1. Attributes of Tourism Definitions
These were ideas pooled from 6 teams working in parallel last year….. there are some
conflicts here – particularly where limits were being imposed in terms of time, distance and
purpose. Serious discussion and negotiation led the group to conclude that ‘artificial’
limitations like distance, time and purpose are unnecessary contrivances and bound to exclude
some ‘genuine’ tourists (eg a person who travels 49 and not 50 km). Their elegant solution
was to resolve that the definition should be allowed to rest with the person engaging in the
activity: if they view it as being ‘Tourism’, then it is! This is radically refreshing, but it
leaves us with two major problems:-
• A tourism supplier may view a guest / visitor / purchasor as a tourism statistic, when in
fact the individual in question does not see himself that way.
• Such a totally subjective definition could never be used for administrative purposes where
an objective standard is required.
This however, should take nothing away from the reality of the definition produced below:
Time
• More than 24 hrs / less than 1 yr /(4 months)
• Spend one night or more
• No time requirement
• Less than 24 hrs – can still be a tourist (excursionist)
Distance
• Out of ‘habitual environment’
• More than 50 km
• No distance requirement
Purpose
• Cultural
• Health
• Business
• Leisure
• NOT VFR / VFR included
• All activities with the aim of leisure in resort and to resort (NOT business)
Other Attributes
• an activity
• welcomes
A possible definition based upon the above and our subsequent discussions and resolutions
of the contradictions and conflicts could thus be:
“Tourism is an activity the purpose of which is leisure, business or VFR undertaken
away from the home irrespective of distance or time: if the individual genuinely
considers himself to be engaging in tourism, then, by definition, he is: it is his
classification of his own actions which is the determining factor. All operations and
services facilitating elements of such activity are thus considered to be within the
ambit of Tourism” (even though they may otherwise be technically classified under
headings like Hospitality, Catering, Retail, Transport etc).

2. If that is 'Tourism', then what happens
when we harness the word 'Macroeconomics' to it?
How about this...........?
Macroeconomics:
The ongoing study ... where 'study' =
• identification of key variables to be investigated at sector, national and international
levels,
• acquisition of appropriate data
• organisation & presentation of data
• data analysis & interpretation
• information evaluation
• timely transmission of such information to key stakeholders
• conclusions drawn
• recommendations made
• policy and strategy decisions taken with appropriate resources deployed
• monitoring of results
• remedial action
... of the overall behaviour of an economy or economic sector in terms of inputs
operations  outputs  outcomes
and
... of the inter-relationships and interactions between the key components and drivers
operating within the economy ....
in order to provide key stakeholders with critical information, insight, analysis and
evaluation capable of better supporting decisions of policy, strategy and operation.