A travel agency is part of the tertiary sector of the economy.
Tertiary is a term in our language that comes from the Latin word tertiarĭus . It is an adjective that refers to that which is located in the third position with respect to a certain order or structure.
The tertiary sector , for example, is the economic sector made up of services provided to people, without involving the production of material goods. According to the most common division of the economic structure, the primary sector is the one that is responsible for obtaining raw materials, the secondary sector is dedicated to the transformation of these materials and the tertiary sector is oriented towards the generation of services. , and not products.
Characteristics of the tertiary sector
Within the tertiary sector there are many subsectors, all characterized by offering their clients the satisfaction of one or more needs; Among them are commerce , finance , communication , transportation , leisure, hospitality and tourism . These activities are developed both by private initiative and through public services provided by the State.
A travel agency , in this way, is part of the tertiary sector of the economy : it does not produce goods, but rather sells tickets or manages hotel reservations. A private university also belongs to the tertiary sector since it is dedicated to offering educational services.
The tertiary educational level is higher than the secondary level but does not reach the level of university training.
Its importance
Thanks to the presence of the tertiary sector in the economy, it is possible to direct and organize the productive activity of the other two, which depend on it for their functioning and development . It is worth mentioning that, despite what has been said so far, the tertiary sector falls into the category of production sector.
The tertiary sector increased its activity and became the most prominent in developed countries since the last days of the industrial revolution, and this phenomenon that transformed society and the economy is known as outsourcing . According to Paul Krugman , winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics , the main cause of the paralysis of living standards in more than one country revolves around the decrease in productivity of the tertiary sector.
The Tertiary Era or Tertiary Period
The Tertiary Era (which was also called the Tertiary Period ), on the other hand, is the first of the so-called Cenozoic Era , which began about 65 million years ago and lasted until about 2 million years ago. From those years on, the Quaternary Era began. According to other doctrine , however, the Cenozoic Era extends to the present day.
It is important to note that the name Tertiary Period is no longer valid, according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy , a scientific subcommittee that is in charge of geology , geochronology and stratigraphy at the international level. Once this era ended, the Quaternary Period began, another denomination that is also not recognized by said commission.
Throughout the Cenozoic Era , a collision occurred between Asia and India , around 50 million years ago; About 20 million years later, Eurasia collided with Arabia , closing the Tethys Sea . This led to the Alpine folding (or Alpine orogeny ), a stage in which the most important mountain chains of southern Asia and Europe (such as the Himalayas , the Alps and the Pyrenees ) were formed, starting in the Atlantic Ocean , touching the Mediterranean Sea and reaching the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java .
Other uses of the term
The individual who is part of the third order of a religious order is called tertiary . A Dominican tertiary , in this sense, belongs to the Third Order of Saint Dominic (a lay group of the Order of Preachers ).
Tertiary education , finally, covers training proposals at a higher than secondary level but that do not reach the university level.