Account for the Growth of Tourism in the 20th Century
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Tourism in the UK alone generates 23bn, making it a large part of its GNP, and showing a significant growth since earlier figures. Many factors have aided this growth of tourism in the UK and other MEDC's, the principal factor being increased income and available leisure time, as well is a shorter working week. This has been made possible by the "paid holiday act" this coupled with increased income has enabled families to make holidays a yearly event. Initially these holidays were taken only nationally, at various seaside resorts such as Blackpool and Brighton, these places accounted for over 80% of holiday taken in 1972. Also important for the national holiday in Britain were the development of holiday camps, in 1936 the first Butlins holiday camp opened, by 1939 200 camps were opened taking in over 30,000 package holidays a week. Recently the number of camps has decreased dramatically due to the popularity of overseas holidays and as such only 3 camps remain open today. The dramatic increase in car ownership, the reliability of those cars and the building of motorways has made taking domestic holidays a much easier process for people in the UK. Also contributing to increased tourism in the UK is the increased aged population, with lots of spare time and disposable pension income they are able to go on holiday much more frequently, however they generally only travel nationally rather than aboard.
However the greatest increase in tourism has been the number of holidays taken abroad. Over 29million holidays were taken abroad in 1998 exceeding the number taken nationally...