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New York City is on pace to receive an astounding 50.2-million tourists this year, setting an all-time record.
"While playing host to the world isn't new for us, the number of visitors we're welcoming in recent years is news," boasted Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
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According to city officials, one-fifth of the total number, about 10.1 million people, came from overseas -- Great Britain alone accounted for 1-million visitors to the Big Apple. Bloomberg added that this massive glut of tourists is expected to contribute about $32-billion into the city’s economy, a handsome amount of cash for a city still reeling from the global financial crisis.
“It means more guests in our hotels, more shoppers in our stores, larger audiences in our museums and theater, more diners in our restaurants ... more economic growth and — what’s really important in the city — more tax revenues and more jobs,” Bloomberg said.
While Mayor Bloomberg (as well as restaurants and hotels and other businesses in the city) are quite happy about all this, I take a contrarian view.
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Tourism is a plague that threatens to destroy culture and society.
The world is indeed becoming a smaller place as more and more people can now afford to travel to far-flung countries. This phenomenon is relatively new -- at one time, travelling to foreign lands was primarily restricted to the idle wealthy, diplomats, scholars, students, as well as artists, soldiers and adventurers.
With the advent of new middle classes around the world (and the democratization of transport), international travel became widely available to the masses.
Before, say, the 1950s, it was quite normal for people all around the world to never stray far from their birthplace their whole lives -- with the exception of such events as military service.
Those days have vanished forever.
The United Nations’ World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) recently stated last year there were 940 million international tourist arrivals -- this does not mean that that many people travelled to other countries, since many tourists go to multiple destinations in any given year, or even in one holiday. The figure likely includes people who make short jaunts over neighboring borders (like Frenchmen crossing to Belgium and back the same day, for example).
Still, it’s an extraordinary number.
And it will continue to escalate.
In the first half of 2011, international tourism grew by nearly 5 percent to a new record of 440 million arrivals.
