The world’s biggest travellers are still Europeans, but emerging markets, led by China, are now spearheading a new phase of a long-term upswing in worldwide travel, says Jonathan Compton.
Unlike most commentators, I know how the world is going to end. It will not be because of a nuclear winter, nor will it be from global warming. It will not be from overpopulation: fertility rates are falling faster than expected, so the world’s population may start to decline as soon as 2050. No, the end is going to be a sudden collapse in the world’s ecosystem caused by the unstoppable rise in global tourism.
On a recent trip to several of the Canary Islands, I was again reminded how rapidly we have destroyed the things we love. Gran Canaria is utterly unlovable. Three quarters of the land is now a man-made wasteland of deserted farms, destroyed tree cover and chronic overdevelopment. With nearly five million visitors a year and an unsustainable population of more than 800,000, it is doomed, if only through lack of water and erosion.
Yet many islands, cities and countries have little choice but to embrace tourism because it has become a vital driver of economic growth and income. In countries such as Malta, Iceland or Fiji, tourism accounts for between a quarter and half of GDP. In a few even more extreme cases, such as the Maldives or Seychelles, tourism is essentially their entire economy, comprising 77% and 65% of GDP respectively. International tourism, however, is a relatively new phenomenon.
How the tourism boom started
Until the early 1960s, foreign travel was expensive and slow. Moreover, many countries such as the UK had exchange controls, so the cash you could take overseas was very limited. The many beautiful, unspoilt and exotic destinations were precisely what most of these tourists did not want, so they tended to confine themselves to safe and well-tested destinations such as London, Paris, Spain, or the Riviera. Other places were considered too dangerous or uncivilised; worse, travellers would have to eat alien food. Even now, a third of all Britons travelling overseas take tea bags, even to India; 20% carry toilet rolls.
All these turn-offs disappeared over the next two decades. Thanks to cut-price pioneers such as Sir Freddie Laker and the breakdown of national airline cartels, travel costs tumbled. Meanwhile, several – mostly US – companies saw opportunities in developing hotels and resorts tailored to their countrymen’s needs overseas, while developing nations recognised that foreign visitors could be a cash cow. After three decades of strong post-war economic expansion, incomes had grown so steadily in the advanced countries that even “ordinary people” could now afford to travel abroad. Most important of all, perhaps, is that travel became fashionable and for the next generations, both a right and a tradition.
By 1980, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), there were 300 million tourist arrivals globally. In 2017 this number had more than quadrupled to 1.3 billion, within which about three quarters were holiday travellers, the remainder on business trips. That year saw the highest annual growth rate (7%) since 2010 and these tourists spent $1.3trn, or about $1,000 per head. The 800lb gorilla in terms of both destination and expenditure is Europe. In 2017 it attracted more than half of all international arrivals, who spent $519bn, or 40% of total world tourism expenditure. In turn, Europeans travelling to other countries are still the largest group globally, accounting for about 40% of all international visits and expenditure. But as the song goes, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
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