International tourism has grown rapidly through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In 1950 there were 25 million international tourists and this was dominated by European travel. In 2024 there were around 1.4 billion. Europe remains the biggest group, representing half of these visits but Asian tourism has grown rapidly. This exponential growth has coincided with increased wealth and leisure time, lower transport costs and reduced border restrictions. Tourism is facilitated by the ease of access to information and availability of online travels services. Increasingly tourism is used as a national strategy for development and  governments work closely with the private sector and transnational corporations to expand tourism opportunities.

A wide range of TNCs operate within the sector, including international hotel operators, aviation firms, travel companies and cruise liners.

The growth of tourism is also facilitated by global tour operators. Two of the biggest tour operators include Tui Deutschland and Thomas Cooke. Tour operators help drive down the price of tourism further through providing package holidays. Package holidays provide an all-in service to tourists making travel cheaper and easier. Tour operators advertise glossy hotel resorts at a range of budgets and destinations from luxury and top end to budget travel that entice tourists. 

Tour operators negotiate deals with airlines for block bookings or discounted fares to include in their tour packages. They also consider factors like flight schedules, baggage allowances, and seat availability when creating itineraries. 

Tour operators then create travel packages that combine flights with accommodation, activities, and other services. These packages are then offered to travellers at a fixed price, often with options for customization. 

Tour operators use various distribution channels, including their own websites, travel agencies, and online travel agencies (OTAs), to sell their packages. They also market their tours to attract potential clients. Together this service has opened up more destinations and lowered costs of travel. Tour Operators demonstrate a model of business practice showing Vertical integration. Vertical integration takes place when a TNC controls two or more stages of the supply chain, e.g. transport and accommodation. Tour operators don't actually own the physical assets but negotiate much lower prices by block booking.

Some people suggest tour operators bring exploitive practices reducing the profits of local hotel chains. Because they promise large numbers of tourists, they are able to negotiate much lower prices. They also help promote a model of mass tourism that can bring negative social.

Cruise Ships

Cruise ships operate in a similar way to tour operators, in that they provide a service that includes accommodation, food and drink and travel to multiple destinations. Tourists pay a fixed price and then enjoy an all-inclusive holiday. Cruise holidays have grown in popularity and as result cruise operators are building bigger and bigger ships. The largest cruise ship in the world is called the Icon of the Seas, owned by Royal Caribbean. It has a gross tonnage of 248,663 tonnes, a length of 1,197 feet, and a maximum capacity of 7,600.

Cruise travel has more than doubled since 2019 levels and is expected to grow further. To facilitate this growth there has also been a rapid expansion of cruise berth infrastructure. CLIA data suggests cruise berths grew from just over 400,000 globally in 2016 to more than 700,000 in 2025. In 2019, around 17 million people went on cruise holidays. In 2024, it was over 35 million. Cruise holidays were also the quickest holiday form to bounce back after the COVID-19 pandemic. The following graphic shows the regional share for cruise ships.

Cruise operators are criticised by many. Environmental issues include, polluting bunker fuel and the release of sewage into open ocean. These environmental problems are also experienced in ports making air quality very poor. Social issues include overcrowding in port destinations as tourists flood off the boats overwhelming the streets. These visits only last a few hours and inject very little spending into local shops and services, but for the time the tourists are there the towns can experience a form of siege upsetting local people. 

Large Hotel Chains

Global tourism is also supported by TNCs that run global networks of hotel chains. The likes of Marriot International, the Hilton group and Accor Hotels together run tens of thousands of hotels and millions of individual rooms around the world. These hotels have known branding, identity and quality assurances that are trusted by international travellers.

Cheaper travel

International travel is cheaper partly because TNCs have an economy of scale. This means that as they become larger, they can save money. This can happen, for example, by having the same website to deal with several different countries and simply changing the language that appears on the screen. For example, Skyscanner enables over 60 million customers to view identical information in over thirty languages each month (Skyscanner, 2018), but it is the same website that is being accessed regardless of the country the person is in. Skyscanner further benefits from being based in China with offices in just ten cities: Barcelona, Beijing, Budapest, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Miami, Shenzhen, Singapore and Sofia (Skyscanner, 2018). This saves money because the TNC doesn’t need to have offices in every country it operates in.

TNCs also deliver cheaper costs to the consumer because they encourage competition. Through price-checking sites (such as Skyscanner, Kayak, Agoda, Booking.com and so on), people can easily compare the prices for flights and hotels.

Simpler travel

TNCs have also made it simpler to be a tourist by offering package holidays. For example, Thomas Cook offers full package tours that include everything from the point of the airport departure to the destination and back. By operating the travel agency in the country of origin, as well as the airlines and hotels in the destination, the difficulty of travelling is removed. The customer doesn’t need to speak the local language, or even convert money before arriving because the travel company does everything for them.

Even if tourists do prefer to book their flights, accommodation and so on separately, the tourist can still have an easier experience by using a TNC for part of the booking. Groups such as Exodus and Intrepid are organisations that offer ‘local’ tours in different countries. These tours are sometimes offered as a package, but sometimes the tourist is still expected to purchase meals, drinks and excursions separately. However, the company offers the ‘bare bones’ of the tour (accommodation and transport) for the tourist. The tourist will have a similar experience regardless of the country they are in – from Cambodia to Canada – because the travel company offers tours in these different countries that operate to the same international standards.

More accessible travel

Travel is also more accessible thanks to TNCs. By definition, international airlines are TNCs and they are constantly expanding. New and larger airports are being developed in most countries. International airlines are helping this process by moving to smaller ‘hub’ airports.

Historically larger airports, such as Heathrow in London and Chek Lap Kok in Hong Kong, were preferred by airlines because they offered passengers the ability to switch flights and thereby access more destinations. However, as the number of travellers has increased, it has become economical to operate from smaller airports with fewer destinations. Ryanair and Easyjet in Europe have been joined by airlines in other parts of the world such as Air Asia. These TNCs operate a simple flight schedule at low cost, often to and from small airports which means it is easier for people to travel regardless of where they live.

Written by Matt Burdett