An Etymology of “Tourism”

Neil Leiper
Sydney Technical College
Broadway, NSW,Australia

The year 1811 is given by the Oxford English Dictionary for the first
appearance of the word “tourism.” The root or etymology, according to that
and other dictionaries, is the Greek word for a tool used in describing a
circle. In a sense, tourism intrinsically involves a circular itinerary in that
tourists return to their point of origin, home.
There is another possibility, one that is quite intriguing. It comes from an
unsigned article in International Tourism History, a British periodical that
seems to have had a brief life a few years ago. When the present writer
returned to the library where that article had been discovered for the
purpose of making some notes, the few copies of the periodical had been
discarded, so what follows is in part from memory. Subsequent research
discovered that the basic facts set out in the article are true, but the
specifics upon which the etymology rests have not been confirmed. For
researchers who appreciate such challenges, testing the truth of what
follows might be seen as a worthwhile pursuit.
The article implies that before the 1500s. the words “tourist” and
“tourism” did not exist. “Tour” was used, certainly in its French context of
“tower”: theGreek root is obvious here, since most towers traditionally were
circular. As far as has been ascertained by this writer, travel literature in the
medieval era did not use the terms “tour, ” “tourist,” or “tourism.” Instead.
we find words such as “‘journeying,” “ travel” and its original form “tra-
vail”. . . an instrument of torture (shades of modern day jets in the over-
crowded economy section), and terms denoting particular forms of travel
such as “pilgrimage.” A recent study on pilgrimage in medieval times sees
that phenomenon as the “tourism” of the age, and refers to the “tourism

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industry” (Sumption 1975). This supports the view of the present writer
that every era develops its own form or forms of tourism, necessitating
continual evolutionary changes in the travel and tourism industry.
By the 1700s “tour” in the sense of “tourism” was established in the
language. A best-selling book of the 1720s Daniel Defoe’s A Tour Through
the Whole Island of Britain, is evidence. By that time too the term “The
Grand Tour” was well known referring to a long duration circuit of the
Continent, then part of the education of many English gentlemen and
evolving into a largely leisure-based pursuit as the obligatory learning
aspects faded. Tobias Smollet’s classic account of his sojourn through
Europe in the 1760s is titled Travels.. . but in his writing he used the word
“tour” frequently, to indicate some side trip for purposes such as sight-
seeing at some specific site or sight.
Back in 1516 the young Duke of Burgundy, later to become the Emperor
Charles V, was consolidating his power in the low countries. He made a
commercial treaty with England, then just beginning to form contracts with
the Continent. One result of the treaty was a sudden upsurge in the number
of English traveling across the Channel. According to the article noted
above, the Duke used that situation to reward some of his supporters. He
gave one family a monopoly in the profitable business of making arrange-
ments for travel and accommodation on behalf of the visiting English. The
article says that this family’s name was de la Tour (in English, “of the
tower”), a French family of ancient lineage. Soon the family firm’s new
English clients were speaking of “taking a Tour.” In time, that extended to
“tourist” and “tour-ism.”
Word evolution from a proprietary name to a generic is not uncommon.
Recent examples include “nylon, ” “Xerox,” etc. According to the article, the
Duke started another example back in 1516. when he gave another sup-
porter the monopoly in urban transportation [sedan chairs?). The monopo-
list was a family by the name of Tassis. which the article says evolved into
“taxi.” In fact, another example of this kind ofword evolution occurred in the
tourism arena.
Until about 1850, the label “tourist” was, in the main, reputable: it did not
carry the implications that are usually present in its modern usage (when
many tourists can be overheard labeling other tourists as “tourists!“).
“Tourist” was generally a respectable term for the related reasons that
there were once so few of them and they were all members of the upper
classes. Then Mr. Thomas Cook, with the help of the steam train, brought
tourism to the middle classes, large numbers of whom began upsetting the
social equilibrium in fashionable destination regions with their “invasion.”
Simultaneously, these people destroyed the elite’s feelings of aloof superi-
ority and bidded up prices on the piazza, which led to the elites coining a
label of demarcation, “Cookite” (Swinglehurst 1974). That expletive died, for
“tourist” was by then established as a generic and, moreover, it quickly
developed its pejorative sense. (It is fortunate for certain people that the
term “Cookite” disappeared, otherwise they would be seen reading journals
with titles such as Annals of Cookism Research.)

