Are we doomed by global travel boom?

The travel bug is causing an epidemic that is bound to exact a heavy cost in the future


By Zhen Ming


IT'S the Muslim month of fasting, but Rabu's mind is not here.

Rabu is day-dreaming about his once-in-a-lifetime Haj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, this December.
It's an obligation of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so.

Meanwhile, Daniel, a regional corporate mover-and-shaker, zips in and out of Singapore and 16 other Asia-Pacific countries effortlessly.

Daniel uses what's known as an Apec Business Travel Card, which helps him cut through the red tape of travel while on business, but sometimes for leisure too.

Both Rabu and Daniel are thoroughly bitten by the travel bug. And they're not alone.

International tourism is now one humongous cross-border phenomenon - one that sees hundreds of millions, each year, caught up in the craze of roaming the globe.

Is this a good thing for the world economy?

Well, yes and no.

Last year, there were over 903 million international tourist arrivals. That's equivalent to one foreign trip made by every seventh person on this planet (assuming, of course, we each travelled only once a year).

By comparison, in 1960, there were only 25 million globe-trotters.

This year the total number of cross-border trips we make should exceed 930 million.

By the year 2020, expect trains and planes and buses and cars the world over to unload some 1.6 billion camera-clicking tourists eager to 'get away from it all'.

By one count, global tourism spending totalled about US$856 billion ($1.2 trillion) last year.

If you add the passenger fare that's already paid in your own country, the total spent topped a cool US$1 trillion.

But if you encompass all other components of consumption, investment, government spending and exports, the world will spend nearly US$8 trillion this year on travel and tourism.

Ten years from now, it could exceed US$15 trillion.

This year alone international tourism provided jobs for an estimated one out of every 12 people on this planet.

By 2018, the number will be one out of every 11 workers worldwide.

For 83 per cent of countries in the world, tourism is now one of the top five sources of foreign exchange.Caribbean countries derive half of their GDP from tourism.

For centuries, beginning with the first tourists on holy pilgrimages, travel has been about adventure and discovery and escape from the pressures of daily life.

Crowded spots

But thanks, and no thanks, to globalisation and still-cheap transportation, there aren't many places in this world where you can travel today to avoid the masses of tourists who seem to appear, out of the blue, 'at every conceivable site'.

Observes Ms Elizabeth Becker, a tourism media expert: 'The streets of Paris and Venice are so crowded that you can barely move. Cruise ships are filling harbours and disgorging hordes of day-trippers the world over.

'Towering hotels rise in ever-greater numbers along once pristine and empty beaches.'
Blame it on developments in technology, such as jumbo jets and low-cost airlines.

Blame it also on improvements in transport infrastructure, such more accessible airports. They have all made many types of tourism more affordable.

Consequently, there'll be a heavy (but hidden) price to be paid by all of us for this global travel boom.

Many of the places we love, for instance, are fast-disappearing. Many of them are also deteriorating fast.

Says Ms Becker: 'Look at Cambodia. The monumental temples at Angkor and the beaches on the Gulf of Thailand have made that country a choice destination, especially for Asians, who spent $1 billion there last year.

'But the foundations of those celebrated temples are in danger of sinking as the 856,000 tourists who every year crowd into Siem Reap, the nearby town of 85,000, drain the surrounding water table.'

She added: 'And at night along the riverfront in the capital Phnom Penh, the sight of ageing Western men holding hands with Cambodian girls young enough to be their granddaughters is ugly evidence of the rampant sex-tourism trade.'

It's a sad, sad traveler's tale, indeed.


Source: The New Paper, Thu 04 Sep 2008