Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism, Sociology, Social Sciences - Other Topics, usual environment, spaces, places, satellite accounting, 1504 Commercial Services, 1505 Marketing, 1506 Tourism, Sport, Leisure & Tourism, 3506 Marketing, 3508 Tourism, 4406 Human geography

Abstract:

The ‘usual environment’ is a central concept in the UNWTO’s definition of tourism. Many countries apply rule-of-thumb distance measures to delineate its boundaries, which is rather problematic, because theoretically, the ‘usual environment’ consists of a selection of places, rather than one space with come concentric boundary. The concept becomes even more arduous in highly urbanized countries, as threshold distance values are hard to determine. Therefore, this paper will report on a exploratory analysis using various data sources. It leads to a more informed choice of spatial demarcation, although it is still inadequate in the light of theoretical considerations. Nevertheless, the approach should be of interest to those working in tourism and tourism statistics in particular. Keywords: usual environment, spaces, places, satellite accounting.