Slimma, safer, slower

One in seven people on the planet will travel this year.

2012 will be the year when international travellers top one billion, as international tourism continues to grow for the third straight year after the recession forced a drop in 2009. Together, these travellers will spend almost $1 trillion, according to research company Euromonitor.

Flight tickets that are some of the cheapest the world has ever seen, a rising outbound market from the emerging world and super-cool attractions that were once confined to the realms of imagination are among the factors driving this trend.

“International tourism hit new records in 2011 despite the challenging conditions,” says United Nations World Tourism Organization Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai. “For a sector directly responsible for five per cent of the world’s GDP, six per cent of total exports and employing one out of every 12 people in advanced and emerging economies alike these results are encouraging, coming as they do at a time in which we urgently need levers to stimulate growth and job creation.”

Overall, the industry should expect 2012 to deliver positive results. Despite the uncertain political and economic situation in Europe and around the world, the outlook remains good. Experts are cautiously optimistic for moderate single-digit growth. Assuming no major political or economic upheavals in the coming months, research firm IPK, which produced the ITB World Travel Monitor Report  2011-2012, independently forecasts that world outbound trips will increase three to four per cent  in 2012, based on its survey results. “People are worried but very few say that this will impact on their travel planning for 2012,” IPK CEO Rolf Freitag says. “We believe world tourism is on track in 2012. We expect a soft landing in 2012.”

Last year, 980 million tourists had their passports stamped on international trips, a rise of six per cent over 2010, the UNWTO says. In 2012, growth rates are likely to lie between three and four per cent, smashing the one billion mark for the first time ever sometime in November – despite the world’s gloomy economy.

And the UNWTO expects the foreign trips to continue, rising to 1.8 billion by 2030, or an increase of 43 million each year. “This growth offers immense possibilities as these can also be years of leadership, with tourism leading economic growth, social progress and environmental sustainability,” Rifai says. The organisation believes emerging economies in Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa will have the most to gain from this increase as they are expected to grow at double the pace of advanced markets in North America and Europe. By 2015, emerging economies will receive more international tourists than advanced economies, and by 2030 their share is expected to reach 58 per cent.

Tourists will be flocking to London this summer

THE POWER OF ASIA

Asia’s powerhouse economies are a major reason why tourism numbers are rising. As the benefits of double-digit GDP growth trickle down in China, for instance, more people than ever before are lining up to head to the top of the Burj Khalifa or take a cruise down the Seine. A staggering 100 million Chinese travellers are expected to go abroad by 2015.

Just as American travellers transformed Europe when they began vacationing there in the 1950s, so too are popular destinations learning to cater to growing waves of Chinese, Indians and Arabs by laying on bespoke tours, specialty menus and specially trained staff. This is also because they’re big spenders. Chinese visitors to the United States last year spent on average $6,200 per person versus $3,000 by British citizens, according to research from the US Travel Association.

“Asia remains one of the world’s fastest-growing travel markets and also has great potential for the European travel industry,” says Dr Martin Buck, the director of the Competence Centre Travel and Logistics at Messe Berlin, organisers of ITB Berlin. “Many tourism companies have already realised this. Simply describing one’s products in Mandarin is not enough. Marketing efforts must also take typical local aspects into account.”

GO SLIMMA

New business opportunities now lie in a set of five emerging countries that have been classed as rivalling the Brics nations, a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that is seen as driving much of the current economic growth. Industry executives at the last World Travel Market in November identified these new countries as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and Argentina, together called the Slimma nations.

Sri Lanka, the survey found, has inbound potential as the nation invests in its infrastructure as it emerges from decades of civil strife. Indonesia could provide a significant outbound market, while its variety of its landscape and the vast number of unexplored islands will appeal to inbound travellers. Another Asian nation in the frame is Malaysia, whose government has identified tourism as an important part of its economic development and has launched aggressive marketing campaigns in key markets. Emerging Latin America is represented by two nations. Mexico, with an established tourism industry driven by its proximity to the US, continues to invest in its infrastructure and is helped by a low tax regime for investors, visitors and its population. Argentina, meanwhile, is new on tourism map and as one of the few major economies to be seeing strong growth, it has more flexibility on pricing than many destinations.

