ABSTRACT
A glance at Map 6.1 emphasizes the huge size of the North American continent; the USA and Canada occupy 14.3 per cent of the world's land area and are home to 5.1 per cent of the world's population. With this immense size comes immense diversity, in both people and landscape. The populations of the USA and Canada are concentrated on the coastlines, with large coastal cities such as Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego dominating in the west, and Toronto, Boston, New York, Washington DC and Miami dominating in the east. North America has often been described in tourism terms as resembling a ring doughnut, with the great population centres of the coasts driving outgoing international tourism and receiving most inbound visitors, but the centre dominating domestic tourism and, increasingly, attracting international visitors. The USA spends more on, and receives more from, international travel than any other country in the world with a sophisticated travel infrastructure. Each day more than 15 000 planes take off from USA airports, and travel and tourism is responsible for 12 per cent of USA jobs. The situation in Canada is rather different although both countries share an emphasis on domestic tourism; however, in Canada this is directed more to the great outdoors than to managed visitor attractions. There is a huge amount of intraregional travel; nearly 80 per cent of visitors to Canada come from the USA, and more than 50 per cent of visitors to the USA come from Canada.
