How to Plan an Unforgettable Sightseeing Tour of Vancouver by Bike

Travel for recreational or leisure purposes

For other uses, see Tourism (disambiguation). "Tourist" redirects here. For other uses, see Tourist (disambiguation).

 

Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel.^[1] UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes".^[2] Tourism can be domestic (within the traveller's own country) or international. International tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments.

Between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009 tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown (see Great Recession), and in consequence of the outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus.^[3][4] These numbers, however, recovered until the COVID-19 pandemic put an abrupt end to the growth.^{[citation needed]} The United Nations World Tourism Organization has estimated that global international tourist arrivals might have decreased by 58% to 78% in 2020, leading to a potential loss of US$0.9–1.2 trillion in international tourism receipts.^[5]

Globally, international tourism receipts (the travel item in the balance of payments) grew to US$1.03 trillion (€740 billion) in 2005, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 3.8% from 2010.^[6] International tourist arrivals surpassed the milestone of 1 billion tourists globally for the first time in 2012.^[7] Emerging source markets such as China, Russia, and Brazil had significantly increased their spending over the previous decade.^[8]

Global tourism accounts for c. 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.^[9] Emissions as well as other significant environmental and social impacts are not always beneficial to local communities and their economies. For this reason, many tourist development organizations have begun to focus on sustainable tourism to mitigate the negative effects caused by the growing impact of tourism. The United Nations World Tourism Organization emphasized these practices by promoting tourism as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, through programs such as the International Year for Sustainable Tourism for Development in 2017.^[10]

Tourism has reached new dimensions with the emerging industry of space tourism, as well as the cruise ship industry.

Etymology

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The English-language word tourist was used in 1772^[11] and tourism in 1811.^[12][13] These words derive from the word tour, which comes from Old English turian, from Old French torner, from Latin tornare - "to turn on a lathe", which is itself from Ancient Greek tornos (τόρνος) - "lathe".^[14]

Definitions

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In 1936, the League of Nations defined a foreign tourist as "someone traveling abroad for at least twenty-four hours". Its successor, the United Nations, amended this definition in 1945, by including a maximum stay of six months.^[15]

In 1941, Hunziker and Kraft defined tourism as "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel and stay of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence and are not connected with any earning activity."^[16][17] In 1976, the Tourism Society of England's definition was: "Tourism is the temporary, short-term movement of people to destinations outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during the stay at each destination. It includes movements for all purposes."^[18] In 1981, the International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism defined tourism in terms of particular activities chosen and undertaken outside the home.^[19]

In 1994, the United Nations identified three forms of tourism in its Recommendations on Tourism Statistics:^[20]

• Domestic tourism, involving residents of the given country traveling only within this country
• Inbound tourism,^[21] involving non-residents traveling in the given country
• Outbound tourism, involving residents traveling in another country

Other groupings derived from the above grouping:^[22]

• National tourism, a combination of domestic and outbound tourism
• Regional tourism, a combination of domestic and inbound tourism
• International tourism, a combination of inbound and outbound tourism

The terms tourism and travel are sometimes used interchangeably. In this context, travel has a similar definition to tourism but implies a more purposeful journey. The terms tourism and tourist are sometimes used pejoratively, to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited. By contrast, traveller is often used as a sign of distinction. The sociology of tourism has studied the cultural values underpinning these distinctions and their implications for class relations.^[23]

There are many varieties of tourism. Of those types, there are multiple forms of outdoor-oriented tourism. Outdoor tourism is generally categorized into nature, eco, and adventure tourism (NEAT). These categories share many similarities but also have specific unique characteristics. Nature tourism generally encompasses tourism activities that would take place outside. Nature tourism appeals to a large audience of tourists and many may not know they are participating in this form of tourism. This type of tourism has a low barrier to entry and is accessible to a large population. Ecotourism focuses on education, maintaining a social responsibility for the community and the environment, as well as centering economic growth around the local economy. Weaver describes ecotourism as sustainable nature-based tourism.^[24] Ecotourism is more specific than nature tourism and works toward accomplishing a specific goal through the outdoors. Finally, we have adventure tourism. Adventure tourism is the most extreme of the categories and includes participation in activities and sports that require a level of skill or experience, risk, and physical exertion.^[24] Adventure tourism often appeals less to the general public than nature and ecotourism and tends to draw in individuals who partake in such activities with limited marketing.

It is important to understand that these definitions may vary. Perceived risk in adventure tourism is subjective and may change for each individual.

Examples of these tourism types include...

Nature tourism

• Hiking, walking, camping

Ecotourism

• Guided tours focusing on educating, summer camps, outdoor classes

Adventure tourism

• White water rafting, ice climbing, mountaineering

Tourism products

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According to the World Tourism Organization, a tourism product is:^[25]

"a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural, and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the potential customers. A tourism product is priced and sold through distribution channels and it has a life-cycle".

Tourism product covers a wide variety of services including:^[26]

• Accommodation services from low-cost homestays to five-star hotels
• Hospitality services including food and beverage serving centers
• Health care services like massages
• All modes of transport, its booking and rental
• Travel agencies, guided tours and tourist guides
• Cultural services such as religious monuments, museums, and historical places
• Shopping
• Additional travel services like airport parking, airport hotels and travel insurance

International tourism

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International tourism is tourism that crosses national borders. Globalisation has made tourism a popular global leisure activity. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".^[27] The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 500,000 people are in flight at any one time.^[28]

In 2010, international tourism reached US$919B, growing 6.5% over 2009, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 4.7%.^[29] In 2010, there were over 940 million international tourist arrivals worldwide.^[30] By 2016 that number had risen to 1,235 million, producing $1.22 trillion USD in destination spending.^[31] The COVID-19 crisis had significant negative effects on international tourism significantly slowing the overall increasing trend.

International tourism has significant impacts on the environment, exacerbated in part by the problems created by air travel but also by other issues, including wealthy tourists bringing lifestyles that stress local infrastructure, water and trash systems among others.

Basis

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Tourism typically requires the tourist to feel engaged in a genuine experience of the location they are visiting. According to Dean MacCannell, tourism requires that the tourist can view the toured area as both authentic and different from their own lived experience.^{[32][33]: 113 [better source needed]} By viewing the "exotic," tourists learn what they themselves are not: that is, they are "un-exotic," or normal.^{[33][better source needed]}

According to MacCannell, all modern tourism experiences the "authentic" and "exotic" as "developmentally inferior" to the modern—that is, to the lived experience of the tourist.^{[33]: 114 [better source needed]}

History

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Ancient

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Travel outside a person's local area for leisure was largely confined to wealthy classes, who at times travelled to distant parts of the world, to see great buildings and works of art, learn new languages, experience new cultures, enjoy pristine nature and to taste different cuisines. As early as Shulgi, however, kings praised themselves for protecting roads and building way stations for travellers.^[34] Travelling for pleasure can be seen in Egypt as early on as 1500 BC.^[35] Ancient Roman tourists during the Republic would visit spas and coastal resorts such as Baiae. They were popular among the rich. The Roman upper class used to spend their free time on land or at sea and travelled to their villa urbana or villa maritima. Numerous villas were located in Campania, around Rome and in the northern part of the Adriatic as in Barcola near Trieste. Pausanias wrote his Description of Greece in the second century AD. In ancient China, nobles sometimes made a point of visiting Mount Tai and, on occasion, all five Sacred Mountains.

