Mission 1: UK residents made about three times as many trips abroad as Indian nationals did in 2025, yet India has about 21 times as many people. Why?

Leisure, recreation, tourism and sport

• Leisure is time free from paid work, study, chores and sleep; recreation is what people choose to do in it.
• Tourism is the activity of visitors: people on a trip outside their usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose other than being employed where they go.
• Sport ranges from organised, competitive games to informal physical activity such as walking. Football, gym sessions and skiing are all leisure uses of time.

Tourist or day visitor?

• The UN classifies a visitor as a tourist (overnight visitor) if the trip includes an overnight stay, or a same-day visitor (excursionist) if it does not.
• By direction: domestic (within one's own country), inbound (into a country) and outbound (leaving one's country).
• These definitions let countries count tourism the same way, so their data can be compared.

Categorising tourism: cost, duration, destination

• Cost: from free day walks and budget camping to high-cost niche trips, such as Rwanda's gorilla permit, raised to US$1,500 in 2017.
• Duration: same-day visit, short break, or long stay of up to a year.
• Destination: domestic or international; short-haul or long-haul; urban, rural or coastal.
• One trip fits several categories at once, so state which category you are using.

Categorising sport: cost, popularity, site

• Cost: walking is free; gym membership, golf or skiing cost far more.
• Popularity (England, Nov 2024–Nov 2025): walking for leisure about 22.9 million adults; fitness activities 15.3 million; running about 7.1 million; swimming 4.4 million; team sports 3.5 million.
• Site: some sports use natural sites (paths, rivers, mountains); others need purpose-built ones (pools, pitches, stadiums).

More leisure time, and new purposes for it

• In industrialising societies, shorter working weeks, paid holidays and rising incomes turned leisure time from rest into a time for consumption, travel and health.
• A located example: China gave employees a legal right to paid annual leave from 1 January 2008, from 5 days after one year's service to 15 days after 20 years.
• Purposes keep changing. China's national fitness plan set a target of 38.5% of people taking regular exercise by 2025. England measures activity against a health guideline of 150 minutes a week.
• Leisure is now also about identity and experience: what people do, and share, in their free time.

The global middle class

• About 3.2 billion people were in the global middle class in 2016 (a Brookings estimate). Homi Kharas expected the expansion to be "heavily concentrated in Asia".
• In 2025 there were about 1.52 billion international tourist arrivals, almost 60 million more than in 2024.
• Europe received 793 million of them; Asia and the Pacific 331 million, still 9% below 2019.
• In January 2026, UN Tourism expected "growing outbound travel from emerging markets"; in September it cut its 2026 forecast (Mission 11).

Development and participation

• The World Bank classes India as lower-middle income, China as upper-middle income and the UK as high income.
• Participation in tourism, especially international travel, rises with disposable income, paid leave and access to transport.
• The link is not simple. Distance, visa rules, culture and the choice of domestic travel also matter: China's residents made more than 6.5 billion domestic trips in 2025.
• Sport is different: walking or football can be almost free, so sport is open to people on low incomes who cannot afford tourism.

Recent change 1: China (upper-middle income)

• Domestic trips: 5.615 billion in 2024, then more than 6.5 billion in 2025; the ministry reports growth of more than 16%.
• Domestic tourism spending reached 6.3 trillion yuan in 2025.
• Sport: 37.2% of people took regular exercise by the end of the 2016–2020 plan period; the 2025 target was 38.5%.

Recent change 2: India (lower-middle income)

• Indian nationals' departures abroad: 26.9 million in 2019, 30.9 million in 2024 and 32.8 million in 2025.
• That is 22% more than in 2019. Brookings links middle-class growth to the world's largest economies, "notably China and India".
• Even so, per person, international travel remains far lower than in high-income countries (screen 1.9).

Recent change 3: the UK (high income)

• UK residents made an estimated 99.9 million visits abroad in 2025. Spain was the most visited country, with 19.1 million visits by residents of Great Britain.
• In England, 64.6% of adults were active (150+ minutes a week) in Nov 2024–Nov 2025: 3.3 million more active adults than when the survey began.
• Fitness activities and running are growing; swimming and team sports remain below pre-pandemic levels.
• Exam move: when you compare societies, use the same measure (per person), name the source and date, and check what each figure counts: "visits" in one country, "departures" in another, and neither figure on these screens separates holidays from other trips.

Mission 2: In England, about 7 in 10 of the most affluent adults are physically active, but only about 5 in 10 of the least affluent. Is money the whole story?

Five personal factors

• The guide lists five factors affecting personal participation in sport and tourism: affluence, gender, stage in lifecycle, personality and place of residence.
• Each works at the personal scale, but each is shaped by wider forces: wages, social norms, ageing populations and the location of facilities.
• The guide says "including", so other factors, such as disability (2.10), count too. England's Active Lives survey measures several of these for sport.

