Journal of Tourism and Services - Vysoká škola obchodní v Praze

New Trends in Tourism and their
Reflection in the Tourism Industry
of the Czech Republic
Work Reviews
Iveta Hamarnehová
University of Business in Prague
Abstract
This paper will focus on new trends in tourism (Voluntourism, Dark Tourism, Gay
Tourism, CouchSurfing, Ascetic Tourism, Medical Tourism, etc.). These trends
will be further presented and analyzed in relation to the Czech Republic. Paper will
also include a survey investigating the affection of Czech citizens and Czech travel
agencies to these new trends.
Key words: ascetic tourism, couchSurfing, dark tourism, diaspora tourism, gay
tourism, medical tourism, responsible tourism, voluntourism, survey
1. Introduction
Tourism is travel towards something. In Europe, people originally
undertook Medieval pilgrimages to reach places of religious importance
such as abbeys as well as cross the continent to reach Rome or
Canterbury. In the fifteenth-century there were the explorations to
discover new lands. In the nineteenth-century travel in the form of the
Grand Tour became an essential component of an individual’s education.
In the past tourism was just for the few or the elite since it was
extremely expensive. Tourism, as we know it today, was invented by
Thomas Cook in 1861 when he arranged the very first “organized tour“.
Subsequently, more elaborated, all-inclusive tours were created and thus
started the modern tourist industry. As a matter of fact, tourism has
turned into an important industrial and commercial industry for world
economy.
Today tourism is the result of this history. Thanks to new means of
transportation, higher private incomes and new forms of media
communication, tourism passed from an activity for the elite to an activity
102