International tourism has a high inverse correlation with birth rates. Correlation does not imply causation, but a plausible hypothesis is that the massification of tourism is largely due to the fact that people have stopped having children and have fewer fixed expenses.
According to the World Tourism Organization, in 2024 international tourist arrivals reached 1.465 billion, the same level as in 2019 in absolute numbers, with a compound annual growth of 4.5% between 1964 and 2024, much higher than what the world GDP has grown in constant dollars and per capita, which since 1964 has grown at a compound annual rate of about 2.0%.
As a percentage of the population, tourists traveling internationally represented 3.20 % of the global population in 1964, while in 2024 they represent 17.95 % (still slightly below 2019).
Therefore, neither per capita wealth growth nor population growth can explain the enormous growth of tourism in the last 60 years. There must be other factors. My hypothesis is that one of the most important, if not the most important, is the falling birth rate.
According to the World Bank, the world fertility rate in 1964 was 5.13 children per woman. Since then it has plummeted to 2.2 children per woman in 2023, and is less than 2 children per woman if we exclude sub-Saharan Africa, where women still have, thank God, 4.4 children on average. In Spain, the rate is 1.12 children per woman, in Italy 1.18, in the USA 1.62, in Japan 1.20 and in South Korea 0.72.
We have to do something to reverse the downward trend in the birth rate, especially in the developed world. Otherwise, sectors such as tourism will continue to grow, but increasingly in "Imserso mode", and then decline and disappear rapidly.
