page_title: Tourism
section_title: Cruise shipping
hierarchical_section_title: Tourism / Cruise shipping
caption_attribution_description: Prinzessin Victoria Luise
context_page_description: Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only", as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure and not less than 24 hours, business and other purposes".
  Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country's balance of payments.
  Tourism numbers declined as a result of a strong economic slowdown between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and in consequence of the outbreak of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, but slowly recovered. Globally, international tourism receipts grew to US$1.03 trillion in 2005, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 3.8% from 2010.
context_section_description: Cruising is a popular form of water tourism. Leisure cruise ships were introduced by the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) in 1844, sailing from Southampton to destinations such as Gibraltar, Malta and Athens. In 1891, German businessman Albert Ballin sailed the ship Augusta Victoria from Hamburg into the Mediterranean Sea. 29 June 1900 saw the launching of the first purpose-built cruise ship was Prinzessin Victoria Luise, built in Hamburg for the Hamburg America Line.
caption: Prinzessin Victoria Luise, the first cruise ship of the world, launched in June 1900 in Hamburg (Germany)
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