Global Trends in Tourism Essay

Threats of terrorism, pandemic outbreaks, natural calamities and, finally, pesky security checks notwithstanding, the supranational touristry labor is booming. Tourism has become a key economic driver globally, and is one of the main sources of income for many developing countries today. International tourism receipts totaled $682 meg in 2005 while arrivals, at 842 million in 2006, registered a five-fold growth over the last three decades. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates that foreign tourist arrivals will touch the one-billion mark by2010 and the centre of activity will be the Asia-Pacific region.The World Tourism Conference in Kuala Lumpur early this month acquired import given the recent resurgence in the global tourism industry following several shocks starting from 9/11, continuing through the Bali bombings in 2002, the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, the avian flu and the Asian tsunami. The conference discussed several important issues that the global tourism industry is faced and the diversenesss happening worldwide. The impact of technology and the changing demographics on tourism were among the interesting trends discussed.COMING OF AGEThe tourism industry has matured significantly in recent years and is displaying a new willingness to sh argon selective information and co-operate. The result A different type of growth, one that is more moderate, more solid and more responsible.More moderate because it is not likely to produce the owing(p) double-digit growth rates of 2000and 2004. The industry can, however, look forward to about 4 per cent growth in 2007. More solid because enterprises, consumers and institutions are able to auspicate shocks and respondeffectively to crises. The market shows ontogenesisd resilience and expirelers are better informed forinstance, they now include security reverences as just another consideration while selecting theirdestination. adjacent each crisis, the ability to respond has improved and the return to normalcyhappens more rapidly, as Mr Geoffrey Lipman, Assistant Secretary-General of the UNWTO, pointedout, while delivering the keynote address at the conference.More responsible because great attention is now being paid to the congestion that tourismgenerates and its ill-effects as also its relationship to climate change. According to the World Economic Forum Competitiveness survey, crushed countries are often better at planning tourism development thanthe big ones. There cannot, of course, be a better example for this than the city-island state of capital of Singapore which was a pioneer in developing its tourism industry in its part of the world.For the smaller countries tourism accounts for 20-30 per cent of GDP. For those economies, tourism isnot the icing, it is the cake, said Mr Christopher Rodrigues, Chairman, Visit Britain.The greying creation of several developed countries is proving to be a plus for global tourism. Therising av erage age means a growing market of people with more discretionary income and time to function.Rapid economic growth has also created more affluent populations willing to splurge on travel.Tourists over 55 years of age travel farther away from home, include two or more destinations in atrip, lead in more activities, travel with one or another star sign member and spend more per tripthan tourists, on an average, observed Mr Lipman. This is unlike the average tourist in the workingage who may be weighed down by his back-pack as hygienic as work pressure and other compulsions totake no more than a short spend.Retired tourists have no such compulsions even as they spendliberally from their retirement savings to see the world in a now or never spirit.What may ultimately determine a travel decision is the desire to learn, call new experiences andadd meaning to peoples lives. Cross-border family travel is becoming frequent and these trends areapparent in the growth of niche products developed by destinations, hotels and resorts.This demographic shift is manner as a corollary a new set known as Short Holiday Break travellersamong younger folks in double-income families. The concept of a shorter main holiday plus a series of breaks is not only born out of necessity but the norm.The global crisis that shook 2008 to the core (and continues to do so) has impact in industries across the board. One of the most affected fields is tourism as its an elected excess and not a necessity. A recently released research by the Tourism Journalists Association shows that people will be more cautious in spending for leisure travels and will engage in more meaningful, rather than extravagant, vacations.Technology.Technology is a driving force of change that presents opportunities for greater efficiencies and integration for improved guestservices. Technology has become a tourism businessactivity in development of strategic resourcesand is considered as a tool to increasecompetiti veness. Effective use of informationtechnology can make significant operationalimprovements. Advanced software and confabulation tools allow enlarging operationalefficiency, for example, orders may be made better, faster and cheaper.In addition, decision-making through decisionsupport tools, databases and modelling toolsassist the manager s job.Thanks to expertsystems, sophisticated expertise can be met byany manager (Romanovs, 2000).Technology changes the tourism business rules.More specificallyInformation on all tourist services is availablevirtually from all over the world. Potential client can be any occupant of the world. More territorial boundaries restrict the number of customers. Decision making turns into a tourism specialist ineach component. Changes in customer service technology andservice personalization