By the post-classical era, many religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam had developed traditions of pilgrimage. The Canterbury Tales (c. 1390s), which uses a pilgrimage as a framing device, remains a classic of English literature, and Journey to the West (c. 1592), which holds a seminal place in Chinese literature, has a Buddhist pilgrimage at the center of its narrative.

In medieval Italy, Petrarch wrote an allegorical account of his 1336 ascent of Mont Ventoux that praised the act of travelling and criticized frigida incuriositas (a 'cold lack of curiosity'); this account is regarded as one of the first known instances of travel being undertaken for its own sake.^[36][37] The Burgundian poet Michault Taillevent [fr] later composed his own horrified recollections of a 1430 trip through the Jura Mountains.^[38]

In China, 'travel record literature' (遊記文學; yóujì wénxué) became popular during the Song Dynasty (960–1279).^[39] Travel writers such as Fan Chengda (1126–1193) and Xu Xiake (1587–1641) incorporated a wealth of geographical and topographical information into their writing, while the 'daytrip essay' Record of Stone Bell Mountain by the noted poet and statesman Su Shi (1037–1101) presented a philosophical and moral argument as its central purpose. ^[40]

Modern tourism can be traced to what was known as the Grand Tour, which was a traditional trip around Europe (especially Germany and Italy), undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means, mainly from Western and Northern European countries. In 1624, the young Prince of Poland, Ladislaus Sigismund Vasa, the eldest son of Sigismund III, embarked on a journey across Europe, as was in custom among Polish nobility.^[41] He travelled through territories of today's Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, where he admired the siege of Breda by Spanish forces, France, Switzerland to Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic.^[41] It was an educational journey^[42] and one of the outcomes was introduction of Italian opera in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.^[43]

The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s and generally followed a standard itinerary. It was an educational opportunity and rite of passage. Though primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy landed gentry, similar trips were made by wealthy young men of Protestant Northern European nations on the Continent, and from the second half of the 18th century some South American, US, and other overseas youth joined in. The tradition was extended to include more of the middle class after rail and steamship travel made the journey easier, and Thomas Cook made the "Cook's Tour" a byword.

The Grand Tour became a status symbol for upper-class students in the 18th and 19th centuries. In this period, Johann Joachim Winckelmann's theories about the supremacy of classic culture became very popular and appreciated in the European academic world. Artists, writers, and travellers (such as Goethe) affirmed the supremacy of classic art of which Italy, France, and Greece provide excellent examples. For these reasons, the Grand Tour's main destinations were to those centers, where upper-class students could find rare examples of classic art and history.

The New York Times recently described the Grand Tour in this way:

Three hundred years ago, wealthy young Englishmen began taking a post-Oxbridge trek through France and Italy in search of art, culture and the roots of Western civilization. With nearly unlimited funds, aristocratic connections and months (or years) to roam, they commissioned paintings, perfected their language skills and mingled with the upper crust of the Continent.

— Gross, Matt., Lessons From the Frugal Grand Tour." New York Times 5 September 2008.

The primary value of the Grand Tour, it was believed, laid in the exposure both to the cultural legacy of classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to the aristocratic and fashionably polite society of the European continent.

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Leisure travel was associated with the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom – the first European country to promote leisure time to the increasing industrial population.^[44] Initially, this applied to the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy, factory owners and traders. These comprised the new middle class.^[44] Cox & Kings was the first official travel company to be formed in 1758.^[45]

The British origin of this new industry is reflected in many place names. In Nice, France, one of the first and best-established holiday resorts on the French Riviera, the long esplanade along the seafront is known to this day as the Promenade des Anglais; in many other historic resorts in continental Europe, old, well-established palace hotels have names like the Hotel Bristol, Hotel Carlton, or Hotel Majestic – reflecting the dominance of English customers.

A pioneer of the travel agency business, Thomas Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth. With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles (18 km) away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the rail company to charge one shilling per person; this included rail tickets and food for the journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price.^{[clarification needed]} This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public; Cook himself acknowledged that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.^[46] During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday school children. In 1844, the Midland Counties Railway Company agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him, provided he found the passengers. This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway fares.^[47]

In 1855, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to coincide with the Paris Exhibition. The following year he started his "grand circular tours" of Europe.^[48] During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt, and the United States. Cook established "inclusive independent travel", whereby the traveller went independently but his agency charged for travel, food, and accommodation for a fixed period over any chosen route. Such was his success that the Scottish railway companies withdrew their support between 1862 and 1863 to try the excursion business for themselves.

The tourism industry, as part of the service sector,^[49] has become an important source of income for many regions and even for entire countries. The Manila Declaration on World Tourism of 1980 recognized its importance as "an activity essential to the life of nations because of its direct effects on the social, cultural, educational, and economic sectors of national societies, and on their international relations."^[2][50]

Tourism brings large amounts of income into a local economy in the form of payment for goods and services needed by tourists, accounting as of 2011^[update] for 30% of the world's trade in services, and, as an invisible export, for 6% of overall exports of goods and services.^[6] It also generates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism.^[51] It is also claimed that travel broadens the mind.^[52][53]

The hospitality industries which benefit from tourism include transportation services (such as airlines, cruise ships, transits, trains and taxicabs); lodging (including hotels, hostels, homestays, resorts and renting out rooms); and entertainment venues (such as amusement parks, restaurants, casinos, festivals, shopping malls, music venues, and theatres). This is in addition to goods bought by tourists, including souvenirs.

