There are a number of key factors affecting the recent trends in international tourism:

- Globalization: Globalization interprets the global economy as a market that is not restricted by national borders. It means increasing international dependence of markets and production by trade in goods and services. GATS paves the way for globalization process through increasing international distribution of labor, liberal global economic order, free cross-border and movement of capital.

- This trend would increase international strategic cooperation, alliances, acquisition and enhance exchange of technologies, as well as, cross-border transfer of know-how.

- Technological Progress: Entails the application of those changes in powerful markets, while it is enormously expensive for individual small or medium sized tourism enterprise.
 
-New Markets: New markets are emerging such as Eastern Europe, Latin America, South East Asia and Long Haul destinations. This market change could cause the imbalance of present situations in many countries. However, it could be managed through deep research on, studies of and flexibility in risk management.

Risks need to be classified. A risk is small or big not simply according to its magnitude but also to its structure. There are essentially four kinds of risks:
 
- Risks one must accept, since it is built into the nature of the business
- Risk one can afford to take
- Risk one cannot afford to take
- Risk one cannot afford not to take.