What’s the deal with tourists? Tourists represent the near perfect definition of a love-hate relationship among humans.
On the one hand, national, state, and local governments trip over themselves spending money to lure tourists to their locales. Has there ever been an elected official or an un-elected one outside of places like North Korea that doesn’t relish the thought of taxing tourists? Whether it’s hotel occupancy taxes, surcharges on rental cars, or any of a dozen other ‘outsider’ taxes, they all agree that tourist wallets contain the best money.
Local businesses act similarly. Near the US-Canadian border, American shops occasionally offer to accept Canadian dollars on par with American ones. Canadian money is certainly more colorful and dare I say prettier than American money. But does that justify a nearly 25% discount? Of course nothing stops the businesses from raising their prices at peak tourist times. And locals can always purchase Canadian dollars to enjoy the savings, too. Nonetheless, you get the general idea.
That said, no one really seems to like tourists. Scarcely hiding their disdain, locals refer to touristy areas as tourist traps. No local worth their measure would dare venture there. They like tourist money, but they’d prefer to take it without having to actually interact with them. A simple check or e-transfer in exchange for a few photo-shopped memories and a jar of whatever local produce they’re known for delivered the next day would be best.
Oddly enough, tourists adopt the same self-loathing. Terms like “off the beaten path” or “local flavor” clue them in to the genuine experience. Entire books, courses, and TV series have been created to teach them how to avoid other tourists.
Increase in International Travel
Yet despite this love-hate relationship with tourists, international travel is at an all-time high. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (who knew such a thing existed), in 1950 there were only 25 million international tourist arrivals. Nearly seventy years later that number has exploded into 1.4 billion arrivals. That’s fifty-six times more in less than a lifetime.
Many factors such as improved air travel, growing population, and more than twice as many countries contribute to the growth. More importantly, the economic growth during these years has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That’s not to say poverty isn’t a problem, only that more people now have more money to spend than at any time in the past. And regardless of how everyone feels about tourists, more and more of us find ourselves in their shoes.
That of course brings us to this month’s featured map courtesy of howmuch.net.
Several interesting points jump out at me. On a per capita basis it seems that Macao ($36B) and Hong Kong ($33B) are the biggest winners. To be fair, I don’t know if those numbers include Chinese tourists or not. Either way tourism is thriving there. Another is that some countries do a better job of picking the wallets of tourists than others. The US draws fewer visitors than France (~10M more) or Spain (~3M more). Yet neither of those countries takes in a third as much money as the US.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Note to pay the bills: No self-respecting Warder agent would describe themselves as a tourist. However, they do travel their world (and others, too) in a continuing quest to protect the Kingdom of Eridan. The Warders is a YA-friendly action adventure series that delivers James Bond-like intrigue in a fantasy setting. Why not check out a summary of the series here or find links to purchase books here.