The tourism in the contemporary world presents itself under different forms, categories, types, organizational way, etc., being based on different relations and phenomena, fact that determines the necessity of a certain classification or alignment depending on the specificity, motivation, and purpose. The classification of tourism is important from theoretical and practical point of view, because it offers elements scientifically backed up concerning the analysis of the tourist circulation at international level. The essence of tourism resides in the possibility to travel, to know, to recover, to relax and have a rest. In most of cases the tourists, when planning their travel and in the process of selecting the tourist destination, have to answer the question: what is the purpose of the travel, and the countries that receive tourists need to have the possibility to monitor the tourism flow. This article, in our opinion, makes clear how the tourism is structured through the conceptual approaches used in the classification of the local tourism.