Matters of Scale - Travels and Tribulations
Number of international tourist visits in 1950 | 25 million |
Number of visits in 2000 | 698 million |
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Amount of money U.S. financier Dennis Tito paid per day to be shuttled by the
Russians to the international space station as the first "space tourist" | $2.5 million |
Average amount of money spent per day by each of the 467,000 tourists who each year
visit the Maldives, where tourism accounts for 81 percent of the country's GDP | $2 |
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Projected number of tourists expected to visit France in 2020 (France is currently the top international tourist destination with 75.5 million visits in 2000) | 106 million |
Projected number of tourists expected to visit China in 2020 (China, which will soon be the top international tourist destination, saw 31.2 million tourists in 2000) | 130 million |
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Number of international tourist trips expected in 2020 | more than 1.56 billion |
Projected growth in the human population in that time | 1.5 billion |
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Number of permanent residents living in the U.S. state of Hawaii in 1999 | 1.2 million |
Number of visitors who traveled to Hawaii in 1999 | 6.7 million |
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Average amount an international tourist spent per day in 1998 while visiting
Luang Prabang, the former royal capital of Laos | $90 |
Average daily income per person in Laos in 1999 | $4 |
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Sources: World Tourism Organization, Tourism Market Trends: World Overview & Tourism Topics 2001 (Madrid: World Tourism Organization,
2001); Peter Baker, "Tito Plans to Promote Space Tourism," Washington Post, 9 May 2001; Maldives data: Worldwatch estimate
based on GDP in Human Development Report 2001 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) and international tourism
receipts and arrivals in World Overview & Tourism Topics 2001; projection 2020 for France and China: "Tourism: China To Become
World's Top Destination," UN Wire, 11 October 1999; U.N. Population Division, Demographic Indicators 1950?2050, 1998 revision;
www.census.gov; www.hawaii.gov/tourism; 1998 Statistical Report on Tourism in Laos, National Tourism Authority of Lao PDR (1998).
UNDP Human Development Report, 2001. Compiled by Uta Saoshiro and Leanne Mitchell.