TOURISM BECOMES AN INDUSTRY - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 7

The Soviet side lost and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, marking the beginning
of the end of the Cold War. In 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated. By then Communist
China had begun to open its doors to the West, positioning itself against the Soviet Union.
The stark divisions of the Cold War were obscured and then eliminated. Those phys-
ical and allegorical “walls” melted away from the northern Baltic Sea, from countries
like Estonia and Latvia, through Eastern Europe—Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Yugoslavia—down to the Adriatic Sea and Albania. On the other side of the globe the
Mekong Delta nations of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were no longer off-limits. For the
first time in modern history the world opened to tourism.
The end of the Cold War had a profound effect throughout the world, reshaping coun-
tries and lives. The impact on tourism was obvious, since the industry is premised on the
ability to cross borders and visit foreign countries. Before 1990, Western Europe was the
overwhelming center of the tourist world, grabbing more than 60 percent of international
tourists, visiting countries like France, Great Britain, Italy and Spain. Afterward the tour-
ist map was redrawn, now including vast swaths of Africa and Asia and reinvigorating the
western hemisphere, which until then accounted for less than one-fourth of tourism. The
world was on the verge of a tourist explosion, for better and for worse, and largely unno-
ticed.
The geopolitical milestone ending the Cold War was matched by a technological re-
volution. Everything required for traveling had become modernized. Long-haul airplanes
could transport travelers halfway across the globe within a day or two. Travel was becom-
ing relatively inexpensive. Medical advances had made travel safe with vaccines and access
to doctors and medicines. European and American comforts were to be found in far-off
countries not known for modern luxury.
Tourism had hit a unique historic sweet spot. Now all it needed was recognition. Two
separate groups stepped in to fill this vacuum: the United Nations and the World Travel &
Tourism Council, an industry group that grew out of a decision by the U.S. government
that travel and tourism were nonessential during the energy crisis of the late 1970s and
therefore not at the top of the government's list for precious energy supplies. James Robin-
son III, then the CEO of the travel giant American Express, was furious. First he con-
vinced Congress to reverse the finding; then he started examining the tourism industry.
Robinson did his homework. He ordered a review of American Express receipts to see
who ranked as its biggest customers. Robinson wanted to know what the solid base of
the company's business was. Even though American Express had been a travel company
long before it became a giant credit-card firm, Robinson was surprised by the results of
his inquiry. The answer was unequivocal: the top companies as measured by the amount
of money billed through American Express credit cards made up the core of the tour-
ism industry, from Disneyland to Hertz Rental cars to United Airlines. Armed with these
results, Robinson hosted a 1988 gathering in Paris, inviting his fellow industry execut-