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Travelmania |
The number of people traveling today is absolutely unprecedented. At the 1995 annual meeting of travel industry executives gathered in Singapore for the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), John Naisbitt, economic forecaster and author of Megatrends 2000 [44], underscored how the largest industry in the world is now the one which enables people to "run to and fro":
Travel and tourism is the biggest and the most energetic industry in the world. It will be one of the three super-industries driving the (global) economy of the next century, along with Information Technology and Telecommunications.
This year, travel and tourism is forecast to generate U.S.$3.4 trillion in gross product, accounting for 10 percent of global economic output, consumer spending and investment.[45]
Pierre Jeanniot, director-general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said during the celebration of IATAs 50th anniversary, that IATA companies carried 1.2 billion passengers on all services in 1995 equivalent to one in five of the worlds population.[46]
The Madrid-based World Tourism Organization forecasts that the present number of tourists on the move worldwide will double by 2010. The organizations secretary general, Antonio Savignac, said, "Were looking at almost a billion international arrivals by the year 2010 but thats just the tip of the iceberg. Domestic tourism, people traveling within their own country, could be 10 times that."[47]
One reason that many people today travel to distant lands, particularly young people, is because theyre dissatisfied with their own country, culture or religion, and are searching for solutions or answers elsewhere. These truth-seekers and pilgrims bring to mind another prophecy about the last days, given by the Old Testament prophet Amos: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord" (Amos 8:11-12, NKJV).
In all of world history people have never traveled the distances, the speeds, nor with the frequency that billions are traveling today. Truly many are running to and fro, just like God said they would in the "time of the end."
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