Affluence

• In Nov 2024–Nov 2025, 73.2% of the most affluent adults were active, against 53.8% of the least affluent. Affluence is measured by occupational class (NS-SEC 1–2 against 6–8, ages 16–74).
• Money buys gym membership, equipment, transport and holidays.
• Affluence also brings time and control: salaried jobs often have regular hours and paid leave.

Gender

• Women (62.2%) were less likely to be active than men (67.3%) in England.
• The survey does not measure why. Possible reasons include caring responsibilities, less free time, concerns about safety, and fewer opportunities in some sports.
• Gender roles are changing (Mission 11), so this gap is not fixed.

Stage in lifecycle

• Only 44.3% of adults aged 75 and over were active in England.
• Lifecycle shapes time and money: young single adults often have time and some money; parents of young children have little time; recently retired people may have both, until health limits activity.
• Tourism follows the lifecycle too: backpacking, family holidays, cruises.

Personality

• A meta-analysis of 39 studies (149 effect sizes) compared people in high-risk sports with others.
• High-risk sport participants scored higher for sensation seeking, extraversion and impulsivity; the comparison groups scored higher for neuroticism.
• So personality is associated with choosing high-risk sports, and may also help explain who chooses adventure tourism.

Personality and tourism: Plog's model

• Stanley Plog (1974) placed tourists on a scale from psychocentric (preferring familiar, safe, developed destinations) to allocentric (seeking new and unusual places).
• Allocentric travellers "discover" places; psychocentric travellers follow once places are developed. Compare Butler's model (Mission 9).
• Limitation: few people are pure types, and the same person may choose differently from one trip to the next.

Place of residence

• Sport England reports that "the divide in activity levels between the most and least deprived areas has widened over time".
• Access matters: Natural England's standard aims for everyone to have green and blue space within 15 minutes' walk of home.
• Rural residents may have open land but few pools or clubs; urban residents may have facilities but little safe green space.

Factors combine (synthesis)

• Disabled people and those with long-term health conditions were also less likely to be active: 49.1%.
• Factors overlap: an older, disabled woman on a low income in a deprived area faces several barriers at once.
• Influences work at several scales: personal (personality, age), local (facilities, safety), national (paid leave, public funding) and global (cost of flights).
• Exam move: the guide asks how freedom to participate is "subject to multiple influences from personal/local to global scales". Name the scale of each factor.

Mission 3: Iceland has about 394,000 people. In 2025 it received about 2.3 million foreign visitors. How did a remote, cold island become a tourism hotspot?

Primary and secondary touristic resources

• Primary touristic resources were not created for tourists: climate, landscape, wildlife, and historic or cultural heritage.
• Secondary touristic resources were built for tourists: hotels, transport, theme parks, shopping malls, events and the marketing that sells them.
• Most hotspots need both: a primary attraction, and secondary resources that make it reachable and comfortable.
• The guide's idea of consumption of landscapes: the view itself is the product tourists pay to experience.

Human and physical factors in hotspot growth

• Physical: dramatic landscape, warm or snowy climate, coasts, mountains.
• Human: air links, price and exchange rates, safety, marketing, events, government policy and investment.
• A hotspot grows when these combine and rising visitor numbers attract more investment.

A rural hotspot: Iceland

• Foreign visitors to Iceland (by air and sea) rose almost fivefold from 2010 to a peak in 2018, collapsed in 2020, and recovered to about 2.3 million by 2025.
• Iceland is high income, and its main attractions are rural and natural.

Why Iceland grew

• Primary resources: volcanoes, glaciers, waterfalls, geothermal springs and the northern lights.
• The campaign's case study says that after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption of April 2010 "tourism to Iceland plummeted". The annual series shows a smaller dip: 488,600 visitors in 2010, 1.1% below 2009, then 565,600 in 2011.
• The "Inspired by Iceland" campaign asked Icelanders to share their stories on social media. Its advertising agencies claimed it brought an extra £165 million to the economy.
• Evaluate that claim: it comes from an advertising-awards case study, not an independent evaluation.

An urban hotspot: Dubai

• Dubai received 19.59 million international overnight visitors in 2025, up 5% from 18.72 million in 2024.
• It had 154,264 hotel rooms in 827 establishments, with average occupancy of 80.7%.
• Western Europe was the largest source market: 4.1 million visitors (21%).

Dubai's resources

• Primary: warm, sunny winters and coastline.
• Secondary, on a huge scale: hotels, malls, and events such as the Dubai Shopping Festival, Dubai Summer Surprises and the Dubai World Cup horse race.
• Tourism growth is tied to the city's D33 economic agenda: "the D33 ambition to double Dubai's economy by 2033".

