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History of Travel & Tourism

Travel for trade was a crucial feature since the beginning of civilisation. The port at Lothal was an essential centre of trade between your Indus valley civilisation plus the Sumerian civilisation.

600 BC and thereafter

The earliest way of leisure tourism may be traced way back to the Babylonian and Egyptian empires. A museum of historic antiquities was accessible to the public in Babylon. The Egyptians held many religious festivals that attracted the devout and lots of people who thronged to cities to determine famous works of arts and buildings.

In India, as elsewhere, kings travelled for empire building. The Brahmins plus the common people travelled for religious purposes. Thousands of Brahmins along with the common folk thronged Sarnath and Sravasti to get greeted with the inscrutable smile with the Enlightened One- the Buddha.

500 BC, the Greek civilisation

The Greek tourists travelled to sites of healing gods. The Greeks also enjoyed their religious festivals that increasingly became a quest for pleasure, particularly, sport. Athens had become an essential site for travellers coming to the major sights such as Parthenon. Inns were established in large towns and seaports to provide for travellers’ needs. Courtesans were the primary entertainment offered.

This era also saw the birth of travel writing. Herodotus was the worlds’ first travel writer. Guidebooks also made their look in the fourth century covering destinations for instance Athens, Sparta and Troy. Advertisements inside the way of signs directing website visitors to inns will also be known with this period.

The Roman Empire

With no foreign borders between England and Syria, with safe seas from piracy on account of Roman patrols, the stipulations favouring travel had arrived. First class roads along with staging inns (precursors of recent motels) promoted the increase of travel. Romans travelled to Sicily, Greece, Rhodes, Troy and Egypt. From 300 AD happen to be the Holy Land also became very well liked. The Romans introduced their guidebooks (itineraria), listing hotels with symbols to spot quality.

Second homes were built with the rich near Rome, occupied primarily during springtime social season. The most fashionable resorts were found around Bay of Naples. Naples attracted the retired and also the intellectuals, Cumae attracted the trendy while Baiae attracted the down market tourist, becoming renowned for its rowdiness, drunkenness and all- night singing.

Travel and Tourism were to never attain a comparable status before modern times.

In the Middle Ages

Travel became difficult and dangerous as people travelled for business or a sense of obligation and duty.

Adventurers sought fame and fortune through travel. The Europeans attempted to discover a sea method to India for trade purposes and within this fashion discovered America and explored areas of Africa. Strolling players and minstrels made their living by performing because they travelled. Missionaries, saints, etc. travelled to spread the sacred word.

Leisure travel in India was introduced from the Mughals. The Mughal kings built luxurious palaces and enchanting gardens at places of natural and scenic beauty (as an example Jehangir travelled to Kashmir drawn by its beauty.

Travel for empire building and pilgrimage would be a regular feature.

The Grand Tour

From early seventeenth century, a new type of tourism was created as a direct outcome in the Renaissance. Under the reign of Elizabeth 1, teenagers seeking positions at court were encouraged to visit continent to end their education. Later, it became customary for education of gentleman to become completed by a ‘Grand Tour’ with a tutor and lasting for three or more years. While ostensibly educational, the pleasure seeking men travelled to relish life and culture of Paris, Venice or Florence. By the end of eighteenth century, the custom had become institutionalised inside the gentry. Gradually pleasure travel displaced educational travel. The advent of Napoleonic wars inhibited travel for approximately 30 years and ended in the decline on the custom from the Grand Tour.

The development on the spas

The spas grew in popularity from the seventeenth century in Britain along with a little later from the European Continent as awareness in regards to the therapeutic qualities of standard water increased. Taking the cure within the spa rapidly acquired the type of a status symbol. The resorts changed in character as pleasure had become the motivation of visits. They became an essential centre of social interaction for the high society.

In the nineteenth century we were holding gradually replaced with the seaside resort.

The sun, sand and sea resorts

The sea water became linked to health benefits. The earliest visitors therefore drank it and wouldn’t bathe inside. By their early eighteenth century, small fishing resorts sprouted in England for visitors who drank and immersed themselves in sea water. With the overcrowding of inland spas, the newest sea side resorts grew in popularity. The introduction of steamboat services in nineteenth century introduced more resorts from the circuit. The seaside resort gradually became a social meeting point

Role in the industrial revolution to promote travel inside west

The rapid urbanisation because of industrialisation ended in mass immigration in cities. These people were lured into visit escape their environment to places of organic beauty, often towards the countryside that they had come from change of routine from your physically and psychologically stressful jobs with a leisurely pace in countryside.

Highlights of travel within the nineteenth century

· Advent of railway initially catalysed business travel and later on leisure travel. Gradually special trains were chartered to merely take leisure visit their destinations.

· Package tours organised by entrepreneurs for example Thomas Cook.

· The European countries indulged in a number of business travel often thus to their colonies to obtain raw material then sell finished goods.

· The invention of photography acted being a status-enhancing tool and promoted overseas travel.

· The formation of first hotel chains; pioneered because of the railway companies who established great railway terminus hotels.

· Seaside resorts developed different images concerning day-trippers, elite, for gambling.

· Other varieties of destinations-ski resorts, hill stations, mountaineering spots etc.

· The technological rise in steamships promoted travel between North America and Europe.

· The Suez Canal opened direct sea routes to India along with the Far East.

· The cult in the guidebook followed the growth and development of photography.

Tourism inside Twentieth Century

The First World War gave quality experience of countries and aroused a sense curiosity about international travel among less rich sector for your first time. The large scale of migration for the US meant many travel throughout the Atlantic. Private motoring started encourage domestic travel in Europe along with the west. The sea side resort became annual family holiday destination in Britain and increased in popularity in other countries from the west. Hotels proliferated of these destinations.

The birth of flights and after

The wars increased desire for international travel. This interest was presented the shape of mass tourism through the aviation industry. The surplus of aircraft and expansion of private airlines aided the increase of airline travel. The aircraft had become comfortable, faster and steadily cheaper for overseas travel. With the introduction of Boeing 707 jet in 1958, age of air travel for your masses had arrived. The beginning of chartered flights boosted the package tour market and triggered the establishment of organised mass tourism. The Boeing 747, a 400 seat craft, brought the price tag on travel down sharply. The seaside resorts inside the Mediterranean, North Africa plus the Caribbean were the original hot spots of mass tourism.

A corresponding increase in hotel industry generated the establishment of world-wide chains. Tourism also started diversify as people did start to flock alternative destinations inside 70s. Nepal and India received a throng of tourists lured by Hare Krishna movement and transcendental meditation. The beginning of individual travel in the significant volume only occurred from the 80s. Air travel also ended in a continuous boost in business travel especially with the emergence in the MNCs.

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