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One of many American reactions to austerity: the luxury boot camp spa resort.

Be tough on yourself, fight the lard, feel the financial burn, and shed both pounds and a lot of dollars.

It's one of the global tourism trends identified this week by Euromonitor's Edinburgh-based tourism expert, Caroline Bremner, in a report for the World Travel Market in London.

That's where I found myself earlier this week, finding out the industry's future, checking out the British offering (relatively modest and geographically patchy), and being staggered by the scale of it - not least the competition between Arab emirates to show off the most opulence.

Staggering too is the scale of the industry's prospective growth in Asia, largely between Asian countries.

The World Travel and Tourism Council forecasts the industry to grow by 4.3% per year for the next decade, implying its share of the global economy will rise to just over 10%.

That brings a seriously large number of jobs. The council foresees some 66 million new jobs as a result, 50 milllion of them in Asia.

Nasal familiarity

The Euromonitor Asian trend of choice is for the nostrils.

Hotels there are investing in pleasing the olfactory end of luxury pampering, pumping soothing or freshening fragrance into public spaces according to taste and time of day.

For some chains, the idea is to create a signature scent, to play to the powerful memory for smell by creating an air and odour of familiarity whenever you walk into one of its many lobbies round the world.

Marriot, however, differentiates smells between its hotels at its airport, city and beach hotels.

Or you can choose your scent from a range of up to five available for pumping into your room.

There's marketing potential there too, including the innovation of a scented billboard.

Japanese technology giant NTT last April trialled a device that emits targeted fragrances from a mobile phone when travel applications are launched.

Don't ask me how, but be aware that the industry is gearing itself up for future customers using much more mobile and social media to access travel bookings and recommendations.

Intelligent furniture

Another survey, to coincide with the World Travel Market, set out the likely shape of the hotel of 2020.

Travel technology firm Amadeus puts together the next decade's themes of austerity, ageing western travellers and the growing dominance of Asian ones, and allies that to technological innovation.

What it arrives at is the prospect of "inter-generational tourism", customer pressure for better layout and accessibility, a hotel room with intelligent furniture, personalised nutrition plans and responsive technologies that cater to individual taste.

It suggests some hotels of the future may be by invitation only, or co-branded with other luxury brands (Edinburgh's Missoni has beaten them to that idea).

To return to the Euromonitor research, it's discerned an opening for stellar tourism in Africa.

If you've ever stared at the unpolluted southern night sky, you'll know it's a bit special.

In South Africa in particular, star-gazing is now a useful little niche with lots more potential.

In the Middle East, the country with unrealised potential is Iraq.

Yes, that's right - a different type of adventure or deprivation experience.

It's already doing a big trade in Shia pilgrims visiting the shrines that dot the Euphrates valley.

Three-quarters of its 1.3m arrivals last year were there for religious tourism, mostly from Iran.

Europeans may find the antiquities as interesting, I was told by the chairman of the Iraqi Tourism Board.

It was making its first appearance among the thousands of exhibitors at the London marketplace, at the stand next to Yemen, though it seemed a tad more focussed on getting investors in hotels than signing up package operators.

There too was a specialist Iraqi insurance provider, with comprehensive coverage for terrorism and hostage-taking. Most reassuring. But no sign of Somalia or Afghanistan this year.

Greece is the word

Coming close to home, what trends are there for Europe? Not many, beyond austerity.

Finding new ways to coax families into travelling with niche products, perhaps.

Big bargains for Middle East investors in London's prestige hotel brands.

And from George Nikitiadis, Greece's deputy tourism minister, an assurance aimed particularly at the British market which sent 2.5m visitors even through the depths of downturn last year.

Greece has 20% of its workforce in tourism, translating 18% of its GDP. Over-dependence on the sector, and on the British, I asked him?

Not dependence, he purred, but a love affair.

And instead of the Brits getting only the sun, sea and ouso, we're to be coaxed into a bit of culture and history too.

Apparently, the Greeks have rather a lot of it, and many of us have failed to notice.