Tourism in America外语学院英本0801 张文凤20084336092【Abstract】This paper centers on the tourism employment and the four interrelated components: the tourists, travel information and arrangements, visitor attractions such as National Parks in the U.S.【Key Words】Tourism; America; Economy; Employment; Tourists; Tourism Organization; Tourist Attractions; HolidaysIntroduction：1.Tourism, a Major IndustryTourism in America has reached to a fairly high standard according to pleasure, shopping, entertainment, eating, accomodation and transportation.The six aspects are mutually combined with each other properly and there are no weak links in them. Generally speaking, I think that the distinguishing features of American tourism are come from these advantages.1.1 Tourism EmploymentThe most important contribution that tourism in America making to the U.S. National Economy is providing a great deal of jobs. In America, there are one in eight persons being involved into this job. There are 50 States in America,of which there are 32 states that their quality of tourism employment ranks to the first three in each trade.What’s more, there are 684,000 positions provided by tourism are in a high level.The service industry has historically been characterized as providing low paying employment in the United States. But the 1990s has begun a new era for the American economy with major underlying changes in its employment structure. Many of these shifts, however, have gone unnoticed, perhaps because of the difficulty in comprehending such profound fundamental structural changes in the U.S.employment after so many decades of being dominated by the manufacturing industry. For illustration, here are more facts.First, employment directly generated by travel has grown 27.7% in the last ten years （the 1990s）, much faster than the 19.6% increase in total nonagricultural U.S. employment. Second, average hourly earnings in the service sector had grown faster than in all other industries except finance, insurance, and real estate throughout the 1990s.Third, employment in executive positions in this industry had increased faster by the year 2006 than employment in the overall economy. Fourth, the transportation sectors of the travel industry, especially airlines, rank among the highest paying sectors in the U.S. economy.The rapid growth of travel and tourism in the United States through the is also reflected in the increasing travel expenditures in the country.There are two main types of tourism: leisure tourism and business tourism. Business tourism includes travel for business meetings, conferences and conventions, and exhibitions and trade fairs. It accounted for about a quarter of the total domestic trips throughout the 1990s while leisure tourism the other three fourth. Leisure tourism thus becomes the focus of my paper.1.2 Why Do People TravelThe motivations for leisure tourism are varied. Most people travel to meet personal needs. They can revitalize or enrich their lives, escape routine and have a relaxation, board their horizons and learn about different environments, get the chances to taste different foods and so on. Based on these motivations, leisure tourism can be sorted to the followings: education, culture and history, sightseeing, visiting friends or relatives, sports, health and adventure.America has a variety of tourists attractions and activities. They are graceful. People can go sightseeing, go hiking, go camping, go skiing, go swimming, go boating or recuperate and so on.Surprisingly, a growing motivation for much travel that combines pleasure-seeking and practical purposes involves discount shopping. Consequently, shopping become number one activity participated in by domestic travelers in 1999.2.Who Are the TouristsPeople who want to travel are limited by many things such as income, age, education, time. Leisure tourists are people who are away from home or on visits which are short term and temporary or just for pleasure.Even domestic travel is income-related, although styles of travel vary more than travel itself. Most Americans take a vacation trip most years. The differences are in cost level, from the luxury hotels and resorts to the car trip with budget motels and visits to friends and relatives.The demonstrated rule for travel was always that the young traveled more. Most advertising was directed towards those in their 20s and 30s. But things are changing. Those whose children are out of school and who are at the peak of their incomes are a major market segment. Early retirees are more likely to combine incomes adequate for travel with available time. They are especially sought after in the “of peak”seasons when children are in school.Young parents are more likely to stay near home and require different arrangements. Older adults free from parenting responsibilities re-emerge into the travel markets, but are still constrained by the schedule limitations of work.Those with higher levels of education are more likely to travel, seek learning experiences with new environments and cultures. Since education is correlated with income, however, they may also be markets higher cost tours that promise a quality experience.3.Tourism OrganizationsWhere do travelers obtain tourist information? It comes from a variety of resources, but the most direct information about the places that people want to travel comes from friends and relatives. The second most popular source of travel information is travel agency and travel companies are the third.Most of the international arrangements and half of domestic air travel tickets are handled over by the local travel agents. But a travel agent is just a retailer of travel packages for leisure travel. Hundreds of the combinations in tourism arrangements are booked in the local community through the agent.The American government alter some holidays to Monday or Friday to encourage people to travel. The holiday between Thanksgiving Day to Christmas Day is the longest in a year. Holidays such as the Easter, the Independence Day and the Armistice Day are short holidays.In relatively, holidays of teachers and students are more. There is respectively a spring holiday in March, a summer holiday in June or July and a winter holiday in November.Tour operators put together the combinations of travel, hotels, meals, and all the other arrangements for the packages. American Express is a well-known tour operator that operates worldwide. Some tour operators specialized in domestic tourism while incoming tour operators specialized in tours for overseas visitors in the U.S. Most tour operators cooperate with the travel agencts to sell the products to their clients.Others are direct sell operators, who sell the package direct to the public. In essence, tour operators are the intermediaries between the airlines, hotel chains, bus companies,etc. and the travel agents.In America, several hotel chains are in the most major cities around the world such as Hilton. Their accomodations are upscal for the tourists and business travelers. They are well-developed for their combination of beaches and golf and other sports facilities along with luxury hotels and restaurants.Some hotel chains are also in cooperation with airlines in an attempt to bypass the local travel agents.America conducts vigorous propaganda for governmental travel.They are equipped with the most advanced economy, culture and technology in the world which are pretty attractive to the travelers all over the world.The American news media covering the whole world and films in Hollywood are actually soft advertisements for American tourism.There are some special policies for the economically backward regions.Openning gambling hells is not allowed in most states of American.But it is an exception in the eastern Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in the western Neveda, Las Vegas andReno.Gambling is defined as any sort of game or contest in which individuals wager money in the hope of financial gain.4.Tourist AttractionsThere must be some attractions so that people become interested in one place and have an appetite for traveling. Attractions can be divided into two types: one is composed of man-made attractions, such as theme parks, museums, theaters and so on; the other includes natural ones, such as the mountains, rivers,etc.There are thousands of museums and artgalleries all over the United States. In the past 5 years, nearly 40 million Americans, or one-fifth of U.S. residents went on a garden tour, attended a gardening show or participated in some other garden-related activity. Going to the beach is one of the American people’s most popular leisure travel activities. National parks are one of America’s biggest attractions. They are managed either by the federal, the states, or the local governments. There are 48 national parks in the U.S.A. stretching from Maine to California, Alaska to Hawaii.Conclusion:In a word, American tourism is very prosperous.It makes a great contribution to economical development and meets people’s traveling demands.Tourism can improve the overall competitive strength and promote international standing. The tourism in U.S. is well-arranged and the project is very reasonable, and the scenery spots are really famous and attractive so that a lot of people look forward to taking a trip to those places.In return, it drive the tourism in America to develop.。