Tourists to hit space in 2020

ISTANBUL (Reuters): Tourists may be holidaying in space rather than beach resorts by the year 2020 as the number of international travellers triples from current levels, a World Tourism Organisation (WTO) report obtained on Thursday said.

In a series of forecasts, the group predicted annual tourism receipts would rocket to $2 trillion by 2020 from $423 billion in 1996 as the number of international arrivals leaps to 1.6 billion from 595 million.

The report identified "the advent of near space tourism" as one of the trends that will shape the industry in the 21st century.

"The emergent space tourism of that time will be by definition an activity which is undertaken largely in isolation," the report said.