The Global Scale of Travel and Tourism The global scale of travel and tourism According to the World Travel and Tourism Council the international tourism industry employed over 231 million people indirectly and generated over 10 per cent of world GDP. In 2003 the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN-WTO) recorded that 694 million tourists travelled abroad (down from a peak of 703 million in 2002), which generated US$474 billion in tourist spending and a significant demand for tourist transport. By 2007, the number of international tourists had risen to 898 million, a 6 per cent growth on 2006. Such a growth in international arrivals was estimated to have generated US$ 856 billion in tourist receipts. In global terms, the expansion of international tourism continues to generate an insatiable demand for overseas travel and UN-WTO has forecast that by 2020 international tourism will have risen to 1.6 billion arrivals. Europe remains the most visited of all regions of the world, with half of all global tourist receipts and almost two-thirds of international arrivals. Even so, the fastest growing regions for tourist travel in 2007 were: the Middle East (13 per cent), Asia Pacific (10 per cent), Africa (8 per cent), the Americas (5 per cent) and Europe (4 per cent). Despite the impact of recent crises such as SARS and global terrorism, the tourism industry has a strong resilience and ability to bounce back although the current credit crunch is widely viewed as a much deeper problem for the world economy, potentially signaling the shift to a recession. The world economy up to 2007 had experienced almost 25 years of sustained growth in GDP, and GDP is widely seen as a key driver of the demand for travel, so when GDP begins to fall, it is natural to see a contraction in travel, particularly leisure travel that depends upon discretionary spending. At a global level, much of the demand for tourism and travel between regions is dominated by urban centers, particularly world cities and what are now being termed mega-cities. For example, the United Nations has suggested that by 2020 the number of world cities with over 20 million people will have risen to 16, of which 10 will be in Asia-Pacific. This population growth combined with a growing tourism industry will see major changes in the existing patterns of global tourism and will certainly impact upon the demand for tourist travel at a global level. Existing and future patterns of tourism will therefore be shaped by the demand from people wishing to travel and this will be reflected in new demographic trends and growing affluence in expanding economies as existing patterns of tourism are reshaped. In the case of air travel in Asia, existing patterns of travel will continue to see massive changes in the volume and scale of tourist travel, not least with respect to the investment and infrastructure needs of Asia, observed as long ago as 2003 (Page 2003), especially in China in terms of airport expansion, with forecasts of 8–10 per cent GDP growth per annum over the next 10 years. This is expected to equate to around 10–15 per cent growth in traffic per annum if forecasts are accurate. As the new middle classes in these regions begin to achieve greater mobility through improved affluence, the transport needs for tourism will see massive growth and tourism will be within reach of new groups of people. Therefore, as the expanding population and affluence in regions such as Asia begin to reach fruition, they will certainly be major consumers of domestic and international tourist transport. But the immediate prospects for travel due to the credit crunch could see some of these forecasts amended as the economic conditions may lead to a contraction of travel in the short term. For example, estimates by the International Air Transport Association suggest that in 2008, profits among global airlines may be hit by around US$2 billion, dropping to around US$ 9.6 billion for 2007/8 as people travel less frequently or not at all. However, these underlying trends in global tourism also raise issues about the underlying changes and trends which have shaped transport and travel in the early twenty-first century to which attention now turns.

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