The Benefits Of Encouraging More International Travel
Of all the ways that life has been transformed in recent years, few have had more significance than the growth of international travel. The ability to visit other countries for vacation, study, or business has rapidly expanded from a luxury afforded to the very rich to something that growing portions of humanity can do on a regular basis. Yet there remain significant barriers to travel for much of the world’s population. Breaking through these barriers and making travel a truly universal experience would have a wide range of benefits for all of humanity, including:
Enhancing Access to New Shopping Experiences
Economists have long understood the manifold benefits of giving consumers access to products in other countries. There are many goods and services that are abundantly available in certain countries but rare or unavailable in others. International travel gives citizens of the latter countries a chance to access items in the former.
Even when items are available in all countries, it is sometimes more affordable to purchase them in one location than another. The more that people are able to travel, the greater their options for saving money, time, and effort by buying goods and services where they are most easily available. This improves economic efficiency and effectively makes consumers wealthier.
Bolstering Global Business & Recruitment
Consumer shopping is by no means the only economic activity that international travel fosters. Besides individuals, corporations also have to make purchases, buying raw materials, finished goods, and human talent for their operations. Easy, affordable international travel makes it easier for them to obtain all these resources, setting the stage for a booming global economy.
While travel enhances all international business operations, it is particularly important for recruiting. When hiring managers are looking for new employees, they need to meet and interview them in person. The ability to travel internationally means that companies are not limited to vetting and hiring talent within their own borders. Potential workers can come to the company’s home offices, interview for the job, meet their prospective coworkers, and get a feel for the community where they will be living. Not only does this make it easier to hire them, but it helps them evaluate whether they would truly be comfortable in their new jobs. This sets the stage for happier workers and more effective staffing.
Cultivating Cultural Exchange
While many discussions of international travel emphasize its economic advantages, the cultural benefits are at least as important. When people have the chance to visit foreign countries, they build connections with other people and gain appreciation for new cultures. This process can lead to lifelong friendships and even marriages. Not only is this good for the individuals doing the traveling, but it helps break down barriers between countries, laying a foundation for a more peaceful and cooperative world.
Besides mutual respect and cooperation between cultures, travel gives people a chance to enrich their own minds. By immersing themselves in other cultures, visitors can learn new languages, encounter new ideas, and experience new ways of doing or thinking about things. The opportunity to study abroad pushes this enrichment even further, allowing visitors to benefit from all the knowledge that foreign university systems have. Travelers become more knowledgeable about the world, learning new skills that can enhance their own lives and those of everyone they meet.
How to Expand the Benefits of International Travel
For all the advantages of traveling abroad, there remain significant barriers that prevent large numbers of people from doing so. These barriers are largely financial in nature, and include:
● Taxation Issues- Many national and local governments rely on consumption taxes for much of their revenues. Such taxes are applied to the retail prices of consumer goods. Because they raise the cost of purchases, differ from country to country and sometimes from city to city, and are not always reflected in the listed price, consumption taxes make it both more costly and more confusing for individuals to make purchases while abroad. Moreover, many tourists do not want to pay consumption taxes at all, given that they don’t receive the government services that such taxes pay for. Governments try to reimburse tourists for these taxes, but their system for doing so is highly inefficient.
● Exchange Problems- Besides paying consumption taxes, travelers need to obtain local currency when making purchases in other countries. Due to high exchange rates and hefty ATM fees, they end up losing much of the value of their money in these trades, leaving them less to spend on actual goods and services. This both dissuades many people from traveling and causes those who do travel to buy and do less.
Digital platforms like EBCoin are currently trying to solve these problems and make international travel a realistic option for more people. To do this, EBCoin is developing its own cryptocurrency, the Eximbay coin or EBC. Travelers will be able to spend EBC at participating retailers in a range of different countries; EBCoin will also provide a decentralized, inexpensive way for travelers to buy EBC with their home countries’ money, as well as to sell it for the currencies of the nations they're visiting.
In addition to currency, EBCoin is providing a more efficient way for travelers to claim tax refunds. By entering their passport information and purchase receipts into the platform, they can obtain full reimbursement without suffering the hassle, long wait times, and high fees of the current refund system. Thanks to these and other efforts from digital developers, visiting other countries will soon be cheaper and easier than ever, so all humanity can realize the full benefits of international travel.
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