tourism
- 1The activity of traveling or sightseeing, especially in places away from one's home.
Tourism to the ancient ruins increases every spring as the weather improves.
Many families enjoy a few weeks of tourism abroad each summer.
Similarsightseeing, travel
Note
Built plainly from tour plus -ism. That suffix more often names doctrines, but here it names a practice. The word is usually uncountable: people go in for tourism, not a tourism. The plural tourisms does exist, though, for distinct kinds. Its most telling partner is mass. In mass tourism the sightseeing of crowds becomes a pressure on the places they visit, the kind that damages a beach.
- 2The industry that organizes travel, accommodation, and sightseeing for people away from home.
The country's economy relies heavily on tourism and the jobs it creates.
Investment in tourism brought new hotels, tour companies, and restaurants to the area.
- 3The act of visiting another region or country specifically to carry out a particular activity or purpose.
Medical tourism draws patients to clinics overseas where treatment costs far less.
The town became a hub for wedding tourism, hosting couples from across the region.
Note
A pattern more than a single meaning: put a noun naming the purpose in front, and the word becomes travel undertaken for that end, as in libel tourism, suicide tourism and sex tourism. Unlike ordinary sightseeing, the view hardly matters. Jurisdiction is the telling word, because these trips often happen where the rules differ from those at home. Coin new compounds on the same model.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of tourism apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
Formed from "tour" combined with the suffix "-ism".