Hotspots depend on other places (synthesis)

• Iceland's arrivals fell 14% in 2019 and 76% in 2020. A hotspot depends on air links, source markets and global events.
• Each hotspot is shaped by spatial interactions: flights, marketing in source markets, exchange rates, and images shared online.
• Exam move: to explain a hotspot, link a primary resource to the human factors that made it accessible, and give dated figures.

Mission 4: In 1888 all 12 founding clubs of the Football League came from the Midlands and the North of England. In 2026/27, six of the 20 Premier League clubs are in London. What changed, and why does it matter where a stadium is?

Sphere of influence, threshold and range

• A facility's sphere of influence is the area from which it draws its users.
• Threshold: the minimum number of users needed to keep a facility going. Range: the maximum distance people will travel to use it.
• Facilities that are used often and are cheap to reach (a local park) have small ranges. Rare, special facilities (a national stadium, a famous national park) have large ones. These ideas come from central place theory (Christaller).

A hierarchy of green space

• Natural England's standard pairs bigger green spaces with longer distances from home, in six tiers: from at least 0.5 ha within 200 m (doorstep) to at least 500 ha within 10 km (sub-regional).
• Bigger, rarer sites serve wider areas: a hierarchy of spheres of influence.

From gym to national park

• Neighbourhood park or gym: used often, by people living or working nearby. Small range; local sphere.
• City stadium: regional or national crowds on match days, and global audiences on screen. The Premier League was shown in 188 of the world's 193 countries in 2019/20.
• National park: a rare attraction draws visitors from across the world. Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park is marketed worldwide; its gorilla permit costs foreign visitors US$1,500.

Case study: the English football pyramid

• The Premier League has 20 member clubs. Relegated clubs transfer their shares to the clubs promoted from the Championship, the top division of the English Football League.
• For 2026/27, Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City were promoted. West Ham United, Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers were relegated.
• This hierarchy of divisions, with promotion and relegation, means the league's map changes every year.

Where the clubs are

• The Football League was formed in April 1888; its first season, from 8 September 1888, had "12 member clubs from the Midlands and North of England". Two of them, Aston Villa and Everton, are in the 2026/27 Premier League.
• 2026/27 Premier League clubs:
  • London: 6 (Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur)
  • North of England: 8
  • Midlands: 3
  • South coast and East Anglia: 3 (Bournemouth, Brighton, Ipswich)

Factors shaping the league's geography

• History: professional football grew in industrial towns of the North and Midlands; the FA accepted professionalism in 1885.
• Population and market: big cities have large thresholds of potential fans, sponsors and spending. London's population supports several clubs.
• Money: broadcasting and ownership wealth let some clubs stay at the top.
• Promotion and relegation: sporting success moves clubs between divisions, so smaller towns can still reach the top.

Where the supporters are (synthesis)

• Local and national: home and away match-day crowds. This lesson has no sourced figures for where they live.
• Global: 1.5 million visits to the UK in 2019 included watching a live football match; these visitors spent £1.4 billion on their trips. The league reached 878 million homes in 2019/20.
• A club's sphere of influence is far wider on screen than in the stadium: a spatial interaction between places.

Open and closed leagues (AO3)

• England's league is open: clubs rise and fall on results, so places gain or lose top-flight football.
• In closed franchise leagues (common in North America), no team is relegated, and an owner may move a team to a bigger market.
• Exam move: weigh history, market size and money against promotion and relegation. Give located clubs and dates as evidence.

Mission 5: For a few days, a dairy farm in Somerset holds more than 200,000 people. Then it goes back to being a farm. Who gains, and who pays?

Festivals as temporary sites of leisure

• Large sporting, musical, cultural and religious festivals turn ordinary places into temporary sites of leisure for days or weeks.
• They create sudden peaks of people, traffic, waste and spending, then leave.
• The guide asks for their costs and benefits, and for site factors: why there?

Case study: Glastonbury Festival

• Glastonbury Festival takes place on Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset. It began "as a small-scale event on a dairy farm in 1970".
• The festival describes its site as "900 acres in the Vale of Avalon", with a perimeter of about eight and a half miles.
• Its licence allows up to 210,000 people aged 13 or over at each event. The festival tells traders there will be more than 200,000 people on site at the busiest time, including more than 140,000 ticket-holders.

Site factors

• Land: a large farm under one family's ownership; Michael Eavis says his family "have farmed this land for generations". The main site is a grassy valley.
• Access: approach roads include the A37, A361 and A371; campervans can use the Bath and West Showground, with a free 24-hour shuttle.
• Public transport: over 65,000 people a year arrive by coach, train or bicycle.
• Water and power: mains water from Bristol Water; the farm's own solar panels and biogas plant.

