Sustainable Tourism: The Long View

Abstract

When the history of tourism is written in its encyclopedic detail, it will recount the influences of ancient civilizations, empires, and dynasties (e.g., Persian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Roman). Their relics are the antecedents of today’s great cities, with road and infrastructure networks, centers of learning, culture, language, religion and architecture, systems of law and government. Particularly in Europe and Asia, this heritage endured over centuries and is today’s tourism attractions that draw intense visitor curiosity. Tourism is commonly reflected through history as movements of people across neighboring towns, regions, and countries. Some researchers mark the beginning of tourism from the late seventeenth century when the classic ‘Grand Tour’ reached its pinnacle led by the British aristocracy, landed gentry, and wealthy European citizens, as ‘tour-ists’ pursuing experiences in European classics and culture.1 Grand touring via horse-drawn carriage took months and years, and Italy and France were the most popular destinations. Over time as the steamboat and railway opened up once impenetrable frontiers, so too the automobile and airplane eventually became modes of transportation that facilitated quicker travel through contiguous states and from lower societal strata. These transit modes would move people over greater distances, in larger numbers and in progressively shorter times, eventually making business, leisure, or holiday travel commonplace. On the demand side and in the current digital age, advances in Internet and mobile technologies brought travel planning literally to the palm of the hand, where an entire vacation can be decided in a matter of minutes. The immediate consequence was a reduced need for intermediary travel agents and a continued explosion of booking websites that ensured wide access to digital tools best exemplified by the Airbnb accommodationand Uber ride-sharing platform applications. Described as the ‘sharing economy’, these sites are most amenable to today’s twenty-first century traveler—the younger, upwardly mobile millennials (ages 18 to 37), who are already reshaping current and future tourism demand, behaviors and trends.