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An Overview of the Tourism World

Our study of the relationship between tourism practices and places in the world is based on an analysis of statistics produced by States and the World Tourism Organization, according to modalities to which we will return. Within all forms of mobility, travel, of which tourism is a self-rebuilding1 modality, is distinct from migration, in the sense that individuals' plans fit within a short-term, limited time frame, with a predetermined return date. Beyond that, of course, tactics are used by individuals to circumvent regulations that attempt to curb or control migration. Furthermore, the pretext of tourism can make it easier to overcome these barriers. However, it is on this fundamental distinction between tolerated and less tolerated border crossings that the definition claimed by the World Tourism Organization [STO 17] is based. The challenge of this first part is to expose and understand the world tourist space and its recent evolution.

To this end, we use the statistics compiled by the World Tourism Organization. This institution, founded in 1953 and based in Madrid, has become a specialized agency of the United Nations. In this field, it is a globalization actor since it produces standards and values, such as "sustainable tourism", tries to set political objectives, such as tourism and the fight against poverty, and develops analytical tools, such as statistics or the tourism satellite account (TSA)2.

After a critical analysis of the data that allow us to produce an image of mobility that is wrongly described as touristic, we will show the hierarchical space that is emerging. Finally, we will discuss the major dynamic under way, namely the setting in motion of all the world's societies. Exponential growth in the number of travelers crossing a border has been observed since the end of the Second World War.

1.1. Presentation of data and criticisms

The analysis of "international tourism", as it is known, is based on statistical data produced by States and collected and disseminated by the World Tourism Organization, which is itself one of the indicators of the globalization of the phenomenon. With the rapid assimilation of disparate mobility to a social practice, tourism is questionable. Even if it is not possible, in the current state of the issue, to do without these data, the identification of their limitations is a prerequisite for any analysis.

1.1.1. Development of statistics

The World Tourism Organization is now a specialized agency of the United Nations and, as such and in this field, it appears to be a major player in globalization. Indeed, the UNWTO contributes to constructing the World. It develops measurement tools - of which we will make use - such as the travel count, which includes border crossings, or the TSA, a technique that measures the economic effects of "tourism". The UNWTO is not limited to this simple book keeping role; it functions as a forum and also sets standards and values that form the backbone of a global tourism policy.

The UNWTO has two publications that bring together statistics on "tourism" in the World: the Yearbook and Compendium. The first informs us of the origins of travelers, for each country of destination, according to the States of the world. Groupings are carried out differently, depending on the destination, when the number of people concerned is small. The second offers, still by State, a very large amount of data on economic flows and repercussions. Most importantly, this book also provides the number of travelers departing from each country, however the data are incomplete for many States. Publications are released 2 years after the year of data measurement.

1.1.2. Limitations induced by these sources

1.1.2.1. Too general a definition

The criticism of the sources of so-called international tourism is, in a quite justified way, a theme often addressed [CAZ 98, VIO 00, DEH 08]. However, we believe that an overview is necessary because of the lack of scientific consensus on the definition of tourism, the persistence of dregs in the analyses, and because the data produced influence the perception of the object studied, which is hastily qualified as "international tourism".

In the yearbook published by UNTWO, it is in fact travel that is recorded - in the sense that the same person who makes several trips in a year will be counted for each trip - and is defined as travel including departure and return to a so-called country of residence, or sometimes to an issuing country. This poses a semantic problem, suggesting that the tourist is forced, projected, with little to no involvement. As a result, the global departure rate is not the ratio between the number of trips and the world population. The calculation must take into account, in the numerator, this number divided by the average number of trips per person including border crossings. Moreover, the number of people who have left a country of residence is not equivalent to the total number of people welcomed to the destination countries, as Jean-Michel Dewailly and Émile Flament [DEW 93] have already noted. This is because, during the same trip, a person who visits3 several States will be counted as a unit at each border crossing.

Second, and as mentioned in the introduction, the definition that the UNWTO has been working to disseminate includes different forms of mobility. And this option leads us to use the word "traveler" rather than "tourist" when referring to the flows counted by the UNWTO, or to use the word "tourism" in quotation marks, whenever we use it in the sense given by this institution. The question of the definition of tourism or tourists was not a scientific issue until the late 1990s, but was raised by the MIT team [MIT 02]. For us, in fact, the UNWTO proposal is too broad to justify the use of the word "tourism" as a scientific concept. According to this institution, a "tourist" is a person who travels outside his or her main residence for a period of between one night and 1 year, regardless of the reason for travel. Moreover, these publications do not distinguish individuals according to the reasons given in the definition used by the institution. One piece of data was published by the UNWTO, on a global scale, which indicates a breakdown into three categories for 2012: "leisure and holidays", to use the terminology used by the institution, would show 52% were trips, visits to relatives and friends, 27% and professional purposes, 17%. Intention is not specified for the remaining 7%.

Our analysis [MIT 02, KNA 03, DUH 13a, DUH 13b] has modified the approach by questioning the moving individual's intention and, by giving to the question of changing location, content that is neither objective distance data, a variable capital endowments disqualify, nor a simple form of data today in the sense that the social diffusion of a polytopic habitat [STO 06] makes the approach complex. For us, the tourist is an individual who moves to rebuild herself or himself by implementing practices of rest, discovery, play and sociability. Tourism is also distinguished from other forms of mobility by the increased flexibility individuals have in choosing the destination and the practices they deploy there. We consciously use the expression flexibility rather than freedom in order to emphasize that we do not ignore that abilities influence choices, particularly through the habitus, i.e. the different processes of socialization - notably family education - at the origin of the distinction [BOU 79]. On the contrary, business travel involves the company exercising control over the individual, in the choice of locations, in terms of schedule and in organization, with the counterpart that the company takes full responsibility for the travel. Contrary to the statement made by Jean-Michel Dewailly and Émile Flament [DEW 00], incentive travel is indeed a management technique and is the responsibility of companies. Beyond that, the possibilities of temporarily escaping from the fixed framework, either as leisure activities, the end of the day, or as opportunities that individuals know how to seize, do not fundamentally change the nature of the movement, which is indeed a hierarchical decision. As much as these times can be qualified as tourist moments, since the individual finds some flexibility in a space outside daily life, they do not fundamentally call into question the more constrained nature of these business trips. School trips, even if they open up much more exciting prospects than confinement to the classroom, nevertheless imply that they are part of an intertwining of rules that are as justified from the point of view of the institution as they are more or less demanding. Pilgrimages are also part of a slightly more constrained system. Rituals must be observed. The places are part of a prescribed program within the framework of the religion concerned4.

In all forms of mobility, the individual can break away from the rules and use the opportunities offered by tourism to engage in a wide range of strategies. This is the case for migrants who use customs facilities related to tourism. For their part, the authorities are stepping up procedures to discourage them and force people to return to the country of departure. However, at individual level, it is the observation of practices that makes it possible to distinguish between what tourism is and...