Economic benefits

• A 2023 report by Fourth Street, commissioned by the festival, found around £168 million of income for UK businesses, including £32 million for businesses in Somerset.
• Putting on the 2023 festival cost about £62 million; just under £12 million went to 258 companies in Somerset.
• The festival sustained more than 1,100 UK jobs, 325 of them in Somerset.

Social benefits

• The festival has built 52 social housing homes in Pilton, upgraded the playing fields, and helped rebuild the village hall.
• By the end of 2025 it expected to have paid over £4.2 million to more than 300 organisations, including Oxfam, WaterAid and Greenpeace.
• Local residents get a second chance to buy tickets; Mendip and central Somerset residents can buy Sunday tickets.

Costs for neighbours

• A Pilton parish councillor, speaking in a personal capacity to a Somerset Council scrutiny committee (5 Feb 2026), raised noise, traffic, helicopter flights and "the cumulative impact of the 30+ off-site events". Council officers replied to each point.
• The council's 2024 debrief found "a significant decrease in noise complaints when compared to 2023" and no breaches of licensing conditions. A council officer gave local news the figures: 11 complaints, against 41.
• The festival itself says Mendip and central Somerset residents "may still experience some inconvenience during the Festival period".

Environmental impacts and management

• The festival's campaign is "Love Worthy Farm – Leave No Trace"; peeing on the land is forbidden, and rivers and streams are monitored during and after the festival.
• Responses: single-use plastic bottles banned from 2019; over 35,000 native trees and hedge plants planted since 2000.
• Fallow years: "There will be no Glastonbury in 2026 as the Festival is taking a fallow year". Organiser Emily Eavis: "The fallow year is important because it gives the land a rest" (BBC Sidetracked podcast, as reported).

Weighing the evidence (AO3)

• The £168 million figure comes from a report the festival commissioned.
• Its method: a face-to-face survey of 643 festival-goers, plus staff, volunteer and business surveys. Ask who paid for it and what it leaves out.
• A 2007 study, commissioned by Mendip District Council and the festival, found a £73 million gross impact. Different years and methods: do not compare them directly.
• Impact studies count gross spending. Some would have been spent elsewhere in the UK anyway (displacement), so the net national gain is smaller.

Costs, stakeholders and scale (AO3)

• Costs are recorded differently: as complaints to the council and questions put to council committees.
• Exam move: a balanced answer weighs benefits and costs by stakeholder (organisers, local businesses, residents, charities, the environment) and by scale (village, county, nation).

Mission 6: In 2018, a TV fantasy series helped bring about 1 in 6 of Northern Ireland's out-of-state visitors. Can a country sell a story rather than a place?

Niche tourism strategies

• Niche tourism offers specialised experiences for particular interests, in contrast to mass tourism.
• The guide names three national niche strategies with a global sphere of influence: adventure tourism, movie location tourism and heritage tourism.
• A niche lets a smaller country compete globally on something only it can offer.

Movie location tourism: Northern Ireland

• Production of Game of Thrones generated £251 million for Northern Ireland's economy.
• In 2018 the show helped attract 1 in every 6 out-of-state visitors: about 350,000 people, spending over £50 million.
• Fans visit filming locations such as the Dark Hedges (the show's "Kingsroad").

How the niche was built

• Tourism Ireland, HBO and Tourism NI ran campaigns linking scenes to real places.
• Doors of Thrones (2016): ten doors carved from fallen Dark Hedges trees, hung in pubs and hotels near filming locations. Tourism NI says it "captured the imagination of 126 million people"; its short films were viewed 17 million times.
• A permanent studio tour at Linen Mill Studios, Banbridge, extends the niche beyond the show's run.

Adventure tourism: New Zealand

• AJ Hackett says the world's first commercial bungy operation opened at the Kawarau Bridge, near Queenstown, in November 1988, at $75 a jump (its own claim).
• The operator calls it "the birth of adventure tourism in New Zealand".
• Adventure tourism sells risk and thrill in dramatic landscapes: a primary resource turned into a global product.

Movie location tourism: Hobbiton, New Zealand

• In 1998, film location scouts chose the Alexander family's 1,250-acre sheep farm in the Waikato as the Shire.
• The set was built in 1999; guided tours began in 2002.
• A working farm became a global attraction: a secondary resource built on a primary landscape.

Heritage tourism: Machu Picchu, Peru

• Machu Picchu has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.
• UNESCO's World Heritage listing says tourism is "a double-edged sword": economic benefits with cultural and ecological impacts, so rising visitor numbers "must be matched by an adequate management regulating access".
• Since 1 June 2024, visitors have followed one of 3 circuits grouping 10 set routes, which control how people move around the site.

