Travel and tourism 1 What's the difference between travel and tourism? Well, being a traveler is more than just being a holidaymaker. A holiday is just a short time away, and it normally involves relaxation. Tourists stay in holiday resorts, not travelers. Travelers go for the experience and their journeys are usually much longer and more challenging. For example, travelers tend to avoid tourist traps and like to go off the beaten track to discover new places. Travel is an age-old phenomenon, but tourism is a relatively recent invention. Thomas Cook is often described as the first travel agent because he arranged the “package tour”: a 19-kilometre trip for 500 people, in 1841. 2 Going overseas in order to experience a different way of life is what many people think of as travel, but travel does not necessarily mean going abroad. How many people can say they have visited every part of their own country? Many people who live in vast countries such as Russia and the USA have only visited a small part o their own country, and so domestic travel is also very exciting. It's a surprising fac that about 75 percent of US citizens do not own a passport, so travelling does no mean leaving the country for them.