On the flip-side, tourism can degrade people^[54] and sour relationships between host and guest.^[55] Tourism frequently also puts additional pressure on the local environment.^[56]

The economic foundations of tourism are essentially the cultural assets, the cultural property and the nature of the travel location. The World Heritage Sites are particularly worth mentioning today because they are real tourism magnets. But even a country's current or former form of government can be decisive for tourism. For example, the fascination of the British royal family brings millions of tourists to Great Britain every year and thus the economy around £550 million a year. The Habsburg family can be mentioned in Central Europe. According to estimates, the Habsburg brand should generate tourism sales of 60 million euros per year for Vienna alone. The tourist principle "Habsburg sells" applies.^[57][58]

Cultural and natural heritage are in many cases the absolute basis for worldwide tourism. Cultural tourism is one of the mega-trends that is reflected in massive numbers of overnight stays and sales. As UNESCO is increasingly observing, the cultural heritage is needed for tourism, but also endangered by it. The "ICOMOS - International Cultural Tourism Charter" from 1999 is already dealing with all of these problems. As a result of the tourist hazard, for example, the Lascaux cave was rebuilt for tourists. Overtourism is an important buzzword in this area. Furthermore, the focus of UNESCO in war zones is to ensure the protection of cultural heritage in order to maintain this future important economic basis for the local population. And there is intensive cooperation between UNESCO, the United Nations, the United Nations peacekeeping and Blue Shield International. There are extensive international and national considerations, studies and programs to protect cultural assets from the effects of tourism and those from war. In particular, it is also about training civilian and military personnel. But the involvement of the locals is particularly important. The founding president of Blue Shield International Karl von Habsburg summed it up with the words: "Without the local community and without the local participants, that would be completely impossible'.^{[59][60][61][62]}

Cruising is a popular form of water tourism. Leisure cruise ships were introduced by the P&O in 1844, sailing from Southampton to destinations such as Gibraltar, Malta and Athens.^[63] In 1891, German businessman Albert Ballin sailed the ship Augusta Victoria from Hamburg into the Mediterranean Sea. 29 June 1900 saw the launching of the first purpose-built cruise ship was Prinzessin Victoria Luise, built in Hamburg for the Hamburg America Line.^[64]

Mass tourism and its tourist attractions have emerged as among the most iconic demonstration of western consumer societies.^[65] Academics have defined mass tourism as travel by groups on pre-scheduled tours, usually under the organization of tourism professionals. This form of tourism developed during the second half of the 19th century in the United Kingdom and was pioneered by Thomas Cook. Cook took advantage of Europe's rapidly expanding railway network and established a company that offered affordable day trip excursions to the masses, in addition to longer holidays to Continental Europe, India, Asia and the Western Hemisphere which attracted wealthier customers. By the 1890s over 20,000 tourists per year used Thomas Cook & Son.

The relationship between tourism companies, transportation operators and hotels is a central feature of mass tourism. Cook was able to offer prices that were below the publicly advertised price because his company purchased large numbers of tickets from railroads. One contemporary form of mass tourism, package tourism, still incorporates the partnership between these three groups.

Travel developed during the early 20th century and was facilitated by the development of the automobiles and later by airplanes. Improvements in transport allowed many people to travel quickly to places of leisure interest so that more people could begin to enjoy the benefits of leisure time.

In Continental Europe, early seaside resorts included: Heiligendamm, founded in 1793 at the Baltic Sea, being the first seaside resort; Ostend, popularized by the people of Brussels; Boulogne-sur-Mer and Deauville for the Parisians; Taormina in Sicily. In the United States, the first seaside resorts in the European style were at Atlantic City, New Jersey and Long Island, New York.

By the mid-20th century, the Mediterranean Coast became the principal mass tourism destination. The 1960s and 1970s saw mass tourism play a major role in the Spanish economic "miracle".^[66]

In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists discussed negative socio-cultural impacts of tourism on host communities. Since the 1980s the positive aspects of tourism began to be recognized as well.^[67]

In more recent times, mass tourism is something which has become a negative experience for local residents of cities and destinations that experience heavy tourism, especially in summer months. In July 2024 for example, protests by local residents in Barcelona, Spain were held in the city, where ″thousands of people joined an anti-tourism protest amid rising housing costs.″^[68]

Niche tourism refers to the specialty forms of tourism that have emerged over the years, each with its own adjective. Many of these terms have come into common use by the tourism industry and academics.^[69] Others are emerging concepts that may or may not gain popular usage. Examples of the more common niche tourism markets are:

Other terms used for niche or specialty travel forms include the term "destination" in the descriptions, such as destination weddings, and terms such as location vacation.

St. Moritz, Switzerland became the cradle of the developing winter tourism in the 1860s: hotel manager Johannes Badrutt invited some summer guests from England to return in the winter to see the snowy landscape, thereby inaugurating a popular trend.^[71][72] It was, however, only in the 1970s when winter tourism took over the lead from summer tourism in many of the Swiss ski resorts. Even in winter, up to one third of all guests (depending on the location) consist of non-skiers.^[73]

Major ski resorts are located mostly in the various European countries (e.g. Andorra, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey), Canada, the United States (e.g. Montana, Utah, Colorado, California, Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York) Argentina, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Chile, and Lebanon.

There has been an up-trend in tourism over the last few decades,^[vague] 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.^[28] There have also been changes in lifestyle, for example, some retirement-age people sustain year-round tourism. This is facilitated by internet sales of tourist services. 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.^[74]

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.^[75] 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.^[76]

Sustainable tourism is a concept that covers the complete tourism experience, including concern for economic, social, and environmental issues as well as attention to improving tourists' experiences and addressing the needs of host communities.^[77] Sustainable tourism should embrace concerns for environmental protection, social equity, and the quality of life, cultural diversity, and a dynamic, viable economy delivering jobs and prosperity for all.^[78] It has its roots in sustainable development and there can be some confusion as to what "sustainable tourism" means.^[79]: 23 There is now broad consensus that tourism should be sustainable.^[80][81] In fact, all forms of tourism have the potential to be sustainable if planned, developed and managed properly.^[79] Tourist development organizations are promoting sustainable tourism practices in order to mitigate negative effects caused by the growing impact of tourism, for example its environmental impacts.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization emphasized these practices by promoting sustainable tourism as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, through programs like the International Year for Sustainable Tourism for Development in 2017.^[82] There is a direct link between sustainable tourism and several of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).^[79]: 26 Tourism for SDGs focuses on how SDG 8 ("decent work and economic growth"), SDG 12 ("responsible consumption and production") and SDG 14 ("life below water") implicate tourism in creating a sustainable economy.^[83] According to the World Travel & Tourism Travel, tourism constituted "10.3 percent to the global gross domestic product, with international tourist arrivals hitting 1.5 billion marks (a growth of 3.5 percent) in 2019" and generated $1.7 trillion export earnings yet, improvements are expected to be gained from suitable management aspects and including sustainable tourism as part of a broader sustainable development strategy.^[84]

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.^[85] Tourist destinations are shifting to low carbon emissions following the trend of visitors more focused in being environmentally responsible adopting a sustainable behavior.^[86]

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. Wearing (2001) defines volunteer tourism 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".^[87] VSO was founded in the UK in 1958 and the US Peace Corps was subsequently founded in 1960. These were the first large scale voluntary sending organisations, initially arising to modernise less economically developed countries, which it was hoped would curb the influence of communism.^[88]

This form of tourism is largely praised for its more sustainable approach to travel, with tourists attempting to assimilate into local cultures, and avoiding the criticisms of consumptive and exploitative mass tourism.^[89] However, increasingly, voluntourism is being criticised by scholars who suggest it may have negative effects as it begins to undermine local labour, and force unwilling host communities to adopt Western initiatives,^[90] while host communities without a strong heritage fail to retain volunteers who become dissatisfied with experiences and volunteer shortages persist.^[91] 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.^[92]

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.^[93] 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.^[94] There is also the possibility of pro-poor tourism principles being adopted in centre sites of regeneration in the developed world.^[95]

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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.^[96]

When there is a significant price difference between countries for a given medical procedure, particularly in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Eastern Europe, Cuba^[97] and Canada^[98] 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".

