Page 22 - Tourism The International Business

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If the person stayed for less than 24 hours, he or she would be an "excursionist". If the person stayed longer, he
or she would be a tourist. Under this definition a tourist would be someone who traveled for business or for
pleasure as long as the individual did not receive money from the country visited.

In 1968, the United Nations Statistical Commission accepted this definition but recommended that member-
nations decide for themselves whether to use the term "excursionist" or "day visitor". The important point was to
distinguish between visitors who did or did not stay overnight.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. In 1978, the Department of Economic and
Social Affairs of the United Nations published guidelines that included a definition of the term "international
visitor". The agency recognized that international visitors were those who visited a given country from abroad (what
we might call inbound tourists) and those who went abroad on visits from a given country (outbound tourists). It

indicated that the maximum period a person could spend in a country and still be called a visitor would be one year.
Most countries at the national level accept the United Nations' definition of visitors.

Exhibit 9: Classification of Travelers. (Source: Robert Christie Mill and Alastair M. Morrison, The Tourism

System: An Introductory Text, [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985], p. 100.

The classification of travelers adopted by the World Tourism Organization is shown in Exhibit 9. Briefly, an
international tourist is someone who spends at least one night, but no more than one year, in a country other than
his or her own. The tourist can be there for a variety of reasons but not for pay from the country being visited. A
person who meets the above criteria but who does not stay overnight is called an excursionist.
Domestic tourist

World tourism organization. The World Tourism Organization has also proposed a definition for "domestic
tourist" that is based on length of stay:

Tourism the International Business 22 A Global Text