ABSTRACT
In the early twenty-first century, the future is rather harder for the careful observer to foresee because we are looking at a mature market and a mature supply in which global forces, not domestic holiday trends are the main driving forces. Tourism in the broad sense in which it is now interpreted at international level (UN Statistical Commission definitions of 1993) is a far wider concept than holidays, which have become only a minor element of total British tourism. Tourism appears to be at a crossroads where the directions for development are far from clear. Paradoxically, such directions may be more, rather than less, likely to be influenced by government action and decisions than hitherto.