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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.^[99] 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.^[100] In 2018, one impact was many exchange students traveled to America to assist students financially in order to maintain their secondary education.^[101]

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.^[102] 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 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,^[103] 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.^[103]

Meanwhile, the concept of creative tourism has been picked up by high-profile organizations such as UNESCO, who through the Creative Cities Network, have endorsed creative tourism as an engaged, authentic experience that promotes an active understanding of the specific cultural features of a place. UNESCO wrote in one of its documents: "'Creative Tourism' involves more interaction, in which the visitor has an educational, emotional, social, and participative interaction with the place, its living culture, and the people who live there. They feel like a citizen."^[104] 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.^[105][106]

The growing interest of tourists^[107] 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 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.^[108]

The term "experiential travel" has been mentioned in publications since 1985,^[109] but it was not discovered as a meaningful market trend until much later.

One emerging area of special interest has been identified by Lennon and Foley (2000)^[110][111] 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.^[112]

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".^[113]

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^[114] and explored in The New York Times,^[115] 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.^{[116][117][118]} 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.^[119]

Religious tourism, in particular pilgrimage, can serve to strengthen faith and to demonstrate devotion.^[120] 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.^[121]

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.^[122][123]

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.^[124]

Tourism has a significant impact on destinations, influencing their economy, culture, environment, and communities. Tourism positively affects many parties in society but can also be detrimental in certain situations.

In general, tourism positively affects the economy of its destination. The purchasing of commodities, and the usage of hotels and transport by tourists all contribute to economic activity within the country.

The sociocultural impacts of tourism are less straightforward, bringing both benefits and challenges to the destination. The interactions between tourists and locals foster a cultural exchange, particularly exposing tourists to a different culture through direct interactions and overall immersion. However, differing expectations in the societal and moral values of the tourists and those from the host location can cause friction between the two parties.

While tourism may have positive impacts environmentally, through an increase in awareness of certain environmental issues, tourism overall negatively impacts the environment. Tourist destinations and attractions located in the wild may neglect environmental concerns to satisfy the demands of tourists, creating issues such as pollution and deforestation.

Tourism also has positive and negative health outcomes for local people.^[125] The short-term negative impacts of tourism on residents' health are related to the density of tourist arrivals, the risk of disease transmission, road accidents, higher crime levels, as well as traffic congestion, crowding, and other stressful factors.^[126] In addition, residents can experience anxiety and depression related to their risk perceptions about mortality rates, food insecurity, contact with infected tourists, etc.^[127] At the same time, there are positive long-term impacts of tourism on residents' health and well-being outcomes through improving healthcare access, positive emotions, novelty, and social interactions.

In 2004 the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) forecasts that international tourism will continue growing at the average annual rate of 4 percent.^[128] With the advent of e-commerce, tourism products have become prominent traded items on the internet.^[129][130] Tourism products and services have been made available through intermediaries, although tourism providers (hotels, airlines, etc.), including small-scale operators, can sell their services directly.^[131][132]

As a result of the late-2000s recession, international arrivals experienced a strong slowdown beginning in June 2008. Growth from 2007 to 2008 was only 3.7 percent during the first eight months of 2008. This slowdown on international tourism demand was also reflected in the air transport industry, with negative growth in September 2008 and a 3.3% growth in passenger traffic through September. The hotel industry also reported a slowdown, with room occupancy declining. In 2009 worldwide tourism arrivals decreased by 3.8 percent.^[133] By the first quarter of 2009, real travel demand in the United States had fallen 6 percent over six quarters. While this was considerably milder than what occurred after the September 11 attacks, the decline was at twice the rate, as real GDP has fallen.^[134][135] However, evidence suggests that tourism as a global phenomenon shows no signs of substantially abating in the long term.^[136] The UNWTO has noted, that tourists increasingly view vacations and travel as a necessity rather than a luxury, and that this shift in attitudes may explain tourist numbers recovering globally in 2009.^[133]

It has been suggested there is a strong correlation between tourism expenditure per capita and the degree to which countries play in the global context.^[137] Not only as a result of the important economic contribution of the tourism industry, but also as an indicator of the degree of confidence with which global citizens leverage the resources of the globe for the benefit of their local economies. This is why any projections of growth in tourism may serve as an indication of the relative influence that each country will exercise in the future.

After the September 11 attacks the tourism industry operators had to consider the health and safety of tourists because it became increasingly difficult to obtain liability insurance. The organisations willing to provide insurance to tourism industry operators required, that operators put in place best practice risk management structures. This included, that whatever was promised in the contract about the holiday was really delivered by the operator.^[138]

There has been a limited amount of orbital space tourism, with only the Russian Space Agency providing transport to date. A 2010 report into space tourism anticipated that it could become a billion-dollar market by 2030.^[139][140] The space market has been around since 1979, however, there has been a limited amount of orbital space tourism, with only the Russian Space Agency providing transport on its Soyuz and the Chinese Shenzhou being the only two spacecrafts suitable for human travel . In April 2001, Dennis Tito, a customer of the Russian Soyuz became the first tourist to visit space. In May 2011, Virgin Galactic launched its SpaceShipTwo plane that allows people to travel 2 hours space at the advertised price of $200,000 per seat. A challenge that the commercial space tourism industry faces is to be able to have fundings from private investments needed to lower the cost of access to space in addition to being able to encourage both private and public sector support to increase capacity to allow commercial passengers. With space tourism still being new concept, there are many factors that needs to be considered for the industry. From its actual demand to its risk factor to its liabilities and insurance issues, there are still a lot of research that needs to be conducted. A 2010 report into space tourism anticipated that the industry is expected to grow by 18% - 26% per year during 2020 to 2030.

