International Tourism Expenditures Research Articles

Pandemic and Economy: An Econometric Analysis Investigating the Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Tourism Market

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global tourism market has become one of the most affected sectors of the economy. In this research, the literature on the economic effects created by COVID-19 on a global level is first studied and the measures and restrictions that governments are obliged to take in order to suppress and prevent the spread of the coronavirus are analyzed. Next, there is an attempt to empirically estimate a system of equations regarding the two channels of influence of COVID-19 on tourism, making use of cross-sectional data, and specifically for a sample of 38 countries that launched vaccination up until the end of 2020. The explained results confirm that tourism is directly affected by the spread of COVID-19, due to the effort of travelers to avoid illness, but also due to the measures taken by governments to limit it. Tourism is also indirectly affected, due to the negative impact on income. Using 3SLS, an equation was developed to calculate the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 on tourism. Notably, the dependent variable (tourism expenditure) exhibited a positive correlation with the independent variable (GDP) and a negative correlation with the total COVID-19 cases. Consequently, it was determined that a unit increase in the COVID-19 variable led to a reduction in international tourism expenditure by USD 859,237. Finally, there is a concern, and further investigation is needed, regarding the effect of vaccination against COVID-19 on tourism, which, while it is expected to be negative, is not confirmed by the results.

Presence of Tourism-Led-Growth Hypothesis in Pakistan: Empirical Evidence with ARDL Model

Tourism has become the world’s third-largest export earning industry. According to the World Bank, in recent times international tourism has attracted a great attention and 7% of world’s total trade involves tourism. Tourism is considered one of the endogenous factors to boost the economic growth and development of any nation. It has versatile impacts on country growth and contributes directly and indirectly to GDP. The paper aims to bring forth confirmation of the tourism-led-growth hypothesis (TLGH) for Pakistan using time series data from 1995-2020 by incorporating inflation, international tourism, and tourism expenditure as regressors. For checking the stationarity of time series data, unit root tests Augmented Dickey-Fuller test (ADF) and Phillip Perron test indicate that Economic Growth and inflation are stationary at their first difference while tourism expenditure and number of international arrivals are stationary at level. ARDL approach has been utilized to establish the link to how tourism affects the economic growth of Pakistan and the Cumulative Sum of Recursive Residual (CUSUM) and CUSUM of square has been used to check the stability of the model. The result depicts that a long-run relation exists among the variables. Inflation has a negative and significant impact on economic growth while international arrival and tourism expenditure have a positive and significant impact on economic growth. Furthermore, to enhance tourism activities and attract foreign tourists, the government must focus on macroeconomic stability because such factors have a direct effect on tourism and thus multifaceted impact on economic growth.

Re-visiting the causal relationship between tourism and economic growth in India: specific to general modelling approach

PurposeTourism–economy relationship in India has been studied extensively in the past literature using a single equation approach. However, the present paper diverted from this trend and examined the tourism–economy relationship using the specific to general modelling approach over the 1990–2018 time period. The study also accounts for the influence of merchandise trade, capital formation, foreign investment inflows and inflation on economic growth to achieve the robustness of the coefficient estimates.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the objective, the study utilised a specific to general modelling strategy. First, the regression equation includes only three core variables: gross domestic product (GDP), international tourist receipts and international tourist expenditures. Next, the authors include other control variables in the regression equation one by one, leading us to test five model types for investigating the cointegration among the variables. As for the estimation technique, the authors employed autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach.FindingsThe paper's findings highlight that tourism receipts and expenditures exert a positively significant impact on economic growth. Moreover, including the additional independent variables does not substantially change the tourism and economic growth relationship. The existence of one-way causality from tourism expenditures to economic growth supports the tourism-led growth hypothesis. These findings highlight the rationale for intervention by the government and policymakers to promote tourism potential and facilities to accelerate the overall growth performance of the country. While the existence of one-way causal effect from economic growth to tourism revenues supports the growth-led tourism development hypothesis, implying that economic expansion is necessary for tourism development.Research limitations/implicationsThis research article tried to present a comprehensive picture of India's tourism–economy relationship. However, the present study is organised as an aggregate economy-level analysis. It assumed that the aggregate tourism sector is homogenous. However, different tourism sectors exert different levels of influence on the economy. The authors expect future research can take the disaggregated analysis of the tourism–economy relationship.Practical implicationsThis study provides valuable insights into the tourism-led growth hypothesis in India. The study highlights comprehensive intervention by the government and policymakers for accelerating tourism development to invigorate the overall growth performance of the country over the long run. The principal recommendation emerging from the present research is that the tourism growth potential can be depended upon to stimulate the economic performance of the Indian economy.Originality/valueThe present study diverted from the previous empirical studies by following a specific to general modelling strategy. First, the regression model includes only three core variables such as economic growth, tourism receipts and tourism expenditure. Next, the authors include other control variables in the regression equation one by one, leading us to test five model types for investigating the cointegrating relationship among the variables. GDP growth rate is used as a dependent variable in all five specifications. The idea is to expand the model to capture every feature of the data generating process.