278 1983 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

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The pejorative tinge had begun through the behavior of some young
“grand tourists” in the mid- 1700s. But it might well have been this sudden
and huge shift in the social class structure of tourists in the mid- 1800s that
gave real impetus to that trend. By the second half of the 19th century any
leisurely tourist who saw himself above the hoi-polloi dropped the term
when referring to himself and his peers. An overlapping mixture of pejora-
tive implications have attached to the word in the popular vocabulary ever
since, for various reasons. With commercial sensibility, firms fnvolved in
tourism often avoid the word and use euphemisms instead, such as “travel
agency, ” “visitor information,” “ hospitality industry,” etc. Yet most of the
clients of travel agencies are counted as “tourists” in official statistics when
they travel abroad, and are labeled as “tourists” by the residents of the host
regions. Fussell’s (19801 pedantry on the distinctions between “tourist” and
“traveler” shows just how sensitive some people are on the matter today. In
some writings this inability to get free of the popular inferences attached to
“tourist” produces all kinds of verbal gymnastics which usually suggest an
elitist attitude interfering with mental processes.
The de la Tour hypothesis is ironical. Deriving from the family’s historic
residence, a circular tower, the name later attached to another circular phe-
nomenon, the family’s 16th century customers who made round trips. If the
hypothesis is true, the coincidence is accidental. Another coincidence is that
the style of tourism provided by the de la Tour firm was similar to that
suggested by the popular meanings of the word today: prearranged. pack-
aged by some commercial party. For most of the intervening years that
connotation was absent.
Besides its popular meanings, “tourism” these days means different things
to different people. Many business groups. and their acolytes in government,
say that “tourism is an industry,” a phrase that is acquiring the nature of
religious dogma at industry conventions and one that many academics seem
content to follow. Other researchers, educators, and commentators either
follow the popular meanings and implications or seize on some narrow
perspective. Some academics have tried to advance the serious study of
tourism by developing comprehensive but precise definitions.
There remains a suspicion about the de la Tourhypothesis in this writer’s
opinion. It seems far fetched, and indicates an oversight by the dictionaries.
Was the author of that obscure article hoaxing? Was “tour” used in the
“tourism” sense before the 15OOs? Remembering that many English spoke
French in that era, did the word stem from “tower” (tour) through the custom
of ascending towers and leisurely looking out over the countryside, that is,
sightseeing? Did the arrival of the de la Tour business merely add another
dimension? It would be interesting to learn the truth of the matter. 0 0

REFERENCES

Defoe, Daniel
1971 A Tour Through the Whole Island of Britain (first published in 1724). Har-
mondsworth: Penguin.

1983 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 279

 REPORTS AND RESEARCH NOTES

FusselI, Paul
1980 Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars. Oxford University Press.
Smollet, Tobias
1979 Travels in France and Italy (first published 1766). London: Folio.
Sumption. Jonathon
1975 Pilgrimage. London: Faber and Faber.
Swinglehurst, Edmund
1974 The Romantic Journey: Thomas Cook and Victorian Travel. New York: Harper
& Row.

TAP: A New Consulting Resource in Tourism

Walter Gross
Carol L. Kefalas
Unjversity of Georgia. USA

The Tourism Advisory Panel (TAP), a new source of management and

marketing expertise for small business persons in the tourism industry, is
now in the final planning stages. TAP is a nonprofit organization with
headquarters in The University of Georgia’s Small Business Development
Center (SBDC) in Athens, Georgia.
The Office develops monthly reports on the generation of sales and tax
revenues from travel and tourism from the state, collects county data on the
number of tourism firms and sales for certain tourism sectors in Georgia,
and records the volume of visitations of various Georgia attractions. These
findings are summarized quarterly in the magazine Georgia Business and
Economic Conditions which is published by the University of Georgia’s
Division of Research.
The Office of Leisure Time Studies and Tourism also produces semi-
annual economic forecasts based on five-year moving averages. In addition,
special studies, such as “Characteristics ofvisitors at the Welcome Centers”
and “The Impact of Rising Gasoline Costs on Travel in the State.” frequently
appear under the auspices of the office.
The concept of TAP is to match firms interested in acquiring professional
academic expertise in tourism with marketing and management professors
in a rather unique way. Interested scholars who havelisted their capabilities
and areas of expertise with TAP will be brought in for on-site consultation at
the travel trade companies’ conventions, which are usually held at resort
locations. This gives them access to “real world” problems and to companies
which could ultimately offer them long-term consulting positions.
From the standpoint of the sponsoring firms, the conference setting will
provide executives with an ideal opportunity to interact with and “pick the
minds” of outside specialists. The firms will be able to offer this valuable
service at relatively little extra expense, since the major components of
convention costs are fixed. In addition. the presence of recognized and

280 1983 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH