Travel and Tourism Terms, Acronyms & Abbreviations

Can You Talk Tourism?

Every industry has its own language. We abbreviate words or phrases to save time, effort or space – this is great, as long as you know what the acronym or abbreviation stands for. For those joining any industry for the first time, it may feel like people are speaking a different language.

We’ve put together a helpful resource for those who are new to the tourism industry. Below are 26 travel and tourism terms used frequently.

Jump to a section:

A-D
F-G
I-N
O-T

Travel and Tourism Terms

A-D

Accessible: Usable by all people. Whether a hotel, restaurant, or attraction can by enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities, regardless of physical or other limitations. Related: Accessible Tourism, taking steps to create accessible spaces and destinations for everyone to enjoy travel.

AI: Artificial Intelligence. AI is used in the travel industry to assist with creating itineraries, writing blogs and social captions, and many other marketing tasks. Read about how we do and do not use AI at Travel Alliance Partnership.

Assets: The attractions, hotels and restaurants within a given region. Assets are what that area has to offer guests who visit.

Buyers: Travel Trade professionals who sell to consumers. They are tour operators, receptive operators, travel advisors and OTAs (online travel agents). They look for destinations and attractions to package and sell to their customers.

CVB: Convention and Visitors Bureau. Primarily the same thing as a DMO or TPA (see below).

DMO: Destination Marketing Organization. A destination marketing organization is an entity that promotes a town, city, region, or country to increase visitation. It promotes the development and marketing of a destination, focusing on convention sales, tourism marketing, and services. The primary goals of a DMO are to create and implement strategic marketing plans around tourism, to bring local tourism businesses together and to help them work collectively. As the role of a DMO evolves, some have become Destination Management Organizations, with a bigger role in enabling sustainable growth of local businesses and the overall tourism infrastructure.

Dynamic Pricing: A flexible pricing strategy based on real-time demand, availability, or customer behavior.
Used widely in airfare and hotel bookings, dynamic pricing adjusts rates automatically to maximize revenue or occupancy. The opposite of dynamic pricing is static rates.

F-G

FAM: Familiarization Tour. FAMs are marketing initiatives, inviting either media or travel trade professionals to tour a region or destination. Experiencing it helps them write about it or sell it as a product to their customers. The activities on a FAM are typically shorter than what the actual visitor experiences. They provide a sampling of what is offered.

FIT: Foreign Independent Traveler. An international solo traveler, couple, family or other small group travelling to the USA. They arrive by airplane and usually rent cars for transportation, or take public transit. Also sometimes designated as Free/Flexible/Fully Independent Travel, the term has evolved to include any travel (domestic or international) that is done independently – without a guide or tour group.

Fly drive: A vacation package that includes air transportation and a rental car. Many FIT tourists prefer to buy these types of packages to explore a destination on their own.

Front-line staff: People who interact with and give service to customers, guests and visitors. For example, front desk staff at a hotel or a cashier at an attraction.

Group Leader: The person who accompanies and/or leads the people on a group tour. They work for the Group Tour Operator who sells the tour. Also known as a Tour Guide.

Group Tour Operator: A person who puts together vacation packages for groups. They sell these packages as products to consumers. They also fit into the category of Buyers.

I-N

Inbound operators: Agencies that specialize in providing tour packages to international travelers visiting the United States. Also known as Receptive Operators. Travel agents from foreign countries will work with an inbound receptive operator to find a travel package that suits their customers. A couple of examples are TourMappers and ATI, who we’ve worked with.

Inbound Tourism: Tourism generated by visitors from foreign countries. This does not include domestic travel like visitors from drive markets and in-state visitors.

Influencer: A social media personality whose content reaches a broad audience. Also known as a content creator. Influencers in the travel sector use social media platforms to showcase destinations or products, playing a key role in destination marketing through storytelling and visual content. They often partner with brands and tourism boards to inspire and guide potential travelers with authentic and relatable content.

Itinerary: The planned route for a trip. This is what travel trade professionals sell to their customers. It’s a pre-planned experience with where to go, when, and what to expect when you get there.

MICE: Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions. MICE travel is a major segment of business tourism, involving planned events that generate high economic impact for host cities, venues, and service providers.

Motorcoach: Large passenger bus. This is the vehicle most often used for people travelling with group travel tours.

Net Rate: Hotel room inventory sold via a third-party distributor at prices subject to commission. The Net Rate is the price for a hotel room without the commission markup of the third-party distributor. These distributors could be a travel agent, receptive operator or online travel agent. (See also, Rack Rate)

O-T

Overtourism: Excessive visitor numbers that impact a destination’s sustainability. Overtourism occurs when an influx of tourists strains local infrastructure and resources, leading to degraded and inauthentic visitor experiences and negative consequences for local residents, prompting the need for more sustainable management strategies.

Partners: The people who own or manage the assets of a region. These partners work closely with their region’s DMO and benefit from tourism dollars spent at their establishments. Also referred to as stakeholders and can include businesses, attractions, government entities, non-profits and residents.

Rack Rate: Standard daily rate established for hotel rooms. This rate is typically public, printed on hotel brochures and listed on websites.

Shoulder Season: The period between a destination’s peak and off-peak travel seasons. Shoulder season bridges the busy and the quiet seasons while still maintaining favorable weather, and offers better availability and pricing than peak season.

Slow Tourism: A travel trend that emphasizes a relaxed pace and meaningful immersion in a destination.
Slow tourism encourages travelers to spend more time in fewer places, supporting local culture, sustainability, and thoughtful experiences over fast-paced sightseeing.

Suppliers: Tourism or Travel professionals who sell to businesses aka Buyers. They sell B2B (that means business to business). They work with tourism companies to promote their attraction or destination.

TPA: Tourism Promotion Agency. This is basically the same thing as a DMO. A government agency that promotes tourism in a specific county or region within a state.

Travel Advisor: Someone who assists consumers in booking trips. Also known as travel agents or travel consultants, travel advisors do more than book travel for people. The term advisor has become more commonly used in order to demonstrate how these professionals assist and advise groups, families or individuals as they coordinate their travel bookings and plans.