The origin of tourism

The earliest tourism

The pioneers of tourism were merchants, and the first people to travel were the Phoenicians, a sea people.

Travel as a social behavior has existed since ancient times. China is one of the ancient civilizations in the world. The rise of travel activities is also at the forefront of the world. China has it as early as the 22nd century BC. The most typical traveler at that time was probably Dayu. He visited great rivers and mountains in order to dredge the eighteen rivers in Jiujiang. After that, there were Laozi and Confucius during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. I preached and rode a green ox to the west. Confucius traveled around the world giving lectures. During the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian was sent as an envoy to the Western Regions, reaching as far away as Persia, present-day Iran and Syria. During the Tang Dynasty, Xuanzang went to India for Buddhist scriptures. During the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He made seven voyages to the Western Ocean, reaching as far as the coast of East Africa. The great traveler Xu Xiake also wrote a travelogue.

The concept of "tourism" in ancient China

As early as the Yin and Zhou dynasties, people had begun to pay attention to the types of travel. An active type of travel - business travel. In the "Book of Changes", a hexagram that specifically talks about traveling merchants is called the "Lv" hexagram. The reason why the word "lv" is used for business travel is that firstly, "lv" originally means walking, and secondly, "lv" was often used as "Lu" by the ancients. The word "lv", which is connected with the word "Lu", became A special name for commercial tourism at that time.

During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the classification of travel became clearer. In addition to following the terminology since the Yin and Zhou dynasties, Eastern Zhou people used "brigade" to refer to business travel, "zheng" to refer to military travel, "return" to refer to wedding travel, and "inspection" to "inspection". "It is called the Emperor's Journey, and "Qian" is used to refer to the migration journey. In particular, they used the word "Lv" to introduce the modern concept of "tourism" into the history of Chinese tourism.

The literal meaning of "游" is to float in the water. It is of course a happy thing for people to be as unrestrained as fish and "swim and swim" freely ("The Book of Songs·Beifeng·Gu Feng"). Therefore, at that time, people generally referred to those travel activities that they did as they pleased and "you Zaiyouzai" ("Historical Records. Confucius Family": "youzaiyouzai, Wei is the age of death"), such as hunting, sightseeing, study tours, etc., as "tourism". ". The introduction of "tour" shows that the people of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty already had a relatively clear category of tourism, and were able to distinguish tourism from utilitarian tourism such as business travel and travel services (ceremonial diplomacy and long-distance business trips), which marked the ancient Chinese Tourism has since entered a stage of conscious awareness.

The word "tourism" was first seen in the Six Dynasties. During the Qi and Liang Dynasties, Shen Yue (AD 441-513) wrote a poem in "Sad Journey" that "tourism charms the spring, and spring charms tourists". It refers specifically to travel controlled by personal will, focusing on sightseeing and entertainment, and is distinguished from other utilitarian travel.