Since the last fifty years, the tourism trends have changes rapidly. In modern days, tourism is a major part of everyone’s life. In addition to this, it has become a major source of income, especially in developing countries. As the income rate of people is increasing day by day and the package holidays are becoming cheaper, more opportunities are available for them to travel the world. It is evident from leaked sources that the tourism industry has grown rapidly since the latter half of the twentieth century. It can absolutely be linked with several factors like, increased mobility, ever increasing wealth, improvements in transport and accessibility, more leisure time, changes in fashion and lifestyles, product development and the increased awareness of places (Mowforth and Munt 2015). The purpose of the essay is to critically discuss about the tourism trends in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Tourism industry is now regarded as a global industry, which involves millions of people in domestic as well as international travel every year. As per World Tourism Organization (WTO), there were over 600 million international travelers in the year 2000, which is almost 8 percent of the total population. The tourism industry has undergone huge changes within the past century, which has not only impacted the destination, but also the way it adds up to the overall economy of the destination and the country (Horner and Swarbrooke 2016).
(Figure: The growth of Tourism Industry
Source: Scott, Hall and Stefan 2012)
The tourism industry
The overall development of the tourism industry in the latter half of the twentieth century was severely influenced by various factors, which helped in developing the industry. However, on discussing about the possible way of distinguishing the tourism industry in the latter half and today, it is found that there are several changes, which influenced the overall development of the industry. Taking the technological changes into consideration, it is essential to stress on the change in the system of transportation in modern days. In the first half of the twentieth century, the highly advanced transportation modes were trains, and the railroad systems were only developed in North America and Europe. On the contrary, the rest of the world had very poorly developed railroad systems (Steinbrink, Frenzel and Koens 2012).
The emergence of the railroad, better infrastructure and development of the roads stimulated the tourism business’ development. Additionally, by the middle of the twentieth century, the aviation industry started to develop rapidly and air flights became popular. It catered to the large number of travelers. During this point, it is important to mention that due to the emergence of the aviation industry, the tourism industry started flourishing since the middle of the twentieth century. Moreover, it is evident through leaked information that by the late of twentieth century, the tourism industry reached a development level, which is beyond comparison (Scott, Hall and Stefan 2012). In modern days, it is still growing in a faster rate.
(Figure: Tourism Industry
Source: Horner and Swarbrooke 2016)
Technological changes
It is quite important to mention the technological changes that emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century. These were mostly in relation with the development of information technologies and telecommunication. In addition to this, the new telecommunication systems as well as information technologies have brought in huge changes to the tourism industry. Tourism outgrew into a mass industry, due to these technological factors. Before, tourists had relatively lower opportunities for communicating with their friends and relatives worldwide. In addition to this, the travelling was also accompanied with lack of destinations and information (Holden 2016).
In the first half of the twentieth century, due to lack of technologies travelers had to stay in isolation, away from their motherland. In the latter half, with the development of modern technologies, including telecommunications, mobile phones as well as internet, all the physical boundaries between the places and countries got eliminated. Technologies made various places available for the tourists in such a way that they got informed regarding potential destinations and they could travel to any corner of the world (Caton 2012). In addition to this, they could communicate easily with their relatives and friends with the assistance of modern telecommunication modes.
Socio-cultural changes
The globe tends to develop homogenous trends when it comes to the level of socio culture. Most importantly, in the last few years, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, the world became extremely diverse in nature and every country of the world was a unique destination for the tourists. In the middle of the twentieth century, the world was bi polar in nature. The two super powers, that is, the USA and the USSR divided the whole world into two different segments. Such a division limited the opportunities for the overall travel industry’s development as people from the democratic nations had very limited accessibility to other countries. However, in the end of the twentieth century, the world has shown various changes after the Cold War (Telfer and Sharpley 2015).
(Figure: Cultural Changes
Source: Mahn 2014)
The elimination of the physical barriers to travel in other countries and the development of globalization has helped in stimulating the economic growth as well as developed the tourism industry. The one and only superpower of the world, US have contributed a lot to the faster growth of Western society to the rest parts of the world. English language became the medium of communication on the international platform. In this way, travelers got huge opportunities to travel at any parts of the world. In addition to this, the technological as well as socio-cultural changes determined the overall development of the modern industry of tourism. The development of the industry brought in huge profit to the local companies and economy of the country (Williams and Lew 2014).
Current scenario
The current scenario of the tourism industry as well as the technological progress has determined the quick development of the mass tourism. This was traditionally regarded as economically more efficient and effective as compared to the niche tourism. The latter can be regarded as relatively new or recent trend. In fact, it actually helps in determining the skepticism of few specialists. Majority of the tourism specialists hold a believe that mass tourism has contributed a lot to the country’s overall economy and made it more efficient as well as effective, in comparison with the niche tourism (Jóhannesson 2016). Firstly, it can be said that with the development of infrastructures and telecommunication systems, mass tourism increased as people can now move to any part of the world, without any issues. Secondly, the huge flow of tourists from one part of the country to the other, helped in improving the economic situation of the travelled destinations (Mahn 2014).
(Figure: Current Scenario of Tourism Trends
Source: Mahn 2014)
On the other side
However, it is true that certain risk factors also get accompanied with the increased number of tourist heads. This means that the countries should have measurable means of risk assessment factors, for maintaining a stable flow of the tourists to their destinations. In respect to this, the possible estimation is that this issue can be resolved if sustainable development of the tourism industries continue, without any crisis. Countries should have several reliable methods of managing disasters. For instance; referring to the tsunami which occurred at South-Eastern Asia, the area got literally deserted, as several tourists were afraid to visit that place. In addition to this, the tourist as well as insurance companies had to pay huge compensation to the deceased ones, due to the natural disaster. It resulted in the deterioration of these organizations in the then market. Therefore, considering this case, it can be said that the large number of visitors caused huge problem to the country’s economy and in fact, it was a disadvantage as it increased the general volume of compensations (Visser 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the socio-cultural and technological changes, which include the development of telecommunication, transportation systems and others, growing cultural and economic cooperation between the countries has contributed a lot to the overall development of the tourism industry. The industry keeps on growing as tourists, especially from developing countries are more interested in exploring new countries and places, attend universities and educational tours. In fact, taking the current economic globalization into consideration, it can be said that the tourism business will flourish more in the upcoming years.
References
Caton, K., 2012. Taking the moral turn in tourism studies. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(4), pp.1906-1928.
Holden, A., 2016. Environment and tourism. Routledge.
Horner, S. and Swarbrooke, J., 2016. Consumer behaviour in tourism. Routledge.
Jóhannesson, G.T., 2016. A Fish Called Tourism: Emergent Realities of Tourism Policy in Iceland. Tourism Encounters and Controversies: Ontological Politics of Tourism Development, pp.181-200.
Mahn, C., 2014. The virtual tourist gaze in Greece, 1905-2000. Annals of Tourism Research, 48, pp.193-206.
Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and new tourism in the third world. Routledge.
Scott, D., Hall, C.M. and Stefan, G., 2012. Tourism and climate change: Impacts, adaptation and mitigation. Routledge.
Steinbrink, M., Frenzel, F. and Koens, K., 2012. Development and globalization of a new trend in tourism. Slum Tourism: Poverty, Power and Ethics, London, Routledge, pp.1-17.
Telfer, D.J. and Sharpley, R., 2015. Tourism and development in the developing world. Routledge.
Visser, G., 2015. Recent trends in South-African student tourism research. South African Geographers, p.201.
Williams, S. and Lew, A.A., 2014. Tourism geography: critical understandings of place, space and experience. Routledge.
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