Tourism, broadly defined, is regarded as the world's largest industry and one of the fastest-growing, accounting for over one-third of the value of total world-wide services trade.
Highly labour-intensive, it is a major source of employment generation, especially in remote and rural areas. Tourism demand, both domestic and international, is directly related to income levels, and therefore has prospered as global wealth has increased. The arrival of low-cost air travel has radically transormed tourism as a whole, but the industry has e"pressed serious concern over the current system of bilateral aviation agreements, arguing that protectionism severely limits tourism potential.