Idiomatic tourism is a form of cultural tourism that has the attraction and motivation of learning or perfecting a language different from the native language in another country.
Defined by the World Tourism Organization (1991) as: «the activities carried out by people during their trips and stays in places other than their natural environment for a consecutive period of less than one year, in order to make a linguistic immersion in a language different from its natural environment ", in recent years, has acquired great relevance and is one of the modalities that is growing, in large part, by the growing need for knowledge and knowledge of other languages but also for its combination with leisure activities and tourism.
Studies carried out in Spain, in 2014, particularly at the University of La Laguna, have revealed the growing demand for tourist destinations by the community that wishes to learn another language. In 2014, a study carried out by Mexican researchers from Conacyt, headed by Dr. Jorge Viveros and Mtro. Jose Angel Bejarano Cortéz, explained that, despite the high crime rate, Mexico is considered one of the top three destinations for American, English and French tourists, only behind Chile and Spain.
This type of tourism arouses a high interest for its economic repercussions, since it is combined with visits to the cultural attractions of the country, the socio-cultural heritage and the consumption of complementary products. The idiomatic tourist, in addition, is a good prescriber to later disseminate the qualities of a country, a region or a city.
Currently some countries refolmulate their tourism attraction strategies with the aim of giving a response and a good stay to world tourism. characteristics
Language tourism is mainly characterized by having a tourist profile younger than the average one whose stay in the country of destination is greater than usual.This form of tourism falls into the category of the so-called educational tourism that is sometimes conjugates with other activities such as sports, adventure or ecological among others. Idiomatic tourism has gone from being a practice that was mainly concentrated in the summer months (June-September), to a practice that is extended throughout the year. It is usually done for a period of less than one year. The main destination in the beginnings of this modality was related to the English language and was mainly in the British Isles, but now a large number of languages and destinations have appeared, among which are those countries with tourist interests of the languages with the greatest expectation. of growth, such as English, Spanish, Chinese, etc.
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