Tourist Communities

The Global Travel and Tourism Industry

Tourism-related businesses sell more than $1.2 trillion worth of goods and services annually, making travel and tourism one of the largest industries in the world. It is also among the world's largest export industries: In 2001, international travelers spent more than $465 billion on lodging, food and beverages, entertainment, transportation, and souvenirs, an amount exceeding total world exports of food ($437 billion), raw materials ($110 billion), and iron and steel ($130 billion), and nearly equal to world exports of automobiles ($565 billion), fossil fuels ($616 billion), and chemicals ($595 billion). In addition, the travel and tourism industry is a major source of employment worldwide; 71.9 million people work in tourism-related firms, and another 126.7 million people are employed indirectly by firms supplying the travel and tourism industry with goods, services, capital equipment, and infrastructure.

Fueled by declining transport costs and the globalization of both business and cultural activities, tourism has grown rapidly relative to other industries. Between 1950 and 1996, international tourist arrivals and expenditures registered 7 percent and 12 percent average annual growth, respectively. International tourist arrivals grew even faster during the 1990s, from 457.3 million in 1990 to 698.8 million in 2000, an average annual increase of 7.4 percent. When domestic tourists, who outnumber international tourists ten to one in the developed countries and a thousand to one in many of the less developed countries, are taken into consideration, it is clear that tourism is an immense global phenomenon, easily exceeding 10 billion tourist arrivals per year.

[Page 1385]Although the wealthy countries of Europe, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region account for the largest share of world-tourism expenditures, they do not account for the largest share of tourists, especially in light of the World Tourism Organization's definition of a domestic tourist as “any person residing in a country, who travels to a place within this same country” (World Tourism Organization 2002b). In India alone, pilgrimage centers such as Vrindavan, Hardwar, and Pushkar attract millions of visitors annually, and the largest gathering of human beings in history, the 2001 Kumbha Mela festival held at the confluence of the (legendary) Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati Rivers in the city of Allahabad, drew upward of 20 million visitors. In Mexico, the world's eighth-largest international tourist destination, domestic tourists make more than 94 million business or leisure journeys each year, nearly five times the number of international arrivals reported in 2001.

Communities of Tourists

At first glance, the idea of a community of tourists may appear somewhat strange. After all, tourism seems to be everything a traditional community is not, a transitory activity in which the people, from fellow travelers to airline, cruise ship, and hotel employees, are almost always complete strangers. Yet for anyone who has ever been on a cruise ship, package tour, pilgrimage, business convention, or study-abroad program, or who has spent a day stranded in an airport, the idea of a community of tourists is not at all strange. Tourists often form communities, albeit temporary communities, with fellow travelers, because they share a similar purpose or partake of similar activities in the host communities, in contrast to the nontraveling public.

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