A JAPANESE proverb says "The traveller knows no shame". This is truer than ever at the end of the 20th century, writes Angela Long from Stockholm.
Since 1960, worldwide travel has increased more than sevenfold, about half of it for recreation. The number of international tourist arrivals in 1995 was estimated at 567 million, with a projected increase to 967 million by 2010.
These were some of the figures presented to the Stockholm conference.
With as many as 200 million jobs in travel and tourism, every sixth job in the world is in some way dependent on this sector. Thailand, for example, has a tourist industry worth around £1 billion a year.
The phrase "sex tourism" was first used by non-governmental organisations in the early 1980s to describe the phenomenon in SouthEast Asia. However, responsible travel agents are now taking action to prevent the abuse of the most innocent. More than a hundred of them met in San Vicente, Italy, in. April last year to discuss the growing problem of organised sexual tourism.
A number of countries associations and international organisations of travel agents are now taking action, including the distribution of brochures and self-regulatory mechanisms to prevent any of their members knowingly contributing to sex tourism.
After a Swiss journalist travelled incognito on a "sex tour" the travel agent subsequently exposed was forced out of business.
. A 75-year-old man yesterday appeared in a Brisbane Court charged with 850 child sex crimes in Australia after earlier being charged with committing similar offences in Bangkok. Police from the Child Exploitation Unit told the court they expected more charges to be made.