Summarize Written Text

Between 1970 and 2020, the number of people crossing international borders each year for reasons other than migration or refuge grew from roughly 165 million to more than 1.4 billion, a figure that dropped sharply during the pandemic years before resuming its climb. Economists attribute this expansion to falling real airfares, the spread of low-cost carriers, simplified visa regimes among trading blocs, and rising disposable income in newly industrialising economies, particularly across South and Southeast Asia. Globalisation and travel have reinforced one another: multinational supply chains require frequent business travel, while tourism revenue has become a primary export earner for many small island and mountain economies that lack large manufacturing bases. Some analysts argue that this mutual reinforcement has produced a more culturally homogenous global middle class, one whose tastes in food, entertainment, and fashion converge regardless of home country, since frequent travellers absorb similar international brands and media wherever they land. Yet the benefits and burdens of this growth have not been distributed evenly. A small number of destination cities, including several historic capitals in Europe and coastal resorts in Southeast Asia, now receive visitor volumes many times larger than their resident populations during peak seasons, straining housing markets, water supplies, and waste systems while inflating local rents beyond what residents can afford. Meanwhile, many rural and inland regions with genuine cultural or ecological appeal remain largely bypassed because they lack the transport links or marketing budgets to compete for attention within crowded digital booking platforms. Policymakers in several affected cities have begun experimenting with visitor caps, tiered entry fees, and taxes earmarked for infrastructure upkeep, though enforcement remains inconsistent and displacement of tourists to neighbouring towns is a frequently observed side effect of such measures.