Some people just don’t get out
much. Out of their home nation that is. Sometimes there’s a good reason for
this: North Korea and Zimbabwe are going to be difficult to leave alive, Andorra
has no airport or railway stations, and the police might be taking care of the
passports of certain British citizens who enjoy a little football hooliganism
on the weekends.
Tourists have existed since 1772
– when the word was first used – though humans have travelled for leisure since
the earliest of times. Tourism, by contrast, wasn’t invented for another 40
years.
It seems some nationals just get out more than others, and that this
has little to do with living on hard to escape islands or the heftiness of
bank accounts. Citizens of New Zealand, for example, are actively encouraged to holiday at
home rather than travelling abroad, though I can see why they might be eager to
leave.
I wanted to find out which
nations get out more, but was stumped by the lack of real statistics, so turned
to the example of the United States, the nation that earns more from
international tourism than anyone else.
Somewhere in the region of 30% of
US citizens hold valid passports. Of those who do, half the trips taken out of
the country are to Mexico and Canada. Until 2007 US citizens didn’t even need
passports to visit its contiguous neighbours, and passports were held by less
than 20% of the population.
The low numbers (75% of UK
citizens hold passports) doesn’t seem to result from the United States’ global
position stuck between vast oceans, since 60% of Canadians have passports. It’s
also true that a flight from one side of the country to the other would take
just as long as a direct flight to Europe or South America, and that double the
number of Americans visit England than any of the islands in the Caribbean just
next door.
Disappointingly, it could all be
down to tax. The US system very generally means if you hold a US passport you
pay US tax, even if you’re living in Monaco rather than Massachusetts. This
means that not only do expats abandon their US citizenship (and right to a
passport) when settled abroad, but new US citizens aren’t adopting the passports
of their new nation.
The thing about international travel
over national travel is that it takes people out of their comfort zone, it can
be scary, and some people just don’t like that. And they might just all live in
the US.