Sports tourism that attracts spectators is associated with negative impacts such as traffic congestion, vandalism, and anti-social behaviour. Sports tourist destinations may therefore be subject public displays of resentment and antagonism even though the host community benefits substantially. Sports tourism growth and decline can be subject to international commercial sporting events. For example, the irreversible environmental damage caused by the 1992 Winter Olympics is cited as a reason for stagnating ski tourism.^[141]

Security in Tourism is a sub-discipline of tourist studies that explores the factors that affect the ontological security of tourists. Risks are evaluated by their impact and nature.^[142] Tourism security includes methodologies, theories and techniques oriented to protect the organic image of tourist destinations.^[143] Three academic waves are significant in tourism security: risk perception theory, disaster management, and post-disaster consumption.^[144]

Andrew Spencer & Peter Tarlow argue that tourism security is not an easy concept to define. It includes a set of sub-disciplines, and global risks different in nature which cause different effects in the tourism industry. The rise of tourism security and safety as a consolidated discipline coincides with the globalization and ultimate maturation of the industry worldwide. Some threats include, for example, terrorist groups looking to destabilize governments affecting not only the local economies but killing foreign tourists to cause geopolitical tensions between delivery-country and receiving-tourist countries. Today, island destinations are more affected by terrorism and other global risks than other continent destinations ^[145][146]

In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic travel bans and a substantial reduction in passenger travel by air and sea contributed to a sharp decline in tourism activity.^[147] The World Tourism Organization (WTO) reported a 70% decrease in international travel in 2020, where 165 of 217 worldwide destinations completely stopped international tourism by April 2020. Since every country imposes different travel restrictions, it makes traveling plans complicated and often too difficult to figure out, thus the willingness to travel for the general population decreases. It is estimated that the United States lost 147 billion U.S. dollars in revenue from tourism between January and October 2020. Spain had the next highest loss of revenue at around 46.7 billion U.S dollars, and countries in Africa collectively lost about 55 billion dollars during April and June 2020.^{[citation needed]}

• Holder IV, Floyd William (2009). An Empirical Analysis of the State's Monopolization of the Legitimate Means of Movement: Evaluating the Effects of Required Passport use on International Travel (M.P.A. thesis). Texas State University-San Marcos. OCLC 564144593. Docket Applied Research Projects. Paper 308.
• Wilkerson, Chad (2003). "Travel and Tourism: An Overlooked Industry in the U.S. and Tenth District" (PDF). Economic Review. 88 (Third Quarter): 45–72. ISSN 0161-2387. OCLC 295437935. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 January 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2007.
• Antje Monshausen, Sustainable and development friendly In: D+C Vol.42.2015:4

City in Centre-Val de Loire, France

This article is about the city in France. For other uses, see Tour.

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Prefecture and commune in Centre-Val de Loire, France

Tours

 

Show map of Centre-Val de Loire

Tours
Prefecture and commune
Hôtel de Ville Medieval buildings on Place Plumereau Tours Cathedral Hôtel Goüin Basilica of Saint Martin Pont Wilson over the Loire Prébendes d'Oé garden
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Tours
Tours   Show map of France

Coordinates: 47°23′37″N 0°41′21″E / 47.393611°N 0.689167°E / 47.393611; 0.689167CountryFranceRegionCentre-Val de LoireDepartmentIndre-et-LoireArrondissementToursCantonTours-1
Tours-2
Tours-3
Tours-4IntercommunalityTours Métropole Val de LoireGovernment

 • Mayor (2020–2026) Emmanuel Denis^[1] (The Greens)

34.7 km² (13.4 sq mi) • Urban

684.9 km² (264.4 sq mi) • Metro

3,631.6 km² (1,402.2 sq mi)Population

138,668 • Rank26th in France • Density4,000/km² (10,000/sq mi) • Urban

359,992 • Urban density530/km² (1,400/sq mi) • Metro

516,973 • Metro density140/km² (370/sq mi)Demonym(s)Tourangeau (masculine)
Tourangelle (feminine)Time zoneUTC+01:00 (CET) • Summer (DST)UTC+02:00 (CEST)INSEE/Postal code

Elevation44–119 m (144–390 ft)¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries.

Tours (/tʊər/ TOOR; French: [tuʁ] ^ⓘ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metropolitan area was 516,973.^[3]

Tours sits on the lower reaches of the Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Formerly named Caesarodunum by its founder, Roman Emperor Augustus, it possesses one of the largest amphitheaters of the Roman Empire, the Tours Amphitheatre. Known for the Battle of Tours in 732 AD, it is a National Sanctuary with connections to the Merovingians and the Carolingians, with the Capetians making the kingdom's currency the Livre tournois. Saint Martin and Gregory of Tours were from Tours. Tours was once part of Touraine, a former province of France. Tours was the first city of the silk industry. It was taken by Louis XI, as the royal capital under the Valois Kings with its Loire castles and city of art with the School of Tours. The prefecture was partially destroyed during the French Wars of Religion in the late 16th century and again during the Second World War in June 1940.

The White and Blue city keeps a historical center registered in the UNESCO, and is home to the Vieux-Tours, a patrimonial site. The garden city has a green heritage and an urban landscape strongly influenced by its natural space. The historic city that is nicknamed "Le Petit Paris" and its region by its history and culture has always been a land of birth or host to many personalities, international sporting events, and is a university city with more than 30,000 students in 2019. Tours is a popular culinary city with specialties such as: rillettes, rillons, Touraine vineyards, AOC Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine cheeses and nougats. The city is also the end-point of the annual Paris–Tours cycle race.

A popular folk etymology of the word "Tours" is that it comes from Turonus, the nephew of Brutus. Turonus died in a war between Corineus and the king of Aquitaine, Goffarius Pictus, provoked by Corineus hunting in the king's forests without permission. It is said that Turonus was buried in Tours and the city is founded around his grave.^[4]

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In Gallic times, Tours was an important crossing point over the Loire. It became part of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD, and the city was named Caesarodunum ("hill of Caesar"). The name evolved in the 4th century when the original Gallic name, Turones, became Civitas Turonum and then Tours. It was at this time that the Tours Amphitheatre was built.

Tours became a metropolis in the Roman province of Lugdunum towards 380–388 AD, dominating Maine, Brittany, and the Loire Valley. One important figure in the city was Saint Martin of Tours, a bishop who shared his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. The importance of Martin in the medieval Christian West made Tours, and its position on the route of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a major centre during the Middle Ages.

In the 6th century, Gregory of Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, restored a cathedral destroyed by a fire in 561. Saint Martin's monastery benefited from its inception, at the very start of the 6th century from patronage and support from the Frankish king, Clovis I, which increased considerably the influence of the saint, the abbey and the city in Gaul. In the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian Renaissance, in particular because of Alcuin, of York in Northumbria, a renowned book collector and an abbot of Marmoutier Abbey.

In 732, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi and an army of Muslim horsemen from Al-Andalus advanced 500 kilometres (300 miles) deep into France, and were stopped at Moussais-la-Bataille^[5] (between Châtellerault and Poitiers) by Charles Martel and his infantry. This ignited the Battle of Tours. The Muslim army was defeated, preventing an Islamic conquest of France.

In 845, Tours repelled the first attack of the Viking chief Haesten. In 850, the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine and the Loire. Still led by Haesten, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and Marmoutier Abbey.

During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The "City" in the east, successor of the late Roman 'castrum', was composed of the cathedral and palace of the archbishops as well as the castle of Tours. The castle of Tours acted as a seat of the authority of the Counts of Tours (later Counts of Anjou) and the King of France. In the west, the "new city" structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was freed from the control of the city during the 10th century (an enclosure was built towards 918) and became "Châteauneuf". This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the economic centre of Tours. Between these two centres were Varennes, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century.

