In terms of international trade, tourism comes after information services and oil products, but well before sectors as important as agriculture, the automobile industry, or textiles.
Tourism creates at present the most number of jobs out of all of the world's economic sectors.
This is considerably more than the world average of all sectors combined. According to cautious projections, the actual number of tourists should triple from 2000 to 2020. The aging of the world's population, combined with the increase in free time, more permeable geographic frontiers, decreasing transportation costs, and electronic communications, are the principle factors underlying this expansion. Tourism represents the principle source of investments for the rational management of regions, landscapes, and ecosystems, which do not have, or more often have lost, a potential for agricultural and industrial activities, during this period of transition toward the global society of information. In this manner, tourism may reduce the rural exodus and the migration of local populations.