Strengths and risks of niche strategies (AO3)

• Strengths: a global sphere of influence, high-spending visitors, and new reasons to visit rural areas.
• Risks: screen fame fades; a brand owner (such as a TV company) controls the story; a small location made famous by a film can be overwhelmed (Mission 9).
• Heritage sites need visitor limits to survive their own popularity.

Mission 7: Tourism makes up about a fifth of the Maldives' economy. Yet in 2022 most people working in its resorts were not Maldivian. Who really gains from a resort?

TNCs in tourism

• Transnational corporations (TNCs) in tourism include hotel chains, airlines, cruise lines, tour operators and online travel agencies.
• Booking Holdings (Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK and OpenTable) serves more than 220 countries and territories. Its platforms cover about 4.7 million properties (33 million+ reported listings on Booking.com), and 1.2 billion room nights were booked in 2025.
• TNCs control much of how tourists find, book and reach destinations.

How TNCs expand destinations

• Capital: they finance resorts and airports that small economies cannot fund alone.
• Brands and marketing: a global name reassures distant customers.
• Booking platforms and air links connect remote places to source markets.
• Outside capital also comes from development banks: the IFC, part of the World Bank Group, has invested over US$50 million in John Keells Holdings and the Crescent Fund to promote green and sustainable tourism in the Maldives.

Leakage and the multiplier

• Leakage: tourist spending that leaves the destination country: profits sent to foreign owners, imported food and fuel, foreign workers' wages sent home, and commission paid to foreign booking sites.
• Multiplier effect: money that stays is spent again locally (wages, local suppliers), raising its total effect.
• The more a destination imports and the more foreign-owned its businesses, the more leaks out.

Case study: the Maldives

• The Maldives is upper-middle income. In 2025 it received 2,246,516 tourist arrivals.
• Tourism contributed 20.3% of GDP at constant prices in 2025; the World Bank says "about 21 percent".
• In 2025 there were 179 resorts, 16 hotels, 973 guest houses and 168 safari vessels.
• The World Bank calls tourism "the largest economic sector".

Economic benefits and risks

• Benefits: foreign exchange, government revenue, jobs, and investment in airports and transport.
• Risk 1, shocks: arrivals fell from 1,702,887 in 2019 to 555,494 in 2020. The World Bank warns that "risks remain substantial, including potential external shocks to tourism".
• Risk 2, dependence on one sector: a shock to tourism hits the whole economy. Source markets, by contrast, are spread: the top three in 2025, China (14.6%), Russia (12.4%) and the UK (9.0%), made up 36% of arrivals.

Who gets the resort jobs?

• At the end of 2022, resorts employed 55,874 people. 59% were foreign workers and 41% Maldivian.
• Women made up 11% of resort workers; Maldivian women 2%.
• Foreign workers' wages sent home are a leakage. Few local women benefit directly from resort jobs.

Social and cultural effects

• UN Tourism's principles ask tourism to "Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities".
• Possible positive effects: income for households, training, and money for public services.
• Possible negative effects: young workers living away from their home islands; the demonstration effect (locals copying visitors' lifestyles); and culture turned into a product for sale (commodification).
• Smaller guest houses (973 in 2025) can spread tourist spending more widely than large resorts.

Stakeholders (1) (AO3)

• TNCs and investors: profits and brand growth; risk of shocks.
• Government: taxes and foreign exchange, but dependence on one sector.
• Maldivian workers and guest-house owners: wages and profits, but only 41% of resort jobs.

Stakeholders (2) (AO3)

• Foreign workers: jobs and money to send home, far from family.
• Tourists: a high-quality product, often booked through TNC platforms.
• Exam move: "costs and benefits for different stakeholders" means naming each group and weighing who gains most.

Mission 8: France's national audit court says the long-term economic benefits of the Paris 2024 Games are "uncertain". So why do countries still compete to host?

Factors affecting hosting

• Political: government guarantees, stability, international standing (soft power), and governing-body rules.
• Economic: cost, existing venues, transport and hotel capacity, sponsorship and ticket income.
• Cultural: sporting tradition, public support, and landmarks that showcase the country.
• A bid needs all three: a willing government, affordable plans, and public enthusiasm.

The football World Cup

• In 2017 FIFA opened bidding for the 2026 World Cup "initially only" to member associations of CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL and the OFC. Members of the European (UEFA) and Asian (AFC) confederations could be invited only if no candidate was selected.
• This is a governing body's rule about which regions may bid: a political factor. It spreads hosting between regions.
• FIFA's rules also allowed co-hosting. The 2026 tournament was shared by Canada, Mexico and the USA.

Case study: Paris 2024

• The IOC awarded the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles at the same session, in Lima, in September 2017.
• The IOC said both cities planned a record number of existing and temporary venues.
• Venues included landmarks: Eiffel Tower Stadium, the Grand Palais, the Château de Versailles, Pont Alexandre III and La Concorde. A cultural factor: the city itself was the showcase.

