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O-Level Tourism Activity (Topic 2.1)
the tourism system, its growth, destination life cycles and tourist types
What the syllabus expects
- The tourism system's main components are tourist generating regions, tourist destination regions and transit routes, with those routes shaping the volume and direction of travel between regions.
Scope: What a tourism system is - Push factors operate at generating regions and pull factors at destination regions, while tourists, businesses and organisations across both are interdependent.
Scope: What a tourism system is - Tourism interacts with nature, communities and economies both locally and further afield, so a change to one part of the system alters the local and wider environment, and the reverse also holds.
Scope: What a tourism system is - People are motivated to travel by a desire for relaxation, self-fulfilment and distinctive experiences, made possible as their incomes grow.
Scope: What drove the growth of tourism - The ability to travel expanded through rising disposable income and more leisure time from paid vacation, aided by business innovations and cheaper transport and accommodation.
Scope: What drove the growth of tourism - Mobility improved with wider public transport networks and new air, land and sea options, and with greater private car ownership easing travel to nearby places.
Scope: What drove the growth of tourism - In the exploration and involvement stages, a few tourists make individual, irregular trips to a destination's primary attractions, and locals begin offering services, advertising and asking for more public amenities.
Scope: How destination regions evolve over time - In the development and consolidation stages, tourist numbers rise with more man-made attractions, advertising and foreign labour, then growth slows as tourists come to outnumber locals in a tourism-dependent economy.
Scope: How destination regions evolve over time - In the stagnation and decline or rejuvenation stages, numbers peak once carrying capacity is met with negative effects, then fall as appeal is lost or are revived through new cultural or man-made attractions.
Scope: How destination regions evolve over time - Tourist personalities span a spectrum with Dependables and Venturers at either extreme in small numbers, and most travellers sitting in the middle blending both.
Scope: How tourists' personality types shape destination regions - Dependables spend carefully, look to authoritative figures, favour routine and the company of friends and family, whereas Venturers spend freely, trust their own judgement and prefer novel activities and solitude.
Scope: How tourists' personality types shape destination regions - Personality shapes travel patterns: different kinds of destinations attract different personality types, and more Venturer-like tourists sway the travel choices of more Dependable ones.
Scope: How tourists' personality types shape destination regions
How it's examined
Questions on this topic most often ask you to explain. About 5% of the past-paper style questions in Rae's bank for this subject sit in this topic.
Worked examples
Example 1 (3 marks)
Cluster 2: Tourism With the aid of an example, explain how a greater ability to travel has driven the growth of tourism.
Show the worked answer
Advances in transport have made travel cheaper, faster and more accessible, which drives tourism growth. For example, the rise of low-cost/budget airlines (e.g. AirAsia in Southeast Asia) has cut the price and travel time of flights between cities. Because more people can now afford to fly and can reach distant destinations quickly, the pool of potential tourists grows and tourist numbers rise.
More O-Level Geography topics
Thinking Geographically (Topic 1.1) · Sustainable Development (Topic 1.2) · Geographical Methods (Topic 1.3) · Tourism Development (Topic 2.2) · Sustainable Tourism Development (Topic 2.3) · Weather and Climate (Topic 3.1) · all of O-Level Geography