Tourism can be recognized as long as people have travelled; the narrative of Marco Polo in the 13th century; the "grand tour" of the British aristocracy to Europe in the 18th century; and the journeys of David Livingstone through Africa in the 19th century are all examples of early tourism. Thomas Cook is popularly regarded as the founder of inclusive tours with his use of a chartered train in 1841 to transport tourists from Loughborough to Leicester. Before the 1950s, tourism in Europe was mainly a domesticactivity with some international travel between countries, mainly within continental Europe. In the period of recovery following World War II, a combination of circumstancesprovided an impetus to international travel. Among the important contributing factors were the growing number of people in employment, the increase in real disposableincomes and available leisure time, and changing social attitudes towards leisure and work. These factors combined to stimulate the latent demand for foreign travel and holidays. The emergence of specialist tour operators who organized inclusive holidays by purchasing transport, accommodation, and related services and selling these at a single price, brought foreign holidays within the price-range of a new and growing group of consumers. The "package" or "inclusive" tour democratized travel in Europe; foreign holidays were no longer the preserve of the affluent and socially lite classes.
Various academic disciplines have repeatedly sought to re-evaluate the significance of tourism. Globalised tourism's socio-economic place within the framework of the leisure and holidaying opportunities on offer today has attracted particular attention. Such accounts often leave out the fact that this also has a history. The present article aims to overcome this shortcoming: it seeks to present an overview of the important structures, processes, types and trends of tourism against the background of historical developments. It deals with early forms of travel in the classical world and the Middle Ages, as well as the precursors of modern tourism, Bildungsreisen ("educational journeys") and the middle-class culture of travel. It then examines the boom in mass tourism in the 19th century and the unique expansion of tourism in the 1960s characterised by new forms of holidaying and experience shaped by globalisation.
