Cunha, Licínio2012Cunha , L 2012 , ' The definition and scope of tourism : a necessary inquiry ' , Default journal .1647-0125Throughout the 20th century international bodies recognized the need to define the basic concepts of tourism with a view to obtaining comparable statistics. At the same time, scholars and researchers tried to define tourism, no longer with the concern of compiling statistics,but in the attempt to characterize a complex activity which emerged at the beginning of the century. However, these definitions do not provide a clear understanding of the phenomenon of tourism, nor do they comprehend the whole reality. The present paper aims to identify the insufficiencies of various definitions with the purpose of contributing to finding a definition which may merit acceptance from the scientific community.application/pdfengopenAccessTURISMOPOTENCIAL TURÍSTICOESTATÍSTICAECONOMIA DO TURISMOATRAÇÕES TURÍSTICASTOURISMSTATISTICSTOURIST ATTRACTIONSTOURISM POTENTIALTOURISM ECONOMICS