Leiper’s Tourism System is a basic conceptualisation of the structure of the tourism industry. It is one of the most widely accepted and most well-known models used in tourism research when attempting to understand the tourism system.
Many tourism students will learn about Leiper’s Tourism System towards the beginning of their studies alongside the history of tourism and the importance of tourism. Many people working within the industry learn about Leiper’s Tourism System in order to underpin and inform their operational plans.
But what is Leiper’s Tourism System? This article explains who Neil Leiper was, why his work is so influential, and how his Tourism System model works in the context of tourism management, along with its strengths and weaknesses.
- Who was Leiper?
- Why was Leiper’s Tourism System developed?
- Leiper’s Tourism System – how does it work?
- The basic elements of Leiper’s Tourism System
- The geographical features of Leiper’s Tourism System model
- The benefits of Leiper’s Tourism System
- The disadvantages of Leiper’s Tourism System
- Leiper’s Tourism System: To conclude
- Leiper’s Tourism System: Further reading
Who was Leiper?
Neil Leiper was an Australian tourism scholar who died in February 2010. His work was extremely influential and continues to be well cited throughout the tourism literature.
Leiper focused his research on four major areas: tourism systems, partial industrialisation, tourist attraction systems and strategy. This article focuses on his work on tourism systems.
Leiper’s research was identified as having a significant influence on travel and tourism academic literature, as well as the conceptualisation of tourism as a discipline. This applies to both research and educational contexts.
Leiper was famed for the connections that he made between theory and strategy, which helped to bridge the gap between theory, policy and practice.
You can read more about Neil Leiper and his academic contributions in this paper.
Why was Leiper’s Tourism System developed?
Discussions about what tourism is and how tourism is defined have been ongoing for many years.
Leiper’s contribution to the debate was to adopt a systems approach towards understanding tourism.
Leiper (1979) defined tourism as:
‘…the system involving the discretionary travel and temporary stay of persons away from their usual place of residence for one or more nights, excepting tours made for the primary purpose of earning remuneration from points en route. The elements of the system are tourists, generating regions, transit routes, destination regions and a tourist industry. These five elements are arranged in spatial and functional connections. Having the characteristics of an open system, the organization of five elements operates within broader environments: physical, cultural, social, economic, political, technological with which it interacts.’
Rather than viewing each part of the tourism system as independent and separate, Leiper’s definition was intended to allow for the understanding of destinations, generating areas, transit zones, the environment and flows within the context of a wider tourism system.
In essence, therefore, Leiper’s Tourism System was developed to encourage people to view tourism as an interconnected system, and to make relevant assessments, decisions, developments etc based upon this notion.
Leiper’s Tourism System – how does it work?
With an understanding of who Neil Leiper was, it is possible to take a deeper look at his Tourism System.
In the diagram above you can see the way in which Leiper depicted tourism as being a system.
Leiper did not want people to view each part of the tourism industry as being separate and independent, because it is not. Rather, each component of tourism is closely interrelated.
This means that each part of the system relies strongly upon other parts in order to function properly.
Consider, as an analogy, a car engine. If one part of the engine isn’t working properly, the car won’t run efficiently or may not run at all…
In the context of travel and tourism, the same principle applies. If the airline isn’t running flights to a destination, then the hotel will have no business. And if there are no available hotels in the destination, then people will not book flights there.
This is a very simplistic example, but it helps to provide a clearer picture of how the ‘tourism system’ is interconnected.
Video: Leiper’s Tourism System made simple
The basic elements of Leiper’s Tourism System
There are three major elements in Leiper’s Tourism System: the tourists, the geographical features and the tourism industry.
The Tourists
The tourist is the actor in Leiper’s tourism system. They move around the tourism system, consuming various elements along the way.
The geographical features
In Leiper’s tourism system he identifies three major geographical features: the traveller generating region, the tourist destination region and the tourist transit region.
Each of these geographical features is explained in more detail below.
The tourism industry
The tourism industry is, of course, at the heart of the tourism system. All of the parts that make up the structure of tourism, are found within the tourism system.
The geographical features of Leiper’s Tourism System model
Leiper identifies three main geographical regions in his tourism system. These are visually depicted in the diagram above.
Each of these regions is explained below.
Other posts that you may be interested in:
–What is tourism? A definition of tourism
–The importance of tourism
–The history of tourism
–Stakeholders in tourism
–The structure of tourism
–Types of tourism: A glossary
The traveller generating region
The traveller generating region is the place that the tourist comes from.
Exactly what this means, is not entirely clear. Does it mean the departure airport? The home country? The area of the world? The home town? In part, this depends on the nature of the tourism that is taking place.
If, for example, a person is taking a domestic holiday, then their home town will almost certainly be classified as the ‘traveller generating region’.
However, when people travel further away, the precise details of their home locations become less important, and the traveller generating region may simply be described as the region or country in which they live.