Who paid?

• The organisers list a budget of €4.38 billion, 96% of it private. Their listed sources (IOC €1.2 billion; tickets, hospitality and licensing €1.4 billion; partners €1.226 billion; other €0.193 billion) are a partial breakdown: they add to about €4.02 billion, not the total.
• The Cour des comptes estimates public spending linked to organising the Games at €3.02 billion, and public spending on infrastructure at €3.63 billion.
• The organising committee's forecast surplus was €75.7 million.

Benefits

• The audit court says infrastructure spending has a more lasting impact and "enrichissent le patrimoine de la Nation" (enriches the nation's assets), unlike organising costs, which are one-off.
• It calls the legacy already "riche et multiple" (rich and varied).

Costs and uncertainty

• The audit court estimates the Games added 0.07 percentage points to France's GDP growth in 2024, and calls the gains modest.
• "Les retombées économiques à moyen-long terme sont à ce stade incertaines" (the medium- to long-term economic benefits are, at this stage, uncertain).
• Organising spending is one-off: once the Games end, it leaves no asset.

Different perspectives (AO3)

• Organisers stress the 96% privately funded budget and the profit.
• The audit court estimates €3.02 billion of public spending on organisation and €3.63 billion on infrastructure: €6.65 billion gross. It also records €293.6 million of public revenue, so net public spending on organisation was €2.73 billion.
• Both are correct: they measure different budgets. Name the source, the budget and the date.
• Other stakeholders: taxpayers, local residents, businesses, sponsors and athletes. Benefits and costs fall on different groups.

Mission 9: Thailand closed one of its most famous beaches to visitors for about three and a half years. Why would a country shut a beach that tourists love?

Carrying capacity

• Carrying capacity: the maximum number of visitors a place can take before unacceptable damage occurs.
• Types: physical (space), ecological (damage to ecosystems), perceptual or social (when residents or visitors feel it is too crowded) and economic (when tourism displaces other activities).
• Passing a threshold causes environmental stress: trampled vegetation, damaged coral, pollution and overcrowding. (This threshold is an environmental tipping point, not the threshold population of Mission 4.)

Butler's tourist area life cycle (1980)

• Richard Butler's model traces a resort through stages: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, then decline or rejuvenation.
• In Butler's model, numbers reach the critical range of elements of capacity at stagnation: growth slows. Without action, decline follows as quality and appeal fall.
• Limitations: real places do not follow one smooth curve; shocks such as pandemics break the pattern, and management can delay or prevent decline.

A rural hotspot: Maya Bay, Thailand

• Maya Bay is on the uninhabited island of Phi Phi Leh, in Hat Noppharat Thara–Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, Krabi.
• It became famous after it featured in the film The Beach. At its peak in 2017, almost 5,000 people a day visited.
• It closed in June 2018, when the area's coral and other marine life were judged to need time to recover from damage caused by thousands of daily visitors.

Managing Maya Bay for resilience

• The closure was announced as four months from 1 June 2018, then extended; reopening was planned for 1 January 2022.
• Under the reopening plan, boats must use a new jetty at Loh Samah Bay, on the other side of the island, instead of entering the bay.
• The plan also controls daily visitor numbers and limits swimming to a designated area. New coral and beach trees were planted during the closure.
• While the bay was closed, TAT pointed visitors to Krabi's other islands, which remained open.

An urban hotspot: Venice, Italy

• UNESCO: "The exceptionally high tourism pressure on the city of Venice has resulted in a partial functional transformation", with homes replaced by tourist accommodation and businesses.
• A 2020 study gives about 53,000 official residents of the historic centre (2018) and an average of 66,800 visitors and tourists a day (year not stated).
• Day-trippers alone: almost 22 million a year.

Managing Venice

• Cruise ships: the World Heritage Committee urged Italy in 2014 to ban large ships from the lagoon. In 2021 the Italian government acted by decree-law; UNESCO described this as a ban on large cruise ships from the Venice Lagoon and welcomed it.
• Access fee: in 2026, anyone present in the Historic City on designated dates and times had to pay an access fee unless exempt. The 2026 trial has ended; from 27 July the fee no longer applied.
• Residents' attitudes: Doxey's Irridex (1975) suggests attitudes move from euphoria to apathy, annoyance and antagonism as visitor numbers grow.
• The underlying problem is perceptual and economic carrying capacity: residents leave as homes become tourist lets.

Comparing management options (AO3)

• Closure (Maya Bay): fast ecological recovery, but income from the site stops while it is shut.
• Quotas and set routes (Maya Bay's daily numbers; Machu Picchu's routes, which control circulation): protect the site, but limit access or freedom to roam.
• Pricing (Venice's access fee): raises money and may deter some day-trippers, but can exclude poorer visitors.
• Infrastructure and dispersal (a new jetty; promoting other islands): reduce pressure at the most fragile point.
• Exam move: judge each option by its effect on resilience and by who gains or loses.

