Travel and tourism – Demand

Business travel and tourism demand is influenced by a broad range of factors found in both the generating region and the destination. These factors tend to focus on the forces that will influence demand between a specific generating region and a particular destination. They also give an indication of the factors that will influence demand overall in any particular generating region. However, this is a highly generalized picture and specific factors will influence the demand for particular forms of business tourism such as incentive travel and training courses. Let us now look at how the market can be subdivided and segmented.

Travel and tourism – History

Business travel and tourism is certainly not a new phenomenon. People have been travelling because of their work for many centuries. However, some forms of business tourism, such as incentive travel, are modern inventions.

Business travel and tourism originated with trade between communities. Once agriculture developed beyond the subsistence level in areas of Africa, Asia and Europe, thousands of years before Christ was born, communities began to trade agricultural products. This led to the growth of markets, and producers travelled sometimes hundreds of kilometres to take their produce to market. Then urban settlements began to grow and develop. These were home to artisans producing a range of products including clothes, tools and decorative arts. These were traded with the surrounding countryside for foodstuffs. However, they were also marketed further afield, particularly if they were of high quality or were made of materials not available in other countries. Archaeological evidence shows us that this trading often took goods thousands of kilometres from where they were made. The earliest business travellers were, therefore, artisans and small-scale traders.