Tours became the capital of the county of Tours or Touraine, a territory bitterly disputed between the counts of Blois and Anjou – the latter were victorious in the 11th century. It was the capital of France at the time of Louis XI, who had settled in the castle of Montils (today the castle of Plessis-les-Tours, at the junction of the Loire and the Indre rivers). Tours and Touraine remained a permanent residence of the kings and court until the 16th century. The Renaissance gave Tours and Touraine many private mansions and castles, joined to some extent under the generic name of the Châteaux of the Loire. It is also at the time of Louis XI that the silk industry was introduced – despite difficulties, the industry still survives to this day.

Charles IX passed through the city at the time of his royal tour of France between 1564 and 1566, accompanied by the Court and various noblemen: his brother the Duke of Anjou, Henri de Navarre, the cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine. At this time, the Catholics returned to power in Angers: the attendant assumed the right to nominate the aldermen. The Massacre of Saint-Barthelemy was not repeated at Tours. The Protestants were imprisoned by the aldermen – a measure which prevented their extermination. The permanent return of the Court to Paris and then Versailles marked the beginning of a slow but permanent decline. Guillaume the Metayer (1763–1798), known as Rochambeau, the well-known counter-revolutionary chief of Mayenne, was shot in Tours.

The arrival of the railway in the 19th century saved the city by making it an important nodal point. The main railway station is known as Tours-Saint-Pierre-des-Corps. At that time, Tours was expanding towards the south into a district known as the Prébendes. The importance of the city as a centre of communications contributed to its revival and, as the 20th century progressed, Tours became a dynamic conurbation, economically oriented towards the service sector.

The city was greatly affected by the First World War. A force of 25,000 American soldiers arrived in 1917, setting up textile factories for the manufacture of uniforms, repair shops for military equipment, munitions dumps, an army post office and an American military hospital at Augustins. Because of this, Tours became a garrison town with a resident general staff. The American presence is remembered today by the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Loire, which was officially opened in July 1918 and bears the name of the President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. Three American air force squadrons, including the 492nd, were based at the Parçay-Meslay airfield, their personnel playing an active part in the life of the city. Americans paraded at funerals and award ceremonies for the Croix de Guerre. They also took part in festivals and their YMCA organised shows for the troops. Some men married women from Tours.

In 1920, the city hosted the Congress of Tours, which saw the creation of the French Communist Party. One future consequence of that congress was the presence of Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese nationalist, who became one of the first members of the party.

Tours was also marked by the Second World War, as the city suffered massive destruction in 1940. For four years it was a city of military camps and fortifications. From 10 to 13 June 1940, Tours was the temporary seat of the French government before its move to Bordeaux.

German incendiary bombs caused a huge fire, which blazed out of control from 20 to 22 June and destroyed part of the city centre. Some architectural masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries were lost, as was the monumental entry to the city. The Wilson Bridge, which carried a water main that supplied the city, was dynamited to slow the progress of the German advance. With the water main severed, nobody could extinguish the inferno. That made inhabitants have no option but to flee to safety. More heavy air raids by Allied forces devastated the area around the railway station in 1944, causing several hundred deaths.

A plan for the rebuilding of the central area drawn up by the local architect Camille Lefèvre had been adopted even before the end of the war. The plan was for 20 small quadrangular blocks of housing to be arranged around the main road (la rue Nationale), which was widened. This regular layout attempted to echo but simplify the 18th-century architecture. Pierre Patout succeeded Lefèvre as the architect in charge of rebuilding in 1945. At one time, there was talk of demolishing the southern side of the rue Nationale to make it in keeping with the new development.

The recent history of Tours is marked by the personality of Jean Royer, who was mayor for 36 years and helped save the old town from demolition by establishing one of the first Conservation Areas. This example of conservation policy would later inspire the Malraux Law for the safeguarding of historic city centres. In the 1970s, Jean Royer also extended the city to the south by diverting the course of the Cher River to create the districts of Rives du Cher and des Fontaines. At the time, it was one of the largest urban developments in Europe. In 1970, the François Rabelais University was founded and centred on the bank of the Loire in the downtown area, not, as was the current practice, in a campus in the suburbs. The latter solution was also chosen by the twin university of Orleans. Royer's long term as mayor was, however, not without controversy, as is exemplified by the construction of the practical but aesthetically unattractive motorway, which runs along the bed of a former canal just 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) from the cathedral. Another bone of contention was the original Vinci Congress Centre by Jean Nouvel. The project incurred debts although it at least made Tours one of France's principal conference centres.

Jean Germain, a member of the Socialist Party, became mayor in 1995 and made debt reduction his priority. Ten years later, his economic management was regarded as much wiser than that of his predecessor because of the financial stability of the city returning. However, his achievements were criticised by the municipal opposition for a lack of ambition. There were no large building projects instituted under his two terms. That position is disputed by those in power, who affirm their policy of concentrating on the quality of life, as evidenced by urban restoration, the development of public transport and cultural activities.

Tours has an oceanic climate that is very mild for such a northern latitude. Summers are influenced by its inland position, resulting in frequent days of 25 °C (77 °F) or warmer, whereas winters are kept mild by Atlantic air masses. The entire valley between Orlans and Angers is famous for the luminosity of its air and for its fabulous châteaux, most of them Renaissance (over 600 between Orlans and Angers).

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The Cathedral of Tours, dedicated to Saint Gatien, its canonized first bishop, was begun about 1170 to replace the cathedral that was burnt out in 1166 during the dispute between Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. The lowermost stages of the western towers belong to the 12th century, but the rest of the west end is in the profusely detailed 15th-century Flamboyant Gothic, which were completed just as the Renaissance was affecting the patrons who planned the châteaux of Touraine. The towers were being constructed at the same time as, for example, the Château de Chenonceau.

When the 15th-century illuminator Jean Fouquet was set the task of illuminating Josephus's Jewish Antiquities, his depiction of Solomon's Temple was modelled on the nearly complete cathedral of Tours. The atmosphere of the Gothic cathedral close permeates Honoré de Balzac's dark short novel of jealousy and provincial intrigues, Le Curé de Tours (The Curate of Tours) and his medieval story Maître Cornélius opens in the cathedral itself.

• Hôtel de Ville
• Jardin botanique de Tours, the municipal botanical garden
• Medieval enclosure at Tours
• Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours
• Hôtel Goüin
• Château de Tours
• Basilique St-Martin
• Place Plumereau, the old town
• Grand Théâtre, housing the Opéra de Tours
• Tour Charlemagne

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Before the French Revolution, the inhabitants of Tours (Les Tourangeaux) were known for speaking the "purest" form of French in the entire country.^[9] The pronunciation of Touraine was traditionally regarded as the most standard pronunciation of the French language, until the 19th century when the standard pronunciation of French shifted to that of the Parisian bourgeoisie.^[10] That is explained by the fact that the court of France lived in Touraine between 1430 and 1530. French, the language of the court, had become the official language of the entire kingdom.

A Council of Tours in 813 decided that priests should preach sermons in different languages because the common people could no longer understand classical Latin. This was the first official recognition of an early French language distinct from Latin, and can be considered as the birth of French.