Mission 10: In 2017 Rwanda doubled the price of a permit to see mountain gorillas, to US$1,500. Can making tourism more expensive make it more sustainable?

Sustainable tourism

• UN Tourism: "Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".
• Its three principles: optimal use of environmental resources, respect for host communities' culture, and long-term economic benefits for all stakeholders.

Ecotourism

• The International Ecotourism Society (2015): "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education".
• Its principles include providing "direct financial benefits for conservation".
• Ecotourism is one form of sustainable tourism; not every nature trip is ecotourism.
• Growth, Rwanda: in 2018 RDB said visitor numbers had doubled in a decade and its national parks were "attracting a record number of tourists".

Case study: Rwanda, a low-income country

• Rwanda is a low-income country.
• Its mountain gorillas live in Volcanoes National Park, part of the Virunga Massif, which it shares with Virunga National Park (DR Congo) and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (Uganda).
• Tourism revenue reached US$685 million in 2025, from 1.49 million visitor arrivals of all kinds, not only gorilla trekkers.

High value, low volume

• On 6 May 2017, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) raised the gorilla permit from US$750 to US$1,500; a whole gorilla family could be booked exclusively for US$15,000.
• Visitors who also spent at least three days in Nyungwe or Akagera got a 30% discount; RDB later described it as a low-season (November to May) discount.
• RDB called it "a high-value, low – volume market segmentation". Volume is limited on the ground: a maximum of 8 visitors per group, and one hour with the gorillas.

Sharing the revenue

• Rwanda's Revenue Share programme, started in 2005, shares park revenues with communities living next to the national parks.
• With the 2017 price rise, the community share rose from 5% to 10% of park tourism revenues.
• Over 20 years the programme supported nearly 1,300 projects with more than Rwf 23 billion: schools, health care, water and livelihoods.

Conservation outcomes

• Mountain gorillas in the Virunga Massif rose from as few as 242 in 1981 to 604 in 2016 (chart). The world total is about 1,063, from two surveys (Virunga 2015–16; Bwindi–Sarambwe 2018).
• At the 2026 Kwita Izina naming ceremony, 22 baby gorillas were named: 460 since 2005.
• The Virunga count predates the 2017 price rise; the world total includes a 2018 census outside Rwanda, and the Virunga parks span three countries. The counts show gorillas recovering under long-term protection, not the effect of the 2017 price.

Economic outcomes

• Tourism revenue: US$647 million in 2024, US$685 million in 2025; the target is US$1.1 billion by 2029.
• Rwanda markets itself through sport: "Visit Rwanda" was Arsenal's sleeve sponsor from 2018 to 2026, and has had deals with Paris Saint-Germain, FC Bayern and others. In 2025 FC Bayern said it was "transforming our commercial partnership into a talent programme".
• MICE (meetings and conferences) earned US$94.7 million in 2025: tourism is diversifying beyond gorillas.

Limits: access and demand (AO3)

• Access: foreign visitors pay US$1,500, more than a year's GNI per person at the World Bank's low-income ceiling (US$1,175). Rwandan and East African citizens pay a promotional US$200 (not valid June–October 2026): about one-sixth of Rwanda's GNI per person (US$1,150 in 2025).
• Demand: RDB says gorilla-permit revenue rose 4% in 2017, with "a small decrease" in the low season. That is the agency's own account.

Limits: wildlife and land (AO3)

• Risk to wildlife: infectious disease from people remains a threat to gorillas.
• Land: a planned expansion of the park by about 3,740 ha affects 547 households in its first phase (about 450 ha), who are being moved to a new village; compensation in the expansion area is ongoing.

Different perspectives

• RDB: high prices fund conservation and community projects.
• Communities: projects arrive, but some households must move for park expansion.
• Budget and regional travellers: priced out of gorilla trekking, but offered other parks (Nyungwe, Akagera) and a low-season discount for longer stays.
• Exam move: judge sustainability on all three pillars (environmental, social, economic) and say for whom.

Mission 11: In the first half of 2026, international arrivals in the Middle East fell by more than a fifth. What will shape who travels, and who gets to play sport, in the future?

International security

• In the first half of 2026, global arrivals barely grew (chart), while arrivals in the Middle East fell 22%, "as it was directly impacted by the conflict": the Middle East conflict, as UN Tourism names it.
• Air connectivity disruptions and higher fares hit travel well beyond the region.
• UN Tourism cut its 2026 growth forecast to 1–2%, from 3–4%.

