eat and drink, sports to watch, gaming, and even theatre, there was plenty to do if you traveled to a different area.
This only evolved further with the ancient Romans.
During their empire (500 BC – 300 AD), good roads were developed and water routes improved.
Inns were opened, around 30 miles apart from each other – a relatively easy day’s journey in between, so you always had a place to rest at night. Horses could even be hired here, and Trade routes also started to reopen, commercial activity grew, and people continued to venture out of their towns and territories.
*The freedom of travel in the Roman Empire brought many Jews to flourishing cities of the ancient world, and Jesus himself is thought to have traveled a great deal with his disciples and because travel was a necessity, so too were basic needs and amenities.
Lodging and food needed to be provided to those visiting from other areas, which likely gave way to a realization that you could travel to another place just because…; This was especially true of the Greeks (900-200 BC). Just because they wanted to find fun in new locations; they promoted the use of a common language, and their money to become a form of common communication and transacting currency.
This emphasizes something about the way we travel today; Tourism booms when;
- people have more free time (such as during school holidays)
- currencies are easily exchangeable
- there are common languages
- the existence of law allows for a feeling of personal safety.
If any of these factors were to be removed, people would be less inclined to travel. This was seen during the Middle Ages when tourism was in decline.
Cyriacus of Ancona journeyed around the Mediterranean, eager to learn about Greek and Roman history. His desire to learn about what had come before, and to see what remained encouraged others to think about how travel could benefit education; And thus, the Grand Tour Era emerged.
The era of the Grand Tour was when tourism, as we know it today, came into play; It is an important part of the history of tourism.
Starting with the wealthiest in society, people traveled to learn and educate themselves.
It was fashionable, and soon became a status symbol in its own way.
It became fashionable; a status and a ‘symbol’ for young aristocrats and wealthy upper-classes to travel to important European cities as a crowning touch to their education in the arts and literature, designed to enlighten Europe’s young elites.
These grand tourists who are just ‘coming of age’ would travel throughout Europe to see art, architecture, and science, and expose themselves to great masterpieces and more in countries other than their own.
Generally, the most visited places were London, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. Each ‘Grand Tour’ would last a couple of years.
People would travel by carriage, and be accompanied by someone older to take care of them.
The French revolution marked the end of the Grand Tour as it has come to be known, and with the occasion of the industrial revolution, travel was revolutionized; Economic and social structures were changed forever.
The Industrial Revolution brought leisure travel to Europe. The revolution meant that lengthy journeys such as a Grand Tour trip were no longer particularly viable for many people.
Factory life and business management, and indeed modern industrialism as a whole, led to people becoming more tied down hence lesser free time to travel, explore, have fun, and gain more exposure to other people’s cultures, arts, lifestyles, economies, and education.
Travel was no longer limited only to the privileged as it became cheaper, easier, and safer to travel; Young ladies began to travel too, chaperoned by an old spinster as was appropriate, as part of their education.
The new middle class which comprises factory owners and managers now had more money and more time to travel, relax and take part in recreational activities thanks to industrialized production with efficient and faster machinery.
For the first time, traveling was done for the sole pleasure of it, and credited to Thomas Cook for bringing travel and tourism to the general public.
Thomas Cook was the first to introduce a tour package covering travel and accommodation, with food often included too. He started with tours in Britain but with his rapid success soon moved unto other European cities, where Paris and the Alps were the most popular destinations.
In 1841 he arranged for a tour of around 570 people to travel from Loughborough to Leicester for a shilling; the journey included food and entertainment.
There was instant demand for more of the same, and so the full-time business of arranging and providing travel services was born!
Thomas Cook pioneered all the common services that travel agencies undertake for travel passengers today: attractions, accommodation, tours, flight timetables, travel tickets, currency exchanges, and travel guides.
So when we wonder why we travel, and where it all started, it might be comforting to think about our predecessors, and how they moved first out of necessity, then for religion, migration, emigration, commerce, enlightenment, and finally for pleasure.
Today each of our reasons may vary, but one thing is certain: there will never be rest for a species that can only move, move and keep moving.
END.