MARKETS - The coming of the Asian wave: Are we ready for it?

STB-passport, june issue

As travel and tourism enters its third phase, the period when masses of Asians, led by India and China, will begin to travel, are we prepared for the massive growth ahead? And what will the Asian legacy be? Banyan Tree's chairman, Mr KP Ho, gives food for thought.

The tourism industry is entering the third phase, defined as the "Asian period of tourism", a period that will present unprecedented opportunities and challenges.
In a speech at the China Hotel Investment Summit in Shanghai last month, Mr KP Ho, Chairman of Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, said that this phase will see two-third's of the world's population, mainly in China and India, attaining a level of economic development where their populations will start to travel.
This wave, he said, would lead to a democratisation of tourism which will come "perilously close to the commoditisation of tourism, resulting in such massive numbers as to threaten the physical and cultural environments in most societies".
"Sustainable tourism will become an endangered ideal as our global industry lurches towards unsustainability," he said.

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