Tourists as well as natives want to see cultural achievements - whether it's the Banaue Terraces, the old churches or museums.
It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.
The first thing many tourists see in Hawaii is concrete - a long dreary stretch of it through landscapes dominated by sad, cheap apartment buildings and almost entirely denuded of plant life.
Gordon Ramsay grew up in a tourist town, Stratford-Upon-Avon, but in a part tourists don't visit - a council estate: a concrete bunker subsidized by the local government, synonymous with deprivation and blight.
I can't speak for all Hawaiians, but the reality is that we depend on tourism. Locals might not want to go to the spots like Waikiki, but we do want tourists to experience more of the islands.
What is it we want out of travel? Is it to take snapshots of ourselves in front of famous monuments, surrounded by other tourists? To eat unfamiliar food chosen from unintelligible menus? To earn frequent-flier miles? No. It's to glimpse what life is like somewhere else.
The global phenomenon of poverty tourism - or 'poorism' - has become increasingly popular during the past few years. Tourists pay to be guided through the favelas of Brazil and the shantytowns of South Africa. The recently opened Los Angeles Gang Tour carries visitors through battle-scarred territories of urban violence and deprivation.
There are a bunch of places to stay in Des Moines, but I'd suggest finding a place on the west side of town. It's a great urban area that has a lot to offer tourists.
If the Chinese economy can be opened so that currencies are convertible, Chinese tourists can take money and go see the world. Chinese businessmen can go and buy property in the U.S. and France and every place. All of a sudden, it's just going to be a blossoming global economy. I think it's going to be good for everybody.
On the economy, the U.S. cumulatively is our most important investor, most important trading partner, most important sort of tourists, and we have now a tie that will... a link that will be here for many, many years to come, and that is the big Philippine-American community in the United States - three million of them.
I think it's important for tourists to know the facts of what's happening in the Maldives. I don't think people realize that there's a flogging taking place a kilometer away when they're sunbathing in their resort.
The media was always so focused on the money a movie makes. But I was in Times Square, and a bunch of Japanese tourists looked at me and started shouting, 'Toula!' I loved it. It's these tiny moments of connection that register with me the most and always have.
It may be no surprise that Pittsburgh has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt, but consider this: many of the tourists here have come from Europe to the capital of culture in the Alleghenies.
