The future of tourism and globalization: Some critical remarks

Present-day generalizations on the future of tourism see it as a key force in the process of globalization. This paper challenges this notion by pointing out that our knowledge of the real shape of world travel and tourism is still quite limited and that the sketchy evidence we can gather with present-day tools thus presents a much more modest picture confronting the claim that tourism has reached a high level of globalization. While it is an activity practiced all over the world, it is scarcely global. In this sense, the perception that tourism is wholeheartedly global and that it mainly connects the richer parts of the world with the poorest pleasure peripheries is but a figment of the post-romantic collective imagination that dominates much tourism research.