Читать книгу Global Experience Industries - Jens Christensen - Страница 25

Transportation is the largest sub-sector of the tourism industry. Of all transportation means, private cars are the most widely used way of domestic transportation for American tourists as well as for West European tourists.²⁴ In most cases, the tourist therefore uses his car instead of transportation companies. The expanding post-war car industry, petrol industry and freeway system have added much to the growing tourism industry. While cars dominate domestic transportation, airlines are the preferred way of international travelling. Less important are railways and ferries, and even more so busses. In economic terms, total global passenger transportation spending in 2005 was at least $2500 billion, of which the United States and Western Europe each shared one-third.²⁵ Perhaps one-third of all transportation spending may be accounted to tourism.²⁶ Most spending is attributed to cars, but an increasing share is spent on airlines. Because the car is a common daily transportation means, probably a higher share of spending on air transportation is attributed to tourism than private car transportation.

Although cars and airlines dominate passenger transportation, the large American and European national railway companies, such as Amtrak, Deutsche Bahn, French SNCF and British Arriva are all active suppliers of travel, including cooperative arrangements with other parts of the tourism value chain. For example, SNCF cooperates with the large international hotel and service chain Accor.²⁷ Shipping companies, for example Stena Line and Scandlines cooperate with travel organizers and provide organized tours themselves.²⁸ Worldwide, ferries annually transport more than 1 billion passengers, half the number of airlines.²⁹ Cruise lines are a specialized kind of shipping company that encompass most parts of a vacation from beginning to end (see below). Compared to all these transportation industries, bus companies constitute a small business. Well known are the American Greyhound busses.

While the car industry is more indirectly a part of the tourism industry, airlines is clearly direct providers of tourism services.