Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure, or business purposes, usually of a limited duration.

Tourism is commonly associated with trans-national travel, but may also refer to travel to another location within the same country. The World Tourism Organization defines touristsas people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes". [ ! Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity. Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country"s balance of payments. Today, tourism is ma#or source of income for many countries, and affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases it is of vital importance. Tourism suffered as a result of a strong economic slowdown of the late-$%%%s recession, between the second half of $%%& and the end of $%%', and the outbrea( of the ) * influenza virus.[$![+! ,t then slowly recovered, with international tourist arrivals surpassed the milestone billion tourists globally for first time in history in $% $. [-! ,nternational tourism receipts .the travel item of the balance of payments/ grew to 012 .%+ trillion .34-% billion/ in $% , corresponding to an increase in real terms of +.&5 from $% %.[6! ,n $% $, 7hina became the largest spender in international tourism globally with 012 %$ billion, surpassing 8ermany and 0nited 1tates. 7hina and emerging mar(ets significantly increase their spending over the past decade, with 9ussia and :razil as noteworthy William ;.Theobald . ''-/ suggested that "etymologically, the word tour is derived from the <atin, "tornare" and the 8ree(, "tornos", meaning "a lathe or circle= the movement around a central point or a>is". This meaning changed in modern ?nglish to represent "one"s turn". The suffi> ism is defined as "an action or process= typical behaviour or @uality", while the suffi>, ist denotes "one that performs a given action". When the word tour and the suffi>es ism and ist are combined, they suggest the action of movement around a circle. One can argue that a circle represents a starting point, which ultimately returns bac( to its beginning. Therefore, li(e a circle, a tour represents a #ourney in that it is a round-trip, i.e., the act of leaving and then returning to the original starting point, and therefore, one who ta(es such a #ourney can be called a tourist." ['! Today, three schools discuss on the roots of tourism. The ;rench 1chool, led by A. )oulot argued that the term tourism comes from the old Aramaic Tur, which was used for the trip, e>ploration and movement of people in the :ible. This word had been used, for the first time, when Boses begins his e>pedition to the lands of 7anaCn.[ %! *evertheless, another school of thought - the Onomastic 1chool - considers the origin of the concept not from a linguistic perspective but rather lin(s it to the last name of the ;rench aristocracy Della Tour. According to this school, after 7arlos E signs a treaty with ?ngland in 6 F, in celebration of this event, the future (ing gives the Della Tour family e>clusive rights to conduct commercial transport and related businesses. [ ! <ast but not least, a third school focuses on the Anglo-1a>on world, situating the TheobaldGs development under the lens of scrutiny. 1urmising that the roots of the word tourism comes from the Ancient Anglo-1a>on term Torn, these scholars found evidence to thin( the term was coined in H,,th century which by farmers to denote those travels with intentions to return. Over centuries, the meaning of the word has been shifted to be politically adopted. :y the middle of the &th century, the ?nglish noblemen used the term IturnJ to refer to the trips underta(en for education, search and culture e>ploration. ,n reality, the purpose of the noblemenKs trip to the different parts of Lingdom was to ac@uire (nowledge that was later useful for governing. [ $!

,n support to <eiperGs account, B. Lorstan#e provided evidence that shows the 8rand-tour was enrooted in the ancient *orse Bythology. ;ollowing the e>amination of legends and te>ts, this research focuses on the fact that OdinMWotan represents the archetype of a travelling-god who e>plored the world to get e>perience and (nowledge. *orse-related te>ts are indeed uni@ue in this sense. Although the touristic-drive seems to be inherent to almost all cultures and times, Lorstan#e e>plains that only by the influence of *orse Bythology, the 8rand-tour was accepted as a common-practice in ?ngland and ?urope later