Tourism plays an important role in many countries’ gross domestic products, creation of additional workplaces and employment of the population, activation of foreign-trade balance. Tourism is also one of the factors that influence such key industries as transport and communications, construction, agriculture, production of consumer goods and many others as it acts as a certain catalyst for economic development. On the other hand the development of tourism is influenced by demographic, natural, geographic, socio-economic, historical, religious, political and legal factors.
The importance of tourism as a source of currency earnings, widening of international contacts, and means of employment of the population is constantly growing.
According to the World Tourism Organization, the number of incoming tourists in 2000 was more than 698 million people, and the amount of earnings from tourism was 478 US dollars. As tourism experts say, the number of trips in 2010 may reach 1 billion of tourist arrivals with 546 million of them in Central and Eastern Europe, including post-soviet and Baltic countries where the pace of development of tourism will be much faster in comparison with the European region in general.
In spite of the general recession of the global economy for the last two years the number of tourist arrivals continues to grow globally, although this growth was somewhat slower than before the beginning of the economic crisis.
Today tourism is a widely expanded sector of many countries’ economies which has split into various types and subtypes in accordance with travelers’ preferences and desires. People distinguish local tourism (domestic or inbound tourism), national tourism, international tourism, as well as business tourism, adventure tourism, ecological tourism, extreme tourism, golf tourism, social tourism and many other types.
Due to the uneven distribution of recreational resources around the globe, the majority of tourists chose to go on recreational tours in order to improve their health. These goals have become the basis of development of recreational tourism.