The Ordinance of Montils-lès-Tours, promulgated by Charles VII in 1454, made it mandatory to write laws and oral customs in the native language of the area.

An ordinance of Charles VIII (born in Amboise, near Tours) in 1490 and one of Louis XII (born in Blois, near Tours) in 1510 broaden the scope of the ordinance of Charles VII.

Finally, the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, signed into law by Francis I in 1539, called for the use of French in all legal acts, notarized contracts and official legislation to avoid any linguistic confusion.

Gregory of Tours wrote in the 6th century that some people in the area could still speak Gaulish.

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The city has a population of 140,000 and is called "Le Jardin de la France" ("The Garden of France"). There are several parks located within the city. Tours is located between two rivers, the Loire to the north and the Cher to the south. The buildings of Tours are white with blue slate (called Ardoise) roofs; this style is common in the north of France, while most buildings in the south of France have terracotta roofs.

Tours is famous for its original medieval district, called le Vieux Tours. Unique to the Old City are its preserved half-timbered buildings and la Place Plumereau, a square with busy pubs and restaurants, whose open-air tables fill the centre of the square. The Boulevard Beranger crosses the Rue Nationale at the Place Jean-Jaures and is the location of weekly markets and fairs.

Tours is famous for its many bridges crossing the river Loire. One of them, Wilson Bridge, collapsed in 1978 but was rebuilt.

In the garden of the ancient Palais des Archevêques (now Musée des Beaux-Arts) is a huge cedar tree said to have been planted by Napoleon.^[11] The garden also has a stuffed elephant named Fritz. He escaped from the Barnum and Bailey circus during their stay in Tours in 1902. He went mad and had to be shot down, but the city paid to honor him, and he was taxidermied as a result.

Tours is home to University of Tours (formerly known as University François Rabelais of Tours), the site of one of the most important choral competitions, called Florilège Vocal de Tours International Choir Competition, and is a member city of the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing.

The population data in the table and graph below refer to the commune of Tours proper, in its geography at the given years. The commune of Tours absorbed the former commune of Saint-Étienne in 1845 and Sainte-Radegonde-en-Touraine and Saint-Symphorien in 1964.^[12]

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Today, with extensive rail (including TGV) and autoroute connections linking to the rest of the country, Tours is a jumping-off point for tourist visits to the Loire Valley and the royal châteaux.

Tours is on one of the main lines of the TGV. It is possible to travel to the west coast of Bordeaux in an hour and forty minutes. From there, the line follows the Mediterranean coast via Avignon, and then to Spain and Barcelona. There are also lines to Lyon, Strasbourg and Lille. It takes less than one hour by train to get from Tours to Paris by TGV and one and a half hours to get to Charles de Gaulle Airport. Tours has two main stations: Gare de Tours, the central station, and Gare de Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, used by trains that do not terminate in Tours.

Tours Loire Valley Airport connects the Loire Valley to European cities.

Historically, Tours was served by trams and trolleybuses, the trolleybus system lasting from 1949 to 1968. Tram service returned to the city in 2013, when a new tram system began operation. Twenty-one Alstom Citadis trams were ordered.^[14]

There is also a bus service, the main central stop being Jean Jaurès, next to the Hôtel de Ville, and rue Nationale, the high street of Tours. The tram and bus networks are operated by Fil Bleu and they share a ticketing system. A second tram line is scheduled for 2025.^[15]

The city's football team, Tours FC, currently play in Championnat National 3, the fifth level of French football. They also have a second team, CCSP Tours. CCSP's home stadium is the Stade des Tourettes and they play in the Division d'Honneur Regionale de Centre, the seventh tier of the French football league system.^{[citation needed]}

Tours has served as the finish location for Paris–Tours, a one-day road cycling classic race held almost every October since 1896.^[16]

Tours also has a volleyball club named the Tours VB.

Tours is a special place for Catholics who follow the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus and the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. In 1843, Sister Marie of St Peter of Tours reported a vision which started the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, in reparation for the many insults Christ suffered in His Passion. The Golden Arrow Prayer was first made public by her.

The Venerable Leo Dupont also known as The Holy Man of Tours lived in Tours at about the same time. In 1849 he started the nightly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which spread throughout France. Upon hearing of Sister Marie of St Peter's reported visions, he started to burn a vigil lamp continuously before a picture of the Holy Face of Jesus. The devotion was eventually approved by Pope Pius XII in 1958 and he formally declared the Feast of the Holy Face of Jesus as Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) for all Roman Catholics.^[17] The Oratory of the Holy Face on Rue St. Etienne in Tours receives many pilgrims every year.

Tours was the site of the episcopal activity of St. Martin of Tours and has further Christian connotations in that the pivotal Battle of Tours in 732 is often considered the first decisive victory over the invading Islamic forces, turning the tide against them. The battle also helped lay the foundations of the Carolingian Empire.^[18]

• Berengarius of Tours (999–1088), theologian.^[19]
• William Firmatus (1026–1103), a Norman hermit, pilgrim and now a saint
• Bernard of Tours (fl. 1147, d. before 1178), philosopher and poet
• Jeanne-Marie de Maille (1331–1414), saint
• Charles of Valois (1446–1472), son of Charles VII of France, younger brother of King Louis XI
• Louise de la Vallière (1644–1710), noblewoman and courtesan.^[20]
• André-Michel Guerry (1802–1866), lawyer and statistician
• Marie of St Peter (1816–1848), mystic carmelite nun
• Régis de Trobriand (1816–1897), American military officer and author
• Paul Viollet (1840–1914), historian.^[21]
• Louis Rimbault (1877–1949), individualist anarchist, promoted of simple living and veganism.
• Emile B. De Sauzé (1878–1964), language educator
• Baron Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel (1912-1992), nobleman, soldier and diplomat.
• René Laurentin (1917–2017), theologian, student of Mariology
• Jean Royer (1920–2011), former Minister and former Mayor of Tours.
• Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1940–2007), philosopher, literary critic and translator
• Jean-Louis Bruguière (born 1943), top French investigating judge
• Serge Babary (born 1946), politician, Mayor of Tours between 2014 and 2017
• Dominique Bussereau (born 1952), politician
• Catherine Colonna (born 1956) a French diplomat and politician

