tourism

Language: en

🇬🇧 /ˈtʊəˌrɪzəm/ 🇺🇸 /ˈtʊˌrɪzəm/

📖 Definitions

  1. noun
    The activity of traveling to and visiting places for pleasure, recreation, or cultural enrichment, typically involving staying away from home for at least one night.; The business or industry of providing services such as transportation, accommodation, and entertainment for people who are traveling for leisure.; The practice of traveling to a place primarily for the purpose of experiencing or observing something specific, often used in compound forms such as 'dark tourism,' 'medical tourism,' or 'eco-tourism.'; The collective body of tourists or the phenomenon of large numbers of people visiting a particular destination, sometimes with a negative connotation implying overcrowding or superficial engagement.

🔗 Details

Word forms

uncountable

Collocations

tourism industrymass tourismsustainable tourismtourism sectortourism revenueeco-tourismmedical tourism

Derivatives

touristtouristytouristiceco-tourismagritourismgeotourism

Synonyms

travelsightseeingtouringglobetrotting

Commonly confused

tourist
EN: 'tourist' is a person who travels for pleasure; 'tourism' is the activity or industry as a whole.
travel
EN: 'travel' is a broader term for moving between places (any purpose); 'tourism' specifically refers to leisure or recreational travel and its industry.

Spelling tips

EN: No common spelling issues. Note that 'tourism' is always uncountable—never use 'a tourism' or 'tourisms'.

💬 Examples

  1. Tourism is the main source of income for many island nations in the Caribbean.

  2. The city has invested heavily in tourism infrastructure to attract more international visitors.

  3. Dark tourism involves visiting sites associated with death, tragedy, or disaster, such as former battlefields or concentration camps.

  4. Residents of Venice have complained that mass tourism is destroying the character of their city.