Introduction to tourism.

Since the beginning of time humans have traveled. Food, water, safety or acquisition of resources (trade) were the early travel motivations. But the idea of travel for pleasure or exploration soon emerged. Travel has always depended upon technology to provide the means or mode of travel. The earliest travelers walked or rode domesticated animals. The invention of the wheel and the sail provided new modes of transportation. Each improvement in technology increased individuals' opportunities to travel. As roads were improved and governments stabilized, interest in travel increased for education, sightseeing, and religious purposes. One of the earliest travel guides was written by Pausanias, a Greek, which was a 10 volume Guide to Greece, for Roman tourists in 170 A.D..

Tourism is a collection of activities, services and industries that delivers a travel experience, including transportation, accommodations, eating and drinking establishments, retail shops, entertainment businesses, activity facilities and other hospitality services provided for individuals or groups traveling away from home. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) claims that tourism is currently the worlds largest industry with annual revenues of over $3 trillion dollars. Tourism provides over six million jobs in the United States, making it the country's largest employer.

Definition of Tourism

Mathieson and Wall (1982) created a good working definition of tourism as "the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal places of work and residence, the activities undertaken during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their needs."

According to Macintosh and Goeldner (1986) tourism is "the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interaction of tourists, business suppliers, host governments and host communities in the process of attracting and hosting these tourists and other visitors."

Other terms of interest are:

Excurionist: Persons traveling for pleasure in a period less than 24 hours (Macintosh and Goeldner, 1986).

Foreign Tourist: Any person visiting a country, other than that in which he/she usually resides, for a period of at least 24 hours (Committee of Statistical Experts of the League of Nations, 1937).

Travel: The act of moving outside one's home community for business or pleasure but not for commuting or traveling to or from school (Macintosh and Goeldner, 1986).

Visitor: Any person visiting a country other than that in which he/she has his/her usual place of residence, for any reason other than following an occupation remunerated from within the country visited (United Nations Conference on International Travel and Tourism, 1963).

Different Types Of Tourism

1. Water tourism

Rivers, There is no better way to get to know nature of the Okrug than to travel along water arteries of the Chukotka inner territory, which is very rich in rivers. Doing down the rivers on canoes or rubber boats is possible only during high water season (July-August) - during the rest of the year the rivers are either frozen or shallow and therefore impassable.

2. Hunting and fishing

About 40 species of fish inhabit fresh-water basins of the Chukotka Peninsular, half of these fishes are suitable for commercial fishery. These are first of all salmon fishes: Siberian salmon, red salmon, humpback salmon, silver salmon and quinnat salmon. Siberian salmon from the Anadyr estuary rivers and red salmon from the Mainypylgin Lake and river system are main fishes of salmon fishery.The Chukotka Okrug has got large fresh-water fish resources, especially it is rich in whitefishes: broad whitefish, vendace, round whitefish, peled (in the Kolyma River basin). Apart from whitefish, marketable are grayling, rainbow herring, pike, burbot, bull-trout and loach.Every year in April on the ice of the Anadyr estuary ice-fishing competition takes place, it is called the “Korfest” - “Smelt Festival” (last Sunday in April)

3. Scientific tourism

The Chukotka Peninsular is often visited by scientists, both Russian and foreign, working in different spheres of science. The Okrug is a popular place for research expeditions and conferences devoted to issues of constant and stable development of the territory.Reindeer-breeders’ camps in the Schmidt and Yioultin Districts where traditional way of life is preserved and coastal settlements of sea-hunters always attract ethnographers and linguists studying people of the Extreme North.Most of more than 500 archeological sights of the Okrug are still very little studied.Ornithologists often come to Chukotka, as more than 220 bird species live here. Routine research work is performed by ichthyologist and other researchers of biological resources of the sea.

4. Extreme tourism

The Chukotka Peninsular is mainly a mountainous area with low and medium mountain relief. So in summer it suits for hitchhiking and bicycle mountaineering of different degrees of complexity. In winter on its bold peak slopes Alpine-skiing and snowboarding tracks can be routed.Severe climate conditions, landscape variety and detachment from civilization are perfect requisites for such kinds of tourism