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INTRODUCTION

Tourism can be considered as one of the most remarkable socio-economic phenominas of the 20th Century. Today tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world and is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. It now reaches an ever increasing number of people throughout the world and can be considered a vital dimension of global integration. From an activity “enjoyed by only a small group of relatively well-off people” during the first half of the last century, it gradually became a mass phenomenon during the post-World War II period, particularly from the 1970s onwards.
Tourism is the most powerful instrument for the socio-economic development, especially of the less developed and developing countries. It is also the most promising driving force for regions endowed with areas of natural beauty—because it offers opportunity for economic diversification through its job and income promoting potential.
The tourism industry encompasses a large number of different travel-related activities, including, inter alia, hospitality enterprises, souvenir and craft businesses, travel agencies, transport enterprises, tour operators and tourist guides. The demand for new forms of tourism is growing in many countries and presents new challenges for the tourism industry, national Governments and the international community.
Achieving a nation's quality of life through tourism is a sobering challenge. This intellectual transformation will never happen by itself. It will come to pass only as an integral part of a regimented policy and planning process for the development of tourism, driven by a universal understanding of the global tourism concerns.