For example, for a British tourist travelling to Spain, the traveller generating region may simply be described as the United Kingdom.
Similarly, larger areas of the world are sometimes used. This is especially the case with travellers from Asia. Some countries in Asia (such as China) are substantial tourist generating regions. Rightly or wrongly, however, the traveller generating region is often given the vague description of simply being ‘Asia’.
Within the traveller generating region there are many components of tourism.
Here you will often find stakeholders in tourism such as travel agents and tour operators, who promote outbound or domestic tourism.
The tourist destination region
The tourist destination region can largely be described in the same vein.
In Leiper’s tourism system, the tourism destination region is the area that the tourist is visiting.
This could be a small area, such as a village or tourist resort. For example, Bentota in Sri Lanka or Dahab in Egypt.
The tourist destination region could be an entire province. For example, Washington State.
Likewise, it could be a country, such as Jordan. Or it could even be an area of the World, such as The Middle East.
In the tourist destination region you will find many components of tourism. Here you will likely find hotels, tourist attractions, tourist information centres etc.
The tourist transit region
The last geographical region identified in Leiper’s Tourism System is the tourist transit region.
The tourist transit region is the space between when the tourist leaves the traveller generating region and when they arrive at the tourist destination region. This is effectively the time that they are in transit.
The tourist transit region is largely made up of transport infrastructure. This could be by road, rail, air or sea. It involves a large number of transport operators as well as the organisations that work within them, such as catering establishments (think Burger King at the airport).
The tourist transit region is an integral part of Leiper’s Tourism System.
The benefits of Leiper’s Tourism System
There are many benefits of Leiper’s tourism system.
Leiper’s model allows for a visual depiction of the tourism system. The model is relatively simple, making it easy for many people to understand and use.
Leiper’s Tourism System model has been widely cited within the academic literature and widely taught within tourism-based programmes at universities and colleges for many years.
The way in which this model demonstrates that the different parts of the tourism industry are interrelated and dependent upon each other provides scope for better planning and development of tourism.
The disadvantages of Leiper’s Tourism System
There are, however, also some disadvantages to Leiper’s Tourism System model.
Whilst the simplicity of this model can be seen as advantageous, as it means that it can be understood by the many rather than the few, it can be argued that it is too simple.
Because the model is so simple, it is subject to interpretation, which could result in different people understanding it in different ways – as shown by the different ways in which the term ‘region’ can be interpreted.
Leiper developed this model in 1979 and a lot has changed in travel and tourism since then. Take, for example, the use of the Internet.
Imagine that a person lives in Italy and books a trip to Thailand through an online travel agent who is based in the USA. Where in the model does the travel agent fit? They have little place in either the traveller generating region or the tourist destination region….
The post-modern tourism industry is not accounted for in this model, thus it can be argued that it is limited in scope because it is outdated.
Likewise, this model fails to address the way in which the tourism system is actually part of a network of interrelated systems. What about the agriculture sector? Or the construction industry? Or the media? All of these areas play an essential role in feeding, building and promoting tourism, but they are not represented in the model.
Leiper’s Tourism System: To conclude
Leiper’s Tourism System is a key part of the foundation literature in travel and tourism.
It provides a good representation of the way that the many parts of the tourism industry work together as a system, rather than individually. However, it fails to account for many of the complexities of the industry and its ties with associated industries.
Nonetheless, this is an interesting model that is widely applicable both in an academic and practical sense.
Leiper’s Tourism System: FAQs
Below are answers to some of the most common questions about Leiper’s Tourism System.
What is Leiper’s Tourism System?
Leiper’s Tourism System is a model, developed by Australian scholar Neil Leiper in 1979, that presents tourism as an interconnected system made up of tourists, a traveller generating region, a transit route region, a tourist destination region and the tourism industry, operating within a wider environment.
What are the three geographical regions in Leiper’s model?
The three geographical regions are the traveller generating region (where tourists come from), the transit route region (the places passed through on the journey) and the tourist destination region (where tourists go).
What are the five elements of Leiper’s Tourism System?
The five elements are tourists, traveller generating regions, transit routes, tourist destination regions and the tourism industry.
What are the strengths of Leiper’s Tourism System?
Its strengths are that it is simple, visual and widely understood, and that it shows how different parts of tourism depend on each other, which supports better tourism planning.
What are the limitations of Leiper’s Tourism System?
Critics argue that it is too simple, open to different interpretations, does not reflect the internet and online intermediaries, and does not show tourism’s links with other industries such as agriculture and construction.
Leiper’s Tourism System: Further reading
If you found this article on Leiper’s Tourism System useful, these articles may also be of interest:
- Components of tourism: Structure of the tourism industry
- What is tourism? A definition of tourism
- The chain of distribution: Made easy
- Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle Model: A simple explanation
- Stakeholders in tourism
