Lost in the Travel Pages: The Global Industry Hiding Inside the Sunday Newspaper

Abstract

To most Americans travel means a journey of discovery, a well-deserved family vacation, an escape from the daily dullness of life, an outdoor adventure, or a plan for retirement. In other words, travel is an innocent or worthy indulgence.

Few imagine that travel is a $7 trillion international industry.

Tourism rivals the oil industry as one of the world’s largest and fastest growing industries. Globalization has helped, opening up borders long closed during the Cold War. So has the internet which has brought travel information and airplane tickets to every computer. The growth has been so stunning that many poor countries are climbing out of poverty largely on the money they’ve earned from plane-loads of foreign tourists.

There is a downside, a big one. Inexpensive travel has brought mass tourism to every sleepy corner of the world. Some 898 million international tourists are invading beaches, historic monuments, great cities and even greater wilderness areas, doing irreversible damage. Tourists have spoiled many of these places with their pollution, waste and thoughtless consumption of precious resources like water and electricity. Local cultures and local economies are reeling from the onslaughts. European countries worry they are losing their identities as tourists turn them into real-life Disney Lands; poor countries fear that tourists are destroying their natural resources as well as their souls. All of these countries fear being loved to death.