Conclusion: The Future of Tourism—Innovation for Inclusive Sustainable Development

It is remarkable that the subject of this book—tourism futures—has been territory where few authors have dared to tread. In part this is because the future is subject to so many imprecise and unkownable variables that everything is possible—which is why we think of tourism futures, rather than a tourism future. Besides, tourism is but a thread, albeit an important one, of the narratives of this civilization. In other words, there are an infinite number of futures to consider for the world and for tourism within it and, as this book shows, predicting tourism futures is not an easy task. Here, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and other organisations have termed the uncertainty caused by the radical change experienced in the twenty-first century as the ‘new normal’ suggesting that tourism will never return to the relatively stable conditions in the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, tourism is inextricably integrated with the technological and socioeconomic fabric of society and so is subjected to its changes and influences (Fayos-Solà 2012, p. xi).