The Evolution of International Tourism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

The Evolution of International Tourism - Essay Example hough it is prone to be unbalanced as the issue of price is less considered in long-duration tours but of importance in the shorter route destinations hence the aspect price elasticity (Rossellà ³, 2003). International tourism however has always performed better than other economic sectors as evidenced by past records that reveal that, ‘In the last fifty years, for every 1% rise in the per capita income of the world’s inhabitants, the number of travellers has risen by over 3%’ (Manera and Taberner, 2007, pg.4). In the period between 1950 and 2001, global per capita GDP grew by an average of 2.1 percent while the number of tourists within the same period grew by seven percent hence the UNWTO forecasted growth was a modest 1561 million or an average 1.6 billion ITAs by 2020 dependent on a steady upsurge in per-capita income and population growth patterns (Manera and Taberner, 2007). The UNWTO World Tourism Barometer 2009, all the major tourist designations recorded declines with only Africa depicting a growth of three percent. The world tourist arrivals suffered a sharp decline of negative eight percent in 2009, a downturn that started in the second half of 2008. This have inevitably attributed to the impact of the worldwide economic recession that has spelt doom for the international travellers as most tightened on their budgets. The international tourist arrivals (ITA) had by 2008 reached 922 million which was 1.9 percent appreciation from that of 2007, while the international tourism receipts (ITR) rose to US$944 or Euro 642 billion within the same period a 1.8 percent upsurge. The UNWTO (2009) indicated that approximately US$165 billion was generated from the international passenger transport for the combined total tourism expenditure to US$1.1 trillion that more than US$3 billion daily. The expansionist growth has mirrored the explosion of mass tourism stimulated by the era of packaged tours and the growth of the low-cost flights mainly in short haul