‘No man is an island’: Let’s talk tourism and transportation infrastructure
Travel & tourism and transportation infrastructure are inextricably linked. The former is almost wholly dependent on the latter.
As stakeholders in travel, tourism, leisure, and hospitality, do we take for granted how we move from place to place?
Saverio Francesco Bertolucci shares his thoughts in the first in a series of “Good Tourism” Insights initiated by Tourism’s Horizon, a “GT” Insight Partner.
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Policymakers in national tourism organisations (NTOs) understandably focus their efforts on marketing the cultural and natural heritage of their destinations.
But what about tourism and transportation infrastructure?
Meanwhile tourism academia mostly emphasises sustainability and critically considers tourism’s impact on society in a variety of ways. Studies of the role of hand-held technologies are increasingly commonplace, though, and newer areas like the internet of things, the metaverse, and AI are all coming into view.
But, again, little attention is paid to tourism and transportation infrastructure.
If there is one neglected topic that demands our attention as travel & tourism stakeholders, it is transport.
Mass tourism involves mass movements of people. The extent, ease, speed, reliability, and cost of movement is all down to transportation infrastructure.
This is not just the case for international tourism. Local hospitality in our cities thrives when people can get around; suffers when they cannot.
Collapses and slow declines
The importance of infrastructure was posed starkly through the 2018 disaster of the collapse of Ponte Morandi in Italy. It is a tragic example of the consequence of neglecting infrastructure, a neglect paralleled in academic and political discussion.
The Morandi bridge collapse killed 43 people and cut a key thoroughfare between the port of Genoa and the north. Genoa subsequently faced long-lasting congestion issues and weak tourism demand for the city.
This is an extreme example of a common phenomenon worldwide; that of inadequate and ageing transportation infrastructure.
Poor infrastructure is one of the key issues facing many growing African megalopolises, such as Lagos, Nigeria. It holds back economic growth, reduces quality of life in general, and negatively affects tourism specifically.
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The citizens of rich European capitals, such as London, Paris, and Rome average at least 100 hours lost in congestion per year; time that could be better spent at leisure with family and friends or in other productive ways. In Spain, the average travel time to and from the workplace is 50 minutes.
Recent studies show how road quality and safety is declining in the United States, leading to a steep increase in deaths and other opportunity costs.
China spends 9–12% of its income on transportation infrastructure. By comparison, it accounts for only 5% of expenditure in Europe and 2.5% in the USA.
‘A part of the main’
Poor transportation infrastructure limits … Continue reading the full “Good Tourism” Insight for free at The “Good Tourism” Blog.
