Why the American tourist could become virtually unrecognizable by 2050

Travel for fun is big business. Tourists poured roughly $7 trillion into the global economy in 2013 and funded more than 200 million jobs worldwide, according to data from the World Travel and Tourism Council, which monitors the industry. And demand isn't slowing down: The council estimates 4 percent growth every year for the next 10 years.

But some researchers are exploring the longer-term future of one of the world's biggest industries, puzzling through what tourism could look like as the world's population rises and the effects of climate change potentially make global travel unsustainable. According to their studies, the tourist of 2050 will likely be wealthy, adventurous, and increasingly alone. Families and travelers with less resources meanwhile may find themselves seeing the world through technology in their living room.

"I think technology is a huge driving force for change up to 2050," said Alexandra Whittington, a futurist at the University of Houston who has studied travel trends. "The other force is more of a demographic change. The individual consumer is rising up as a more competitive consumer than the family."

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The solitary tourist

The single tourist is becoming more and more common as American families choose to have fewer children, according to research Whittington published last year which explored several different scenarios for future tourists. If environmental and political instability increased over the next decades, traveling alone could potentially be the safer option, she noted.

In this scenario, individual travelers with high budgets would be attractive guests overseas, while hotels and tour providers would discourage families and large groups. Travelers could monitor their individual environmental 'footprint' as worldwide concern over environmental impacts ratcheted up.

The family vacation, brought to you by Oculus VR

In another scenario, families could take advantage of a boom in virtual reality technology to travel without the expense or uncertainty of leaving home, something Whittington says can already be seen with the growth of virtual reality firms like Oculus VR, which was bought by Facebook in 2014. The family vacation, thus, would largely be a virtual experience and a respite from "real world" stress, but also a departure from the halcyon past of family trips.

Why the wealthy shall inherit the earth...

Other scholars who have studied the possible tourists of the future have reached similar conclusions. A 2011 study by British futurist Ian Yeoman concluded that tourists in 2050 will likely be wealthy travelers from non-Western nations, as the economies in places like China will continue to grow. But, he noted, travel will still be a challenge, even for the wealthy, as oil and fuel shortages will make global travel scarce and expensive.

... unless climate change stops them

And then there's the ongoing environmental impact of people traveling for pleasure. Research published earlier this year by Swedish and Dutch researchers predicted the tourism industry would consume 92 percent more water and 189 percent more land between the years 2010 and 2050.

Air travel, also, will continue to have an environmental impact as more consumers take to the skies. And despite increasing environmental awareness, travelers typically don't weigh the environmental cost very heavily when making travel plans, according to Stefan Gössling, a co-author of the research.

He also says trends don't bode well for a sudden shift to a more environmentally aware traveling public. For one, he says, the world's population is increasing at the same time as the average flying distance is also growing. And the tendency to fly first class is also less energy efficient than flying economy.

But if it sounds like the stereotype of the ugly American tourist is only going to get uglier in the future, researchers aren't that pessimistic. Whittington notes that the generation that are kids today — Generation Z — will be parents in 2050. Having grown up as the first fully digital Americans, she says their outlook and perspective may be more tolerant and aware than past generations, which could shape their travel decisions.

"This is really their future," she said. "They are very multicultural, very curious about the world. They are being handed the world in a smartphone at a very young age. That's going to make them very different from us."