Colliding Continents

Friday, December 21, 2007

Open Up, I’m Coming Through!

A lot of trends which have significant impact on tourism begin to show themselves the more I do research into the world of travel. Political decisions, environmental concerns and regulation and pop culture all have a powerful effect on how we travel. I just wanted to give you all a heads up on something that, from my perspective as a travel addict, I think is absolutely great and is a recurring theme in the world; the opening up of borders.

For years governments have embraced the idea of becoming borderless but now they are implementing these ideas. This century has thus far continued to show that the tearing down of borders, be it economically, politically or socially has been a central theme. In a previous post entitled Joined at the Visa I talked about the Thai and Cambodian governments testing the use of one visa for both countries, the Chinese and US governments are opening up tourism marketing systems between them and now a majority of former Eastern bloc countries have joined a Schengen zone which would allow unrestricted travel, i.e. no checkpoints, from Estonia to Portugal. We are talking about the potential for about 400 million people being able to physically move, unrestricted from one side of Europe to another.

The commercial and political outcomes are greatly beneficial and is rooted in the fact that people in Europe can more easily move about. Travelers can go between Estonia and Portugal without the use of a passport. Here is a scenario; you loose your passport at the border of the Czech Republic and Slovakia right as the border guards ask you to present it. Yesterday this would mean you had to go back into the Czech Republic and head straight over to your nearest consulate putting your trip on hold. Not anymore! Today your trip continues and you can make it to the next capitol, ask for a new passport and enjoy the city at hand. What if it takes one or two weeks for a passport? Then keep traveling and come back when it has arrived!

There are always exciting developments in the world stage that affect travel and the way things are going, we are on the way to being able to see so much more, so much easier and according to our own pace.