Travel is the transport of people on a trip/journey or the process or time involved in a person or object moving from one location to another.

Tourism is travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes, and also refers to the provision of services in support of this act. According to the World Tourism Organization, tourists are people who “travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited”.

Tourism has become an extremely popular, global activity. In 2004, there were over 763 million international tourist arrivals.

As a service industry, tourism has numerous tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other components of a hospitality industry. Major intangible elements relate to the purpose or motivation for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, the opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure.

Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Modern traders instead generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money (and later credit, paper money and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade. Trade between two traders is called bilateral trade, while trade between more than two traders is called multilateral trade.

Commuting is the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work. Students who are enrolled at a college or university but who live off-campus are also typically referred to as commuters.

Commuting is largely a phenomenon which exists in industrialised societies, where access to modern modes of travel such as automobile, trains, buses and bicycles has enabled people to live far from their workplace. Prior to the 19th century most people lived at or within walking distance of their workplace. Modern commuting usually refers to people travelling to workplaces which are beyond their own towns, cities and villages.

The advent of modern commuting has had a large impact on life. It has allowed cities to expand to sizes which were previously not practical, and it has led to the proliferation of the suburbs.

Human migration denotes any movement by humans from one locality to another (migration), often over long distances or in large groups. Humans are known to have migrated extensively throughout history and prehistory.

Migration and population isolation is one of the four evolutionary forces (along with natural selection, genetic drift, and mutation). The study of the distribution of and change in allele (gene variations) frequencies under such influences is the discipline of Population genetics.

In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or shrine of importance to a person’s beliefs and faith. Members of every major religion participate in pilgrimages. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim.

Vacation is a term used in English-speaking North America to describe a lengthy time away from work or school, a trip abroad, or simply a pleasure trip away from home, such as a trip to the beach that lasts several days or longer. In the rest of the English-speaking world the word holiday is used, whereas in North America, “holiday” normally applies to a specific national holiday or long weekend related to such a day. In some cases “vacation holiday” is used in North America, which signifies that a vacation trip is taken during a traditional national holiday period, extended on either end of the period by taking additional time off from work—creating a longer time unencumbered by work, an extended “long weekend”, as it were. This practice is common in the United States which has most national holidays legislated into the nearest Monday and where employers give far fewer annual vacation days (see below) than European employers—so stretching the related national holidays tends to conserve one’s accumulated total of eligible days available for longer quality vacation excursions.

In England the word “vacation” referred specifically to the long summer break taken by the law courts (and later universities)—a custom introduced by William the Conqueror from Normandy where it was intended to facilitate the grape harvest. The French term is similar to the American English: “Les Vacances.” The term derives from the fact that, in the past, upper-class families would literally move to a summer home for part of the year, leaving their usual family home vacant.

A tourist attraction is a place of interest where tourists visit. Some examples include historical places, monuments, zoos, museums and art galleries, botanical gardens, buildings and structures (e.g., castles, libraries, former prisons, skyscrapers, bridges), national parks and forests, theme parks and carnivals, ethnic enclave communities, historic trains and cultural events.

Tourist attractions are also created to capitalise on unexplained phenomena such as a supposed UFO crash site near Roswell, New Mexico and the alleged Loch Ness monster sightings in Scotland. Ghost sightings also make tourist attractions.

Ethnic communities may become tourist attractions, such as Chinatowns in the United States and the black British neighborhood of Brixton in London.

A destination hotel is a place of lodging whose inherent location and amenities attract visitors regardless of the route needed to arrive or the areawide features of interest. The destination hotel concept has existed at least since the 19th century and occupies a significant market share of all lodging in the world as of 2006. From the late 1980s to the present the extent of amenities and conference facilities has greatly expanded for many destination hotels. Destination hotels are also called destination lodgings and destination resorts. Considerable academic and business analysis has been conducted in the field of destination hotels.

A luxury resort, sometimes referred to as an exclusive resort, is a very expensive vacation facility which is fully staffed and has been rated with five stars. Luxury resorts often boast many visitor activities and attractions such as golf, watersports, spa and beauty facilities, skiing, natural ecology and tranquility. Because of the extent of amenities offered, a luxury resort is also considered a destination resort.

A luxury resort is an elite luxury property which exhibits an exceptionally high degree of customer service and hospitality. A flawless execution of guest services will be the resort staff’s and management’s main concern. A luxury resort will commonly also feature a superb architectural interior and exterior design as well as an interesting physical location.