1. The Growth of Tourism

2. Learning objectives How have tourist numbers changed?
What are the factors behind the rapid growth in tourism?
Where are the most popular tourist destinations?
How can tourists be classified?
How do tourist destinations change over time?
Learning objectives

3. How have tourist numbers changed?

4. Tourism facts!
Good sources of data for Tourism can be found at the official website of the UK Research Liaison Group. The group is made up of representatives of the national tourist boards for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Britain and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Globally the World Tourism Organisation has its website at

5. Learning objectives How have tourist numbers changed?
What are the factors behind the rapid growth in tourism?
Where are the most popular tourist destinations?
How can tourists be classified?
How do tourist destinations change over time?
Learning objectives

6. Rapid growth in tourism
Eurotunnel logo is provided courtesy of Eurotunnel plc.

7. Rapid growth in tourism5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
1950
1985
2010
number of cars
in the UK
(millions)
Describe the changes in car ownership and household income since 1985.
Explain how these changes might help to explain the pattern on graph C.
State two or more reasons that would help to explain the pattern of graph C. C B

8. Learning objectives How have tourist numbers changed?
What are the factors behind the rapid growth in tourism?
Where are the most popular tourist destinations?
How can tourists be classified?
How do tourist destinations change over time?
Learning objectives

9. Where do people visit? Tourist Destinations 2015
Why did Europe receive the most tourists?

10. Most popular tourist destinations
As a development of this exercise students could be asked to plot proportional located bars or circles using the data below:
The Top Ten Tourist Destinations 2003 (World-Tourism Organisation)
Vistors (millions)
France 75
Spain 52
USA
41.2
Italy 40
China 33 UK
24.7
Austria
19.1
Mexico
18.7
Germany
18.4
Canada
17.5

11. Learning objectives How have tourist numbers changed?
What are the factors behind the rapid growth in tourism?
Where are the most popular tourist destinations?
How can tourists be classified?
How do tourist destinations change over time?
Learning objectives

12. How are tourists classified?

13. How are tourists classified?

14. Learning objectives How have tourist numbers changed?
What are the factors behind the rapid growth in tourism?
Where are the most popular tourist destinations?
How can tourists be classified?
How do tourist destinations change over time?
Learning objectives

15. Butler’s model of the evolution of tourism
A simplified version of Butler’s model of the evolution of tourism:
Do you believe this is true for all holiday destinations?

16. The evolution of tourism

17. Examination question
1. Describe how the growth of tourism may change over time.
No figures on this graph to quote but expect reference to the stages and the rate of
growth/decline.
2. In stage 2 what changes may occur in the landscape of a tourist area?
Changes are mostly negative – new airports built, farmland lost to hotels…
3. List 2 problems that may occur in stage 4 on the graph.
(expect recall from activity on previous slide:)
The sea becomes too polluted to swim in.
Some souvenir shops may close
Rare species may be lost
Describe how the growth of tourism may change over time.
In stage 2 what changes may occur in the landscape of a tourist area?
List two problems that may occur in stage 4.

18. Growth of tourism game

19. Key ideas
The world’s tourist industry has grown rapidly.
There were 1030 million tourist arrivals in 2015 compared to 25.3 million in 1950.
Europe receives the largest percentage of tourist arrivals each year.
Tourists can be classified according to the duration of their visit, the nature of activity, the distance travelled and their locational preference.
Tourist destinations change over time and as tourist numbers increase. Effects can be positive and negative.