Abstract
Tourism is not apolitical. The development of this field has diverse, complex, and contradictory economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental impacts. The revenues derived from international tourism continue to break records: 1.035 billion people traveled for leisure in 2012. Thus, tourism has become a mass practice. The history of international tourism in the last 50 years can be divided into three stages: (1) the period of 1950–1980, which were characterized by a gradual democratization of tourism supported by sustained economic growth; (2) the 1990s, which were marked by an euphoric tourist market that pushed for increasing access across the globe for international tourism; and (3) the years following 2001, which are marked by maturity in the field of tourism. The ecstatic vision of a world without borders was met with harsh reality after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, leading to increased awareness of the complexities for tourism in a world fraught with conflict. Selective diffusion of global tourist flows is the current economic and political logic driving the tourism industry and translates into sophisticated business relations. The climates of insecurity that affect some fragile tourist destinations in the periphery are more sensitive to the expansions and contractions of international tourist markets.
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Notes
- 1.
Receipts from international tourism amounted to $1,050 billion USD in 2011. A total of 64.6 % of expenditures are made in countries with advanced economies (classification based on the International Monetary Fund), divided between the European Union (36.6 % of the total market), North America (14.1 %), and North-East Asia (13.9 %). In terms of emissions of international tourists, the positions are identical: Europe emits more than 50 % of international tourists, followed by Asian economies (China, now the world leader with 83 million in 2012, followed by Japan and South Korea) and North America. Over 75 % of international tourists choose destinations within their region of origin.
- 2.
The latest figures provided by the WTO for Côte d'Ivoire report 301,000 international tourists for 1998.
- 3.
In a referendum held on June 14, 1964, 99 % of voters approved a constitutional amendment that gave the presidency to François Duvalier for life (because according to the constitution, the president of the republic could not be re-elected).
- 4.
Several medical studies at the time believed that the virus originated in Africa was spread in the United States via Haiti.
- 5.
The average annual growth of the cruise industry is 7.5 % over the period 1980–2011. The number of cruise passengers increased from 3.7 million in 1990 to 7.2 million in 2000 to 14.8 million in 2010 and 16.65 million in 2011, with a total of 105 million overnight passengers. Growth prospects for the industry are favorable, with 25 additional vessels expected between 2013 and 2015, with a total of 360,000 beds; a $10 billion investment over three years.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40961033) and International Science & Technology Cooperation Program of China (No. 2012DFA11270) for the support given to the study.
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Dehoorne, O., Depault, K., Ma, SQ., Cao, Hh. (2014). International Tourism: Geopolitical Dimensions of a Global Phenomenon. In: Cao, BY., Ma, SQ., Cao, Hh. (eds) Ecosystem Assessment and Fuzzy Systems Management. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 254. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03449-2_35
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