Lies, damn lies and statistics: The cultural tourism myth lives on

One of the most enduring tourism myths is the idea that cultural tourism is growing faster than other sectors of global tourism. Ever since Bywater conjured up the ‘statistic’ that cultural tourism was growing at 15% a year in 1993, this idea has continued to gain popularity – despite no hard evidence being presented.  In the book Rethinking Cultural Tourism, Greg Richards examined the available evidence for this apparent boom in cultural tourism, which continues to this day.

Although UNTWO research in 2018 confirmed the widely quoted figure that cultural tourism accounts for 40% of international tourism trips, no evidence has been found to suggest that cultural tourism is growing at anything like 15% a year. In spite of the lack of hard evidence, this is a myth that has proved extremely persistent. Almost  quarter century after Bywater’s original  ‘15% a year’ assertion, this was being trotted out again by the Mayor of London: ‘Cultural tourism now accounts for 37 per cent of world travel and is growing fast – at a rate of 15 per cent year on year’ (Mayor of London, 2017b, p. 22). The 15% figure was still being repeated in Zimbabwe in 2024 as one of the reasons why  ‘Cultural tourism in Zimbabwe should be promoted’.

The traditional face of cultural tourism (Greg Richards)

In fact, cultural tourism was found to be growing roughly in line with the international tourism market as a whole: by around 4% a year. What is important about cultural tourism is not so much the numbers of tourists, but rather the type of people attracted to culture, and the effects that they can have on the cultural life of the destination. The benefits of attracting cultural tourists are argued to include: higher spending visitors, lower seasonality and support for local culture and creativity.  The emphasis in most cultural tourism policy is therefore  on quality, rather than the number of tourists.  But recent experience shows that many cities are having issues with ‘mass cultural tourism’, particularly to iconic ‘must see’ sites.  The growth of such ‘cultural tourism’ to cities such as Barcelona, Amsterdam Lisbon, has arguably led to problems such as overcrowding, rising prices and squeezing out of local businesses in favour of multinational chains.

Anti-tourism graffiti in Barcelona (Greg Richards)

The cry has gone up In many places for  limits to tourism growth, or even ‘de-growth’ in order to develop a more sustainable balance between visitors and residents. Developing more sustainable forms of cultural tourism is supposed to improve the tourism experience as well as protecting local culture and the quality of life of local residents.

Tourists and tuk-tuks in Porto (Greg Richards)

In spite of this new climate, forecasters continue to be overoptimistic about the growth of cultural tourism. For example, Future Market Insights reports that:

“The global cultural tourism revenue is set to total US$ 5,931.2 million by 2023. Global cultural tourism demand is likely to surge at 14.4% CAGR over the next ten years. At the end of 2033, the worldwide cultural tourism market size is set to reach around US$ 22,772.0 million in 2033.”

This forecast stays remarkably close to the predictions of Bywater from 1993, in spite of all the evidence of much slower growth rates in tourism in general and cultural tourism in particular. Interestingly, the Future Market Insights forecasts for ecotourism are remarkably similar to those for cultural tourism:

“The global ecotourism market has been estimated at USD 2,51,188.1 million in the year 2024 and is expected to reach an industry valuation of USD 9,79,128.7 million in the year 2034 with a market CAGR of 14.6% between the years 2024 and 2034. The ecotourism industry revenue in 2023 is USD 2,22,127.8 million. The industry is expected to record an annual growth of (Y-o-Y) of 13.1% in 2024.”

This suggests that these ‘forecasts’ are based on simplistic projections of previous (inflated) projections, rather than any realistic assessment of the wider social and economic context. It also underlines the need for more detailed research on the cultural tourism market to uncover the dynamics of individual market niches in the cultural and tourism fields as well as regional differences.

More reliable figures are likely to be found in national or regional tourism statistics. In Spain, for example, official figures from the Ministry for Industry and Tourism show that levels of cultural tourism demand among domestic tourists have recovered to pre-pandemic levels. There are big variations in demand between regions, however, with particularly strong growth in major cities such as Madrid, Seville, Granada and Barcelona. In rural areas there was also a strong recovery after the pandemic, but the post-pandemic boost seems to have faltered in 2024.