In a world of 9/11 and Tsunami, trying to predict the future of tourism is an uncertain science. VisitScotland, the national tourism agency of the Scotland uses a process of scenario planning and futures thinking in order to make sense of that uncertain future. This paper, examines how world mega trends and consumer behaviour will shape the future tourists. Four scenarios are constructed using the principles of cognitive mapping. Firstly, a right royal treatment scenario describes the business traveller as sophisticated, demanding and time sensitive. He/she wants exceptional service but is only willing to pay a premium price for added value rather than functionality. The tourist living local scenario describes the authentic tourist as someone that is discerning but wants to ‘live local’. They are from a networked society where information is freely available. They are ethical and inconspicuous consumers who have grown up in an affluent world. Their values and beliefs are based upon an untrusting and anxious society fuelled by safety. The authentic tourist feels safe in the past rather than the artificial world of Disneyland. The living the low-brow and high-brow life scenario reflects cultural capital being driven by an educated well-travelled consumer who is more concerned with experience than material possessions. The Asia gets going scenario is a realization that the middle classes of China are driving the growth of tourism across the world by 2015; here, Chinese tourists want to live their dreams.
Forecasting UK domestic tourists to Scotland is never an exact science, but in order to see into the future it is important to understand the correlation between economic performance and tourism revenues. In order to do this, VisitScotland, the national tourism agency for Scotland, uses econometrics (the Moffat model). VisitScotland is pro-jecting a robust performance for UK tourism in Scotland up to 2008, based upon a stable housing market, a tight labour market and low interest rates. Therefore Scottish tourism domestic revenues should rise from £4.1bn in 2005 to £4.4bn in 2008 in terms of real expenditure (excluding inflation). This paper sets out to explain this forecast. The forecasts are based upon economic conditions and represent the opportunity for tourism; they do not account for shocks such as 9/11 or extreme weather conditions. Such projections are used as a guide to the future, rather than the exact future.
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