occur.Marketing opportunities are expanding.Technology on wireless communication systemsenabling voice, text and data communication amongemployees, managers, departmen ts and guests isnow being adapted by hotels. Comprised of intelligent system software and lightweight, hands-free or handheld communication devices, thesesystems allow hotel staff to deliver the bestcustomer service. Examples of wirelesscommunication solutions for the hospitality industryinclude communication badges, food and drinksordering systems, as well as devices that allow hotelagents to check-in and check-out guests, processcredit cards, print receipts and program direction keysanywhere in or nearby the hotel.Wireless technology offers, among others, thefollowing benefits for hotels and the quality of service they can provide to the guest Increases staff productivity and reducesresponse time to satisfy guest requests. Improves general guest satisfaction andservice.Increases efficiency for restaurants (bars,cafeterias, etc.) and caterers by saving time,reducing human errors and by providinghigher quality customer service. Reduces queues at the reception desk andallows guest s to check-in and check-outcloser to where their room is.The global pecuniary and economic downturn that affected tourism from 2007 through to 2010and beyond has cast substantial attention to the role that crisis casings play in tourism. Theseconcerns have only been exacerbated by natural disasters, such as the 2010 Icelandic volcanic plume, pandemics, and the potential of future global change. The potential affect of crisisevents on international tourism is likely to increase both in size and frequency as tourism becomes increasingly hypermobile and the global economy even more interconnected. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2010) estimated that international touristarrivals fell by 4% in 2009.The seeming increase in impacts of economic and financial downturns, politicalinstability or natural disaster on tourism are arguably not a result of any increase in suchevents but instead illustrate the way in which the worlds economies, enrapture systems, andmedia and communicati on networks have now become so integrated that when onedestination or region has been affected then the impacts can reverberate through the entiresystem.Many of the crises that affect tourism are crisis events that are of a specific duration and occur in an identifiable time and space, although their impacts may be longer lasting (Ren, 2000).The notion of an event is significant because the limited duration of a high impact crisis eventserves to enhance the attention a crisis may receive in the media and enhance the perceptionthat the event is of concern and should be responded too (Smith, 1990, 2005 Greening &Johnson, 2007).Many of the crisis events that affect tourism have been occurring for millennia. moreover what haschanged is the dramatic growth in the scale of tourism and other human movement to theextent that the developed world is often described as hypermobile. The definition of hypermobility as the maximization of physical movement (Khisty & Zeitler, 2001, p. 598)is a us eful way to distinguish the vast growth in temporary mobility in aggregate form insome societies as well as a relatively small number of individuals of highly frequenttravellers within them (Bell & Brown, 2006 Gssling, Ceron, Dubios, & Hall., 2009).There have been substantial changes in mobility and other processes of globalisation since thedevelopment of mass commercial aviation in the late 1960 and early 1970s.This has meant that there has been a transition in aviation from being a luxury form of mobility for thewealthy few to being a relatively cheap means of mass loony toons for large parts of leisureand business travellers in industrialized countries (Gssling et al., 2009). Shifts in access as aresult of improved affordability and availability also correspond with fundamental changes in perceptions of distance, surface and space (e.g. Janelle, 1969 Urry, 2000 Gssling, 2002 Adeyet al., 2007). For many people, what was once a distant non-routine environment is now aneveryday r outine environment (Hall, 2005a, b Coles & Hall, 2006). According to Hall(2005a) the routinised space-time continuum paths of those living at the start of this century are not the same as those of people in 1984 when Giddens was writing or in the 1960swhen Hgerstrand was examining routine daily space-time trajectories.Instead, because of advances in transport and communication technology, for a substantial proportion of the population in developed countries or for elites in developing countries being able to travel long-distances to engage in leisure behaviour (what one would usually describe as tourism)is now a part of their routine activities (Hall, 2005a, p. 24).The significance in the change of the nature of a routine environment is that the more people participate in such long-distance movement and the more destinations and places depend onsuch relatively fast, large movements in economic terms, the more perceptions of crisisdevelop when such normal movement is stopped or slow ed down.This point was made in acomment in The Guardian with respect to pass travel chaos in the UK in December 2009as a result of heavy snowfalls. My solution to winter travel chaos? Dont travel. Yet powered movement is a craving no government is willing to curb. Hypermobility is the totemof personal liberty. Before the invention of jet travel, the idea of a winter holiday wasunthinkable for any but the very rich (Jenkins, 2009).Natural disasters and anthropogenic environmental problems are given some significancegiven their impacts on travel and tourism at various(a) scales as well as their potential to affectthe image of destinations (World Tourism Organization, 1998).