ABSTRACT
Tourism is the most common and geographically widespread form of “transnationalization from below.” It involves cross-border movements of what amount to masses of human beings, and it reaches to the most remote corners of the earth. Air traffic data indicate that there has been a linear increase in the number of people traveling since the mid-1970s, with international passenger traffic increasing many times faster than national (Beisheim et al. 1999). Statistics show a 25-fold increase in the number of passengers arriving from international points of departure between 1950 and 1998 (French 2000). In spite of environmental catastrophes and the danger of terrorism, international tourism is still on the increase and shows no signs of tapering off. It produces an estimated 11-15 percent of the gross national product in North America and the European Union, and there is, especially within the tourist industries of these regions, intense interest in encouraging its proliferation.1