SAFE HAVENS

Political unrest saw tourist arrivals crash in such regional hotspots as Egypt and Bahrain last year. Visits to the Middle East declined eight per cent in 2011, according to the Unwto, with the region losing an estimated five million international tourist arrivals compared to 2010, for a total of 56 million. But some destinations in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE, continued to sustain steady growth in tourist arrivals.

This trend is likely to continue well into 2012, with arrivals across the region set to rise 1.3 per cent, as real GDP figures post growth of 3.6 per cent, according to Euromonitor. The rebranding of the Arab Spring countries has begun, with Tunisia and Egypt having started to reinvent themselves in a new democratic era with a successful transition in place. However, Libya and Syria are still far from recovery, and sporadic troubles in Bahrain are by and large, contained. The re-branding process will vary across each country, with the major challenge being how to send a positive message. “People forget bad news and the travel industry in the Middle East can bounce back very fast as seen in the past,” says Adel Ali, CEO, Air Arabia.

In such a situation, regional and international tourists will look once more to safe havens such as Jordan and the UAE for a quiet, peaceful break. Jordan posted a seven per cent increase in tourist numbers in 2011 and several international hotel brands have announced new projects in the country, among them Hilton and Marriott.

The UAE will go one better, with recent research from Business Monitor International forecasting a nine per cent rise in overseas visitors to nine million tourists in 2012, both because of its stability and because of the concerted marketing efforts of its many airlines.

BUSINESS IS A GAME

British Prime Minister David Cameron has reportedly become an expert at lobbing birds at pigs, destroying the poor creatures in the process. Thankfully, his achievements are only virtual – although the strategies he has learned while mastering the 300 levels of the Angry Birds underline both the popularity of the video game and why many in business are bringing the dynamics of video games into non-gaming environments.

Travel companies first took to the trend in 2010, with the Australia Tourism Board and Lufthansa offering prizes to encourage travellers to share photos and experiences. Since then, 18-34-year-olds have emerged as drivers of the trend, but surprisingly, 23 per cent of gamers are aged between 45 and 65 years of age.

“Gamification is the latest battleground in online travel, combining key aspects of loyalty and social networking. Together with traditional marketing, gaming will help travel companies to increase brand awareness, in the hope of becoming the next viral sensation,” says Caroline Bremner, International Head of Travel and Tourism Research at Euromonitor.

HIGHER, FASTER, STRONGER

One of the year’s biggest stories is the Summer of Britain. June and July will see planeloads of people will converge on London to celebrate both a reassuring stability and a love of improvement. The double bonus of the Olympics and the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II mean that 2012 is a critical year for British tourism, according to Sandie Dawe, chief executive of VisitBritain. The country is spending £125 million in advertising across the world, from taxis in Mumbai to metro stations in New York and Shanghai.

An extra 600,000 international visitors are expected in London this summer, and while 250,000 hotel rooms have been made available, high prices and trends such as crowd-sourcing and couch-surfing has driven the demand for alternative accommodation, such as private apartments and gardens to camp in.

SLOW TRAVEL

At the other end of the spectrum, our madcap lives have spawned another trend entirely: slow travel. Epic train rides, long and winding road trips and foot explorations are likely to drive travel over the next few years, say respondents in a Lonely Planet survey. More tourists are likely to give the classic sights a miss, forgoing the crowds for the sheer joy of a long journey on the Trans-Siberian railway.

PEACE FLOATS

Never mind the Costa Concordia. One hundred years after the Titanic memorably went down; launching an entire industry and very ear-splitting song, cruises will find new takers. From custom-made beds to bigger cabins, cruise lines are courting people who have never stepped on a boat before with better accommodation, Michelin-star food and facilities to rival a theme parks. “Cruise companies are realising there’s a generation of people who’ve never taken a cruise,” Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief of Cruise Critic told Travel & Leisure magazine. “They’re hoping that by making their cabins as luxurious as possible, they can lure customers from the chic hotels they normally frequent.”

Their efforts seem to be paying off: in a Trip advisor survey of 2,700 US travellers earlier this year, 23 per cent of respondents said they were planning a cruise holiday in 2012. Better facilities and new terminals mean Gulf ports are now on the itinerary for many cruise lines and are posting record increases in traffic – indeed, for the first time in its history, DP World’s Dubai Cruise Terminal has welcomed four mega cruise ships at the same time, underlining its ability to cater to the rapid growth of cruise tourism in the city.

And yes, the industry has adopted new safety rules after the Costa Concordia disaster.