Social media

• Travel decisions are "increasingly influenced by stories, content, and experiences", says the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
• Its 2026 campaign with Thai pop star LISA generated more than 448 million impressions.
• TAT reports that, according to the booking platform Traveloka, international demand for travel to Thailand rose 10% in 2026, with no baseline or months given. A platform's figures, reported by the campaign's own organiser: treat with care.
• Risk: viral fame can concentrate crowds on a few sites (Maya Bay, Mission 9).

Diaspora growth

• A diaspora is a population living outside its country of origin. Its members travel home to visit friends and relatives (VFR tourism). International migrants numbered 304 million in 2024, nearly double the 154 million of 1990.
• Ireland, 2023: 6.3 million foreign visitors; 36.7% (2.3 million) came mainly to visit family or friends.
• VFR visitors stayed longer (8.2 nights on average) but spent less per trip (€721) than holidaymakers (6.8 nights, €1,438); 88.2% stayed with family or friends, or in their own property.

Future tourism: spatial interactions (synthesis)

• Security shocks redirect flows: UN Tourism expects travellers to favour closer or domestic destinations as costs and risks rise.
• Diaspora links tie places together: VFR trips depend on family ties rather than attractions, and most VFR visitors stay with family, so less is spent on hotels.
• Social media links places instantly to distant audiences.
• Exam move: for "future" questions, weigh each factor's direction (more or less travel), its scale (global, regional, local) and its certainty (a forecast, not a fact).

Sport: international agreements

• UNESCO's International Charter (2015), adopted by its member states: "The practice of physical education, physical activity and sport is a fundamental right for all".
• Governing-body rules can also restrict participation. In January 2023 the IOC said only athletes "who have not acted against the peace mission of the IOC by actively supporting the war in Ukraine" could compete.
• At Paris 2024, athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport could compete only as Individual Neutral Athletes, with no flag or anthem; "Teams of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport will not be considered" (IOC, December 2023).

Changing gender roles

• The IOC set Paris 2024 a quota of 10,500 athletes, with exactly 50% female and 50% male participation. Afterwards it called Paris 2024 "the very first Olympic Games with full gender parity".
• Mixed-gender medal events rose from 18 at Tokyo 2020 to 20 at Paris 2024 (the IOC's 2020 plan had aimed for 22).
• But gaps persist at the grassroots: in England, women are less likely to be active than men (62.2% against 67.3%).

The growing importance of the Paralympics

• Rome 1960: 319 athletes from 21 countries, all with a spinal cord injury, competed in eight sports.
• Paris 2024: more than 4,000 athletes competed in 549 medal events across 22 sports.
• In England, only 49.1% of disabled people and those with long-term health conditions are active: elite growth has not closed the everyday gap.

Who is allowed to participate? (AO3)

• Inclusion has widened: gender parity at the Olympics, and growth of the Paralympics.
• Exclusion by rules: national teams barred under IOC rules, while individual athletes compete under conditions.
• Everyday access lags behind elite sport: gender, disability and income gaps in England.
• Exam move: the guide asks for "different perspectives on ... who is allowed to participate". Give the governing body's view, the athlete's view, and the evidence.

How Option E is examined (Paper 1)

• SL students answer on two options, HL on three. Each option has a structured question and one extended-answer question from a choice of two: 20 marks (10 + 10), with "45 minutes per option question", in the guide's words.
• SL: 1 hour 30 minutes, 40 marks. HL: 2 hours 15 minutes, 60 marks. Paper 1 is 35% of the grade at both levels.
• The extended answers are marked against markbands (maximum 10 marks, 2 marks per band).

What the top band rewards (9–10 marks)

• "In-depth and question-specific (topic and command term)".
• Examples, statistics and details are integrated and explained, not listed, such as Glastonbury's site factors or Rwanda's revenue sharing.
• Evaluation weighs other perspectives and the strengths and weaknesses of evidence: who commissioned a study, which budget is counted, which year.
• The conclusion is balanced and matches the evidence. "Maps, graphs or diagrams are annotated following conventions" and support the argument.

The big ideas

• Participation in tourism rises with development, but domestic travel and cheap sport matter too (China, India, the UK).
• Affluence, gender, lifecycle, personality and place shape who takes part.
• Hotspots combine primary and secondary resources (Iceland, Dubai). Spheres of influence and market size shape a national league (the Premier League).
• Festivals are temporary sites of leisure with uneven costs and benefits (Glastonbury).
• Niche strategies, TNCs and development: Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Peru and the Maldives. Hosting brings prestige with uncertain returns (Paris 2024).
• Carrying capacity and management (Maya Bay, Venice); high-value sustainable tourism (Rwanda); future drivers of tourism and sport.

Final screen. Score, the mission list ticked, and "Next: test yourself in the Verify stage" (links to the Verify quiz).