Travel and Tourism Professional Education

Abstract

Abstract In 1979, the famed futurist Herman Kahn predicted that tourism would be the world's largest industry by the year 2000. Eight years later, Somerset Waters, editor of The Big Picture (1987 edition of the Travel World Yearbook) stated that tourism is now the world's largest industry, comprising 11.4 percent of the world's GNP. Spending for the world's domestic and international tourism is larger than the GNP of any country in the world except the U.S. Waters also reported that worldwide spending for trips 25 miles or more from home reached almost $2 trillion in 1986, generating 64.3 million jobs directly or indirectly.