Travel and tourism will end 2024 fully recovered from 2019 and the biggest crisis in the sector’s history, shows the latest World Tourism Barometer by UN Tourism.
Four years after the outbreak of the pandemic, which brought global tourism to a standstill, the barometer shows most regions already exceeding 2019 arrival numbers for the period Jan-Sep 2024, and things are even more positive spend-wise with most destinations posting double-digit growth compared to 2019.
UN Tourism secretary-general Zurab Pololikashvili says the strong growth seen in tourism receipts is excellent news for economies around the world. “The fact that visitor spending is growing even stronger than arrivals has a direct impact on millions of jobs and small businesses and contributes decisively to the balance of payments and tax revenues of many economies.”
Among the best performers in terms of earnings was Serbia, it says, where receipts almost doubled compared to the same months of 2019, as well as Pakistan which saw spend up 64%, Romania up 61% and Japan up 59%.
Data on international tourism expenditure reflects the same trend, especially among large source markets such as Germany, the United States and France, up 35%, 33% and 11%, respectively.
. . . Region
The Middle East saw record growth Jan-Sep, up 29% compared to 2019, with Europe and Africa also exceeding 2019 levels at 1% and 6%, respectively. The Americas has recovered to 97% of its pre-pandemic arrivals, while close to home Asia and the Pacific reached 85% of 2019 levels, which was quite an increase compared to the 66% recovery seen in 2023.
