Travel and Tourism

Travel and tourism, once activities that were open only to the elite, have become increasingly accessible to many more people. As a result, tourism is now an important economic activity worldwide. In this chapter, we discuss the conceptual issues in defining and measuring travel and tourism, efforts to econometrically estimate the demand for travel, and the possible links between tourism and economic growth. We also describe the rise and decline of seaside resorts in England and the cliometric history of tourism in the United States, particularly emphasizing the historical forces that shaped tourism in Hawaii. And while economic historians have largely neglected the topic, we identify issues on which the tools of cliometrics might be brought to bear.