DEVELOPMENT: UN Predicts Significant Rise in Tourism Worldwide

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 19 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations is projecting a significant rise in tourism worldwide, from about 664 million arrivals in 1999 to an estimated 1.6 billion by 2020.

“Tourism is one of the major economic and social phenomena of the 20th century,” says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a report released here.

Annan also says that tourism, a sector that integrates a wide range of economic activities, is now regarded as the world’s largest industry – and growing. Currently, tourism is also the largest sector of international trade in services.

The study, which will go before a Preparatory Committee of the World Summit on Sustainable Development Apr. 30, says that in 1999 alone the number of international tourist arrivals reached 664 million generating about 455 billion dollars in tourist earnings worldwide.

This is far higher than the international reserves of the world’s three largest economies last year: Japan with reserves amounting to 330 billion dollars, China with 160 billion dollars and the United States with 55 billion dollars.

According to the study, tourism is expected to continue to grow in the future owing to population growth, improved living standards, improvement and expansion of transportation systems, increasing free time and other factors. For many nations, in particular most small island developing states, but also some bigger and more economically diversified countries, tourism has become the main sector of economic activity.

At the same time, tourism is also the main source of foreign exchange earnings in some countries, and in most states, it is an important source of employment.

The island states that depend heavily on tourism are mostly in the Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. These include Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas and the Maldives, where tourism accounts for over 65 percent, 55 percent and 55 percent of gross national product respectively.

From an activity enjoyed by only a small group of relatively well- off people at the beginning of the century, tourism had become a mass phenomenon in the more developed countries by the 1970s, and has now reached wider groups of people in most nations, according to the study.

During the 1990s, international arrivals grew at an average annual rate of 4.2 percent, while international tourism receipts, at current prices and excluding international transport costs, had an average annual growth of 7.3 percent. In 1998, 7.9 percent of the worldwide export value of goods and services came from tourism, surpassing such leading industries as automotive products and chemicals.

While in 1950 the top 15 tourist destinations, all in Western Europe and North America, attracted 97 percent of the world’s total arrivals, by 1999 this figure had fallen to 62 percent, with market shares increasing for developing countries and countries in transition, particularly in South-East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

Africa, with the exception of a few countries in North Africa, remains a less visited destination, with only 2.5 percent of total international arrivals.

The study points out that as a result of the rapid expansion of tourism, traditional and emerging tourist destinations are facing increasing pressure from their natural, cultural and socio-economic environments.

“There is now a recognition that uncontrolled growth in tourism aiming at short-term benefits often results in negative impacts, harming the environment and societies, and destroying the very basis on which tourism is built and thrives,” the report notes.

The negative impacts of tourism addressed by some governments include precarious conditions of employment, child exploitation and prostitution, degeneration of traditions and cultural values, and environmental damage to tourist sites.

Adverse environmental impacts are also caused by over-consumption of resources, pollution and waste generated by development of tourism infrastructure and facilities, transportation, and tourist activities themselves.

The principle of “sustainable tourism” was proposed as early as 1988 by the UN’s World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism was first introduced in 1999 following over two years of consultation with the tourist industry.

A set of sustainability indicators on tourism has been developed and tested in a number of countries under the initiative of the UNWTO.

As a result, eco-tourism and other forms of environmentally- friendly tourism are expected to continue growing rapidly. Over the past two decades, eco-tourism activities have been expanding rapidly worldwide.