Tourism is broken. Let’s rethink the game

For too long, tourism has been dominated by multinational heavyweights — it’s time to put it back in the hands of locals and travelers.

Every time we visit a new city, or country, we participate in a global exchange of wealth that dwarves almost any other industry. These individual transactions occur millions of times each day, as tourists seek out services, products and experiences in a foreign nation.

Therefore, it’s little surprise that travel remains one of the world’s biggest industries. In 2016 alone, it contributed $7.6 trillion to the global economy, or 10.6% of the world’s total GDP. It’s also the world’s third largest employer, responsible for 1 in 10 workers, or 292 million people, who serve an estimated 1.3 billion international tourists. That’s a lot of money, and considerable manpower. The rise of tourism has been remarkable, not only as it continues to outpace the global economy, but also as it provides a direct interface between rich and poor.

Read the full article here: https://blog.coolcousin.com/rethinking-the-tourism-game/

Callum Hale-Thomson is Cool Cousin’s Global Community Manager and an English Scholar at Cambridge University.