I recently escaped “South of the Border” to Puerto Vallarta, to attend a destination wedding—my first, actually, and one which we at Hideaways InternationalTM played an important role in organizing.

It had been a long time since I’d visited “PV,” as it’s known to habitués, and I was anxious to see how it had changed. Nuevo Vallarta, the site of the wedding, was just developing when I was last in the area, and only recently have the Mexican tourism authorities focused on the area of pristine beaches and quaint fishing villages north of it, giving the region a catchy new nickname—the Riviera Nayarit. It is expected to become as popular as the Riviera Maya on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

I’ve seen this development pattern time and again in Mexico, but only recently did it fully dawn on me that, with the growth of tourism and the emergence of developing nations’ economies, similar development patterns are occurring all around the world, and with some serious implications for us avid international travelers.

In a paper titled “The Tourism Time Bomb,” published in the Harvard Business Review in April 2008, Paul Nunes and Mark Spelman, research strategists at Accenture Consulting, argue that pressure from the ascending middle class in emerging countries—Russia, Brazil, India, China, and others—will put an almost insatiable demand on the world’s tourism infrastructure, making it more difficult for those of us who are used to traveling relatively unfettered.

Among their predictions:

1. There will be an evolving “scarcity of place.” The world’s most popular destinations can, after all, only accommodate so many people.

2. With demand outstripping supply, tourism-related prices—hotel rates, museum entrance fees, airfare—will rise dramatically.

3. There may be rationing of services and official waiting lists for entry to popular sites, as well as the evolution of gray markets, similar to scalpers of sporting and event tickets.

4. In reaction to these trends, you will probably see more “fake” or replica destinations, like Disney’s Epcot and Las Vegas’ recreations of the Eiffel Tower and Venetian canals.

Taking Advantage of the World Recession to Travel Well

It all sounds pretty scary for the avid traveler looking for real experiences, but it got me thinking. With world economies in a tailspin and air travel somewhat tighter, I had not thought of this as a particularly good time to travel. But if Nunes and Spelman are correct, this may be one of the last, best opportunities to pack your bags and see the world—the real world—before it becomes commoditized and overrun by lots of other tourists… or even rationed.

Will There Be Deals?

It’s not clear where airfares will go in the next year; hopefully, they will stabilize or even decline with falling oil prices. But it’s fairly certain that, due to travel leveling off and hotel chains, especially at the luxury end, having been on a building spree, good deals will abound. Plus, the U.S. dollar has been strengthening against most currencies around the world, especially the euro. And it promises to grow even stronger over the next year, so you should no longer have to shudder at the prospect of spending five dollars for an espresso in the local European café.

Which brings me back to the development of new destinations in Mexico and around the world. While some places may be relatively overrun already, there are plenty of new places to explore, where the experience is authentic and the welcome genuine. In a recent issue of our Hideaways Life newsletter, we reported to Hideaways Aficionado® Club members on developments around the islands and beaches of Thailand. In fact, Southeast Asia is now being dubbed “The Caribbean of Asia,” but I can assure you the experience is very different and the welcome even warmer. We are also seeing resort development pushing south in Central America (the current issue of Hideaways Life reports on our recent discoveries in Belize), and even Colombia in South America is becoming a popular destination, after years on the State Department’s travel-warning list.

So, if you’ve been hunkering down and purposely not traveling because of uncertainty or the financial pain we’ve all been enduring, you may want to rethink your strategy. In fact, take a tip from Mark Twain, who wrote, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mike Thiel is the Founder/President of Hideaways InternationalTM and its Hideaways Aficionado®
Club, which for 30 years has specialized in unique, often luxurious travel all around the world. Subscribers to Ideal Living can get a free issue of Hideaways Life, the club’s member-only newsletter, by going to www.Hideaways.com/ideal or by calling (toll-free) 1-800-843-4433.