Abstract: According to the World Tourism Organization, 698 million people traveled to a foreign country in 2000, spending more US$ 478 billion. International tourism receipts combined with passenger transport currently total more than US$ 575 billion - making tourism the world's number one export earner. Tourism involves the movement of people from their homes to other destinations and accounts for about 50% of traffic movements; to give an indication, the ICAO reported that the number of international air passengers worldwide rose from 88 million in 1972 to 344 million in 1994. From 594 million international travellers in 1996, numbers are forecast to leap to 702 million by next year, and from 698 million international travelers in 2000, numbers are forecast to leap to 1,018 million by 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020.