• Jean Fouquet (1420–1481), painter and miniaturist.^[22]
• Juste de Juste (ca.1505 – ca.1559), Franco-Italian sculptor and printmaker in etching
• François Clouet (ca.1510 – 1572), French Renaissance miniaturist and painter.^[23]
• Abraham Bosse (1604–1676), artist as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour.
• François de Paule Bretonneau (1660–1741), preacher, librettist and playwright.
• Philippe Néricault Destouches (1680–1754), dramatist and playwright.^[24]
• Louis Dutens (1730–1812), writer, lived most of his life in Britain.^[25]
• Jean Baudrais (1749–1832), writer and magistrate.
• Jean-Nicolas Bouilly (1763–1842), playwright and librettist.^[26]
• Philippe Musard (1792–1859), conductor and composer
• Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), novelist and playwright.^[27]
• Jules Moinaux (1815–1895), writer, playwright and librettist.
• Louisa Emily Dobrée (ca.1852–1917), writer of novels, short stories and juvenile literature
• Georges Courteline (1858–1929), dramatist and novelist
• Daniel Mendaille (1885–1963), stage and film actor
• Paul Nizan (1905–1940), novelist and philosopher
• Yves Bonnefoy (1923–2016), poet and art historian.
• Paul Guers (1927–2016), film actor
• Jean-Claude Narcy (born 1938), journalist and news anchor on TF1
• Jean Chalopin (born 1950), TV and movie producer, director and writer
• Jacques Villeret (1951–2005), actor
• Yves Ker Ambrun (born 1954), cartoonist and graphic artist; known as YKA
• Laurent Petitguillaume (born 1960), radio and television host
• Luc Delahaye (born 1962), photographer of large-scale color works about social issues
• Stéphane Audeguy (born 1964), writer, literary critic and teacher
• Laurent Mauvignier (born 1967), writer of prose and for the theatre
• Mathieu Blanc-Francard (born 1970), musician and singer-songwriter, stage name Sinclair.
• Nadia Zighem (born 1973), a R&B singer, stage name Nâdiya
• Harry Roselmack (born 1973), television presenter
• Delphine Bardin (born 1974), classical pianist
• Isabelle Geffroy (born 1980), singer who mixes jazzy styles, stage name Zaz
• Gabriel Piotrowski (born 1988), reggae singer, producer and writer, stage name Biga Ranx

• Guillaume Rouillé (c. 1518 – 1589), prominent humanist bookseller-printer
• Julien Le Roy (1686-1759), clockmaker and watchmaker.
• Nicolas Heurteloup (1750–1812), a military physician and surgeon.
• Alexandre Goüin (1792–1872), banker and politician; linked with Hôtel Goüin
• Gabriel Lamé (1795–1870), mathematician, worked on partial differential equations
• Félix Dujardin (1801–1860), biologist, researched protozoans
• Armand Trousseau (1801–1867), internist; found Trousseau sign of malignancy
• Théophile Archambault (1806–1863), psychiatrist, also taught mental pathology
• Ernest Goüin (1815–1885), civil engineer and industrialist.
• Eugène Goüin (1818–1909), banker and politician.
• Jules Haime (1824–1856), geologist, paleontologist and zoologist; researched coral.
• Émile Delahaye (1843–1905), automobile pioneer, founded Delahaye an automobile manufacturer
• Maurice Couette (1858–1943), physicist, studied of fluidity & rheology

• Mervin Glennie (1918—1986) English first-class cricketer
• Catherine Poirot (born 1963) former breaststroke swimmer, bronze medallist in the 1984 Summer Olympics
• Pascal Hervé (born 1964), a road racing cyclist.
• Xavier Gravelaine (born 1968), former footballer with 405 club caps and 4 for France
• Maamar Mamouni (born 1976) a former footballer with over 290 club caps and 29 for Algeria
• Laurent Mekies (born 1977), assistant team principal and race director for Scuderia Ferrari
• Ludovic Roy (born 1977), footballer with 234 club caps (all in Scotland)
• Frédéric Dambier (born 1977), figure skater, landed a quadruple salchow in competition.
• Luc Ducalcon (born 1984), rugby union player with over 250 club caps and 17 for France
• Josselin Ouanna (born 1986) a retired French tennis player.
• Abdou Diallo (born 1996), footballer with over 150 club caps and 22 for Senegal
• Mathieu Inthasane (born 1986), football goalkeeper

Tours is twinned with:^[28]

• 
  Jardin de la Préfecture (central park).
• 
  Giant Cedar tree.
• 
  Hôtel Goüin.
• 
  Place Plumereau.
• 
  Slate roofs of Tours.
• 
  Looking towards central Tours from the north bank of the Loire, adjacent to the Pont Mirabeau.

• Bishop of Tours
• The Turonian epoch, named for the city of Tours
• Listing of the work of Jean Antoine Injalbert, sculptor of Tours railway station
• Marcel Gaumont, sculptor of war memorial
• Arcis enclosure
• List of possessions of the abbey of Marmoutier de Tours
• Gallo-Roman enclosure of Tours
• Medieval enclosure at Tours
• 2023 Tours bombing
• Ancient bridges over the Loire in the Touraine area
• Beaujardin
• Quartier Montjoyeux
• Gallo-Roman Baths of Tours
• Gallo-Roman Temple of Tours

• Practical Tours, the comprehensive guide to living in Tours, Tours: Stéphanie Ouvrard, 2013, archived from the original on 19 February 2015, retrieved 24 May 2013

• Official website (in French)
• Official tourism information about Tours, on the Departemental Tourism Board website

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tour bus service" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A tour bus service is an escorted tour (sometimes a package holiday) or bus service that takes visitors sightseeing, with routes around tourist attractions.

It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article titled City tourist bus service. (Discuss) (January 2023)

Double-decker buses and open top buses are commonly used, for providing a good view. Large coaches are used internationally by tour operators, intercity bus lines and charters, for short and long distance destinations. These buses are larger than regular transit buses, with 2 to 4 axles (6 to 10 wheels).

The history of tour buses in North America began in the early 20th century, when trucks were converted to provide a means for sightseeing within large American cities.^[1] Gray Line, the largest sightseeing operators, began operations in 1910.^[2] Sightseeing was likely a side business for many intercity bus operators because the same types of buses were used (this remains true even today). World War II saw the industry decline, but it slowly re-emerged as an alternative to driving.^[1]

Many musicians, entertainers, dancing crews and bands travel in sleeper buses, commonly referred to as "tour buses". While most if not all of the buses and coaches listed above are for commercial applications, there are many coaches manufactured for personal use as motorhomes. These bus based motorhomes are considered the top end of the RV market.

• Padded fabric or leather front-facing seats, often reclining.
• Foot and arm rests.
• TV monitors connected to DVD player or VCR to provide entertainment or possibly analog TV or DTV for local news or programs (possibly in seats with viewer choosing what station).
• Basic lavatory – riders may be discouraged from using it except in an emergency,^{[3][failed verification]} but some newer buses feature full service lavatories^[4]
• Cool water dispenser, refrigerator, hot water urn.
• Wheelchair lift or ramp and "kneeling suspension" for easier access (especially for the elderly and infirm).
• Tinted windows (and/or curtains or blinds).
• Luggage compartment (or bins) below in the underbelly of the bus, with overhead hand-luggage racks.

• Motor Coach Industries
• Volvo Buses
  • Prevost Car
• Mercedes-Benz buses

• Brendan Sheerin
• Customised buses
• Tourist trolley
• Tour operator
• Intercity bus service
• List of buses

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