Article about Travel

A few odd years ago, writing an article on "where most people will go on holiday this year" would have been easy.

A few odd years ago, writing an article on "where most people will go on holiday this year" would have been easy. Where are the beaches, where is the sun, and where is the sea. What has just come into fashion, and where it's based. But a lot has changed over the last few years. Maybe you haven't noticed, but in choosing holidays now, there are a lot more factors to consider.

You can no longer predict where people will go on holiday without taking things like Global Warming, security and geo - politics. Firstly, environmental issues. Many are hoping that this year, people and industries will find a way of travelling "greener". And it sounds crazy, you can't make aeroplanes run on water, but we need to do something - Tourism Industries are set to triple in the next 20 years and that's a lot of burnt fuel. But the problem is, choosing norfolk instead of New Zealand for your Holiday may not make you feel less guilty. Tourism employs over 250 million people - and if more and more people stop travelling then people are going to be out of jobs, or paid less and on strike. More travellers will probably be going for the "gold standard" carbon offsetting schemes. It's too complicated to go into here, but look into it.

But where might most people be going in 2008? Well there are more and more agencies and holiday makers opening places in Africa. Soon, Abercrombie&Kent plans to open no fewer than seven new camps. Four of them will be built in 2008. new lodges are going to be built everywhere, including Lake Malawi. It looks like people are predicting Africa will be the target of big holidays now. Many people in South America are still visitng South East Asia, and will probably continue to do so. Despite many people avoiding the prospect of visiting places like Iran or Syria, it is possible and tourists who have been there have actually claimed it was very safe, safer than you feel on the streets of large cities. The country giving the best name to tourism in the middle east is probably Oman - there will be a new resort and spa opening in march.

Another place predicted to be a Hot Spot could be Dubai. It's new man made island, the Palm, is the first of it's kind and the first resort there will be finished in September. The atlantis will have 1,539 rooms and 42 acres of waterpark - with rapids and a golf course. Nobu and Giorgio Locatelli, the celebtriy chefs, will be there - ready to convince wealthy buisnessmen to spend their money.

Other places that have been listed as hotspots include Romania and paticuarly Transylvania - especially the valleys that surround them. These have both made in into leaflets of tour operaters, not unlike Easter European Ski resorts like Bulgaria - with cheap prices, these remain popular.

Not only is Global Warming and prices affecting where we are going, sadly, violence and terrorism continues to play a part in this. Violence has made parts of Sri Lanks unaccessible, said Foreign office Advice.

So although things have changed in travel since the days of lookign for somewhere with sun, is it still possible to predict a few destinations - places where people haven't been or places that have something new going on.