Aggregate descriptions, however, conceal a great deal of variation within the basic patterns and these repay closer attention. Historically (and indeed at present), international tourism has been dominated by Europe, both as a receiving and as a generating region. This pre-eminence reflects a number of factors including:
● an established tradition in domestic tourism that converts quite readily into international travel;
● a mature and developed pattern of tourism infrastructure, including transportation links, extensive provision of tourist accommodation and organisational frameworks such as travel companies;
● a wealth of tourist attractions including diverse coastal environments, major mountain zones, as well as world-ranked sites of historic or cultural heritage and urban tourism;
● a sizeable industrial population that is both relatively affluent and mobile and thus an active market for international travel;
● a range of climatic zones that favour both summer and winter tourism.
However, although Europeans do possess a higher propensity to travel, the geopolitical structure of the region inflates the level of international travel (Jansen-Verbeke, 1995). In particular, the juxtaposition of relatively small nations creates a large number of international borders that are often routinely crossed by tourists undertaking quite short journeys. In contrast, vacationers in the USA may travel very much further within their home country than the international travellers of Europe, but unless they cross into Mexico or Canada, they fail to register as international travellers.
The extent to which Europe dominates the international tourism market has tended to decline in relative terms in recent years, but European destinations still figure prominently in Table 3.1. This lists the top ten destinations according to visitor arrivals and tourist receipts, alongside the major generators of international travel (as indicated by expenditure levels). In terms of percentage shares of the world market, in 2004 European countries attracted almost 55 per cent of visitor arrivals and 52 per cent of international tourism receipts, whilst 38 per cent of the receipts from tourism at the world level are generated by the ten leading West European countries (WTO, 2005a).
Within the European area, however, there are marked spatial variations in the levels of international tourism and, in some situations, a striking imbalance between inbound and outbound tourist flows. Figure 3.2 provides a simple representation of the spatial patterning of international tourism in the European states in 2004, based on a ranking according to the number of arrivals (WTO, 2005b). Four categories are differentiated:
● Primary destination areas that are, in general, large states (or states with large populations) and possess well-developed summer and winter tourist seasons with a diverse range of attractions. There is a strong presence of Mediterranean tourism in this category.
● Second order destinations that also comprise important Mediterranean destinations and a number of central European states from both sides of the former divide between west and eastern Europe.
● Third order destinations that are dominated by the Scandinavian countries which perhaps suffer from high costs of living and a short summer season.
● Fourth order destinations that are characteristically small and often peripheral to the European core.
However, when the data are reworked to show the balance between inbound and outbound tourism, a rather different pattern emerges. Figure 3.3 illustrates the pattern of European states according to whether they are in ‘surplus’ or ‘deficit’ on their balance of tourist incomes and expenditures, that is, whether or not they earn more from foreign tourism than their own citizens expend on visits abroad. This reveals an essentially clear divide between, with the exception of Romania, a cluster of northern European states that are in ‘deficit’ and an extended swathe of central and southern European states that are in ‘surplus’.
This pattern reflects what has long been recognised as the predominant tourist flow in Europe – a north–south movement from the high concentrations of urban–industrial populations in the cooler, northern parts of Europe towards the much warmer areas that fringe the Mediterranean (Burton, 1994). This helps to establish a Mediterranean ‘core’ area centred in France, Spain and Italy which dominates the European holiday tourism market and which draws disproportionately upon Germany, the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian countries as sources for visitors. Superimposed upon primary north–south movements are secondary flows to the mountain regions of Europe (both for winter and for summer holidays) and all-season flows between the major European cities for cultural, Table 3.1 International tourism: major receiving and generating countries, 2004
Country Arrivals Country Receipts Country Expenditure
(by rank) (millions) (by rank) (US$ billion) (by rank) (US$ billion)
France 75.1 USA 74.5 Germany 71.0
Spain 53.6 Spain 45.2 USA 65.6
USA 46.1 France 40.8 UK 55.9
China 41.8 Italy 35.7 Japan 38.1
Italy 37.1 Germany 27.7 France 28.6
UK 27.8 UK 27.3 Italy 20.5
Mexico 20.6 China 25.7 Netherlands 16.5
Germany 20.1 Turkey 15.9 Canada 16.0
Austria 19.4 Austria 15.4 Russian Fed. 15.7
Canada 19.1 Australia 13.0 China 15.2
Source: WTO (2005a)
historic and business tourism (Williams, 2003). The former trend helps to position countries such as Austria in the top ten world destinations, whilst tourism to Britain is strongly dependent upon the latter.
Part of the explanation for differences in levels of tourism in Europe lies in the way in which the activity has spread. As we have seen, the French Mediterranean coast has a history of tourism which extends back over a hundred years, and the activity appears to have diffused from this region. Thus in the early 1960s, large-scale development spread westwards into Spain and eastwards to the Italian Adriatic coasts. By the early 1970s, the former Yugoslavian coast was an emerging holiday region and tourism to the Greek islands was becoming well established. In the 1980s, package-based coastal tourism reached Turkey.
As an example, Figure 3.4 illustrates how patterns of European air charter tourism originating within one state – the Irish Republic – evolved during this critical period of change (Gillmor, 1996). This study shows how additional destinations were developed as new markets for packaged tourism (such as Cyprus and Turkey); how some existing markets
Upper quartile (More than 13 million international visits) Upper middle quartile (12.9–8.5 million international visits) Lower middle quartile (8.4–5 million international visits) Lower quartile (Less than 5 million international visits)
Figure 3.2 Geographical variation in international tourist arrivals in Europe, 2004
were consolidated (e.g., France, Greece and Portugal); whilst countries that formed the initial foci for foreign travel tended to take proportionately smaller shares as the tourist space expands (e.g., Spain).
More recently, tourism has also begun to develop strongly in several of the former Communist states of eastern Europe. The collapse of Communism across eastern Europe in the 1990s led to a relaxation of controls on travel which has enabled higher levels of movement between states such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as well as rising levels of visiting from outside the former Soviet bloc. Johnson (1995), for example, shows how proximity to western Europe has assisted the development of tourism to Poland and the Czech Republic and major urban centres such as Prague have become popular, affordable destinations for visitors from Germany, the Netherlands and Britain. On a smaller scale, tourism to the Black Sea coast of Romania has attracted growing numbers of visitors from the Russian Federation (Light and Andone, 1996). However, although states such as Poland now figure in the top twenty world destinations, their position as centres of tourism is not entirely clear. Several studies have shown that the introduction of free market economies across eastern Europe has often triggered inflation, shortages of essential goods or services and unemployment (see, inter alia: Bachvarov, 1997; Balaz, 1995; Johnson, 1995). Thus, as Williams (2003) notes, much of the ‘tourism’ between states in eastern Europe is presently undertaken as day visits for purposes such as buying and selling goods, or seeking work, rather than leisure travel. This does not, though, detract from the longer-term prospects for a region that is rich in historical, cultural and landscape resources.
Countries in ‘surplus’
Countries in ‘deficit’
0 50 km
Figure 3.3 Balance of tourist trade in Europe, 2004
1972
0 50km
< 1,000 1,000–4,999
5,000–19,000 20,000–39,000
> 40,000 Number of air charter tourists
1991
0 50km
Figure 3.4 Changing patterns of air charter tourism from Ireland to Continental Europe, 1972–1991