The Most Important Stage Cycle of the Evolution of Tourist Destination Areas:
1. Exploration:
Small number of visitors is attracted by natural beauty or cultural characteristics-number is limited and practically no tourist facilities exist.
2. Involvement:
Limited involvement by local residents to provide some facilities to tourists is present and markets begin to emerge.
3. Development:
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Large numbers of tourists arrive, control passes on to external organisations and there is increasing tension between locals and tourists.
4. Consolidation:
Tourism becomes a major part of the local economy although rates of visitor growth start to fall.
5. Stagnation:
Peak number of tourists is reached but the resort is no longer considered attractive-
6. Decline:
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Attractiveness continues to decline, visitors are lost to other resorts and the resort depends more on day visitors than longer time visitors.
A great deal of leisure consumption is about myths and fantasies. The creation of unreal images is essential for many tourists seeking to escape the dullness of their home and work routines.
Early tourist sought such differences in the romantic authenticity of the Grand Tour through an examination of ancient cultures.
The present day equivalents of the group s still search for holiday experiences that bring them into contact with original cultures and societies untouched by the modern world.
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In contrast, we can also represent a very different set of tourist environments which have been deliberately set out to attract visitors by falsifying both place and time.
Theme park is a case in point. Walt Disney is credited with the original notion of the theme park, with the creation of Disneyland in California in 1955.