A Study On Social Tourism Development In European Countries

The leisure time people have in modern society has accounted for1/3of theirdaily life apart from working and studying. Go on holidays as a human right hasbecome one of the hot topics in recent years.“Everyone has the right to travel”, thisgoal is raised up by the United Nations World Organization for human rights.Developed countries in Europe are the first part of the world have deep understandingof this goal and introduce the “Social Tourism”, a new form of Tourism. The biggestcharacteristic of Social Tourism comparing with normal tourism is to encouragelow-income people participate in tourism activities and provide special services forthem. Social Tourism was originally emerged from Europe. European countries haveestablished relatively perfect Social Tourism framework after decades ofdevelopment.Social Tourism as a form of tourism has not been deeply studies and widelyused in China until the National Tourism Administration launched the “Nationalleisure plan” in2009. That was the first time the term Social tourism entered thepeople’s vision and domestic scholars stated to study in this field. Social Tourism inEuropean countries has a long history, therefore there is a lot worth to learn from themin order to develop Social Tourism in China. The origin of this study is to research onthe development of Social tourism in European countries in to order to suit conditionsin China.This paper firstly classifies and summarizes the research outcomes in this fieldfrom abroad and domestic perspective. Outcomes from abroad are mainly studiedfrom European scholars. Secondly, the paper introduce some basic theories aboutSocial Tourism which is the foundation of studying on Social Tourism framework;The general development of European countries Social Tourism was introducedafterwards, including the development phases of European countries Social Tourism,the characteristics of Social Tourism and the relevant measures taken by Europeancountries to promote Social Tourism development. Finally the paper summarized theexisting development model of European Social Tourism, combined with the currentSocial Tourism development in China and put forward countermeasures to developSocial Tourism in China from perspective of institution building, enterprise support and the measures for disadvantaged groups.