The Global Travel & Tourism industry continues to grow at a healthy pace, but not without some challenges. Over the past decade, we have been witnessing a significant resident backlash against tourism growth in several major international destinations including Barcelona, Venice, Amsterdam, and Dubrovnik.
In addition, there has been growing concern about the environmental and social impacts increased visitation may have on natural attractions and local communities.
As most of this attention has been focused overseas, it has not been generally seen as an American concern, until recently.
As these issues gain media attention globally, our U.S. domestic media has begun asking the same questions and has focused on some communities across our country that have been debating the challenges of “Mass Tourism,” tourism development, the sharing economy in previously “local” neighborhoods and the encouragement of tourism growth.
That being said, Google searches on these topics in the United States typically turn up polite debates over the issues at hand versus the pictures of protests and “hot opposition” we have seen overseas.
Most of the discussion was actually rather polite and thoughtful, rather than emotional. After seeing all this, Longwoods International, a premier tourism market research consultancy, decided to find just how Americans felt about tourism.
