Experimental Blog # 181

Quotations or notes from "Overbooked - The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism" by Elizabeth Becker

"In 1950 < > only 25 million trips recorded by foreign tourists < > 25 million tourist trips to foreign countries in 1960; 250 million in 1970; 536 million in 1995; 922 million in 2008; 1 billion in 2012."
" .. the tourism industry contributed $7 trillion to the world economy in 2007 and was the biggest employer, with nearly 250 million associated jobs. {And those figures don't include people who vacation in their own countries.}"
"Tourism creates $3 billion in business every day." This figure seems inconsistent with the $7 trillion right above.
"In gross economic power it is in the same company as oil, energy, finance and agriculture. At least one out of every ten people around the world is employed by the industry .."

"As of 2011, China had 271 billionaires and 960,000 millionaires. < > by 2020, when China is expected to become the number-one destination, tourism will provide over 10% of China's GDP. To keep up with all those tourists, China is expected to need 5,000 additional new passenger airplanes at a cost of $600 billion."

""There is also the bigger issue of saying thank you and please. Some Chinese consider saying thank you and please as somehow degrading.""!?

"The flash points of travel and tourism are the same around the world: local communities feeling powerless in the face of their governments and big industry; < ...........>; civil societies feeling ignored when they try to protect their forests and beaches, neighborhoods and children; ..."