Longitudinal Analysis of Sustainable Tourism Potential of the Black Sea Riparian States Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey

The three states that border the Black Sea benefit from an important potential for tourism and consider the development of this sector to be a major objective. Nonetheless, they face environmental risks. Tourism does not have a neutral impact on the ecosystem. We evaluated tourism sustainability for three states bordering the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. We used a longitudinal data analysis applied to five variables for the period between 2005 and 2020. The data were taken from the World Bank website. The results show that tourism receipts significantly influence the environment. For all three countries, the total receipts from international tourism are unsustainable, while the receipts for travel items are sustainable. Sustainability factors are different for each country. The international tourism expenditures for Bulgaria, the total receipts for Romania and the receipts for travel items for Turkey are sustainable. In Bulgaria, the receipts from international tourism contribute to higher greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., negative environmental impact. In Romania and Turkey, the number of arrivals has the same impact. No sustainable tourism model could be identified for the three countries. Tourism activity was found to be sustainable only due to the receipts for travel items, that is, indirectly, from tourism-related activities.

The permanent or transitory nature of shocks to tourism expenditures and receipts: Evidence from new panel stationarity tests with breaks and factors

Tourism expenditures and receipts are an important component of many countries’ balance of payments. Indeed, the determination of whether shocks to tourism expenditures and receipts are permanent or transitory in nature is relevant to understanding the appropriate policy response. This study introduces new panel stationarity tests that simultaneously model structural breaks and a common factor structure. The results from several panel stationarity tests including the new tests reject the null hypothesis of stationarity for the panel of 63 countries. Based on tests of stationarity with a common factor structure without structural breaks at the individual country level, the null hypothesis of stationarity is rejected in 24 and 26 countries with respect to per capita international tourism expenditures and tourism receipts, respectively. The inclusion of the Fourier approximation for smooth structural breaks alongside the common factor structure increases the number of rejections of the null hypothesis of stationarity to 48 and 54 countries for per capita international tourism expenditures and receipts, respectively. Hence, shocks to either tourism expenditures or receipts will likely be permanent in nature requiring a policy response in order to return tourism expenditures and receipts to their original trend path. JEL Codes: Z32, C33.

The Determinants of Outbound Tourism: A Revisit of Socioeconomic and Environmental Conditions

This article investigates the drivers of outbound tourism. The originality of our approach is that it integrates socioenvironmental aspects in the demand for international tourism. This study provides an empirical analysis for panel data of 82 economies from 2002 to 2016. Several estimates for panel data are applied. The results are robust and consistent. Beyond the classical economic drivers of tourism, socioeconomic factors, including urbanization, unemployment, vulnerable employment, and particularly aging population, are shown to play an important role in international tourism departures and international tourism expenditure. One of the notable findings is that environmental factors, including CO2 emissions (positive) and forest area (negative), have a significant effect on international tourism. The results also show a stronger influence of economic, social, and environmental determinants of outbound tourism in higher income economies in the period after 2008.

Finite Mixture Model: Prediction of Time Series Data Using Bayesian Method

The aim of this study is to measure the number of components that exhibits from the variables' series. The number of components can be affected by the time series components including trend, seasonal adjustment, and irregular changes. By using a finite mixture model, the number of components can be identifies and thereafter we can formulate a Bayesian regression equation to predict the relationship between exchange rate and international tourism expenditure in Malaysia. Identification of the number of components is an important step to weigh the probability density function for a time series data. The weight of the probability density function is then used for prediction. Besides, a Bayesian method is also used in this study to fit with the finite mixture model due to its consistency characteristic. The Bayesian parameter estimates are close to the predictive distributions because it will integrate the prior distribution with the likelihood function to produce posterior distribution. The results show that there is a two-component normal mixture model exists for the time series data. In addition, a prediction equation is obtained from the analysis.

Significantly correlation between tourism and COVID-19: evidence from 178 countries and territories.

The high development of tourism is considered a factor that facilitates the global spread of infectious diseases. The association between tourism and the epidemic of coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) remains unclear. We retrieved the data of COVID-19 in 178 countries/territories from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Data on tourism indicators were collected from the World Tourism Organization. We used Spearman's correlation analysis to explore the association between tourism and the epidemic of COVID-19. We find that international tourism expenditure, international tourism receipts, international tourist arrivals, and international tourism exports were significantly correlated with the total number of cases (rs=0.86, rs=0.79, rs=0.80, rs=0.81, respectively), the daily growth of cases of COVID-19 (rs=0.84, rs=0.76, rs=0.78, rs=0.78, respectively), and the number of cases (per million persons) (rs=0.52, rs=0.53, rs=0.36, rs=0.53, respectively) (p < 0.0001 for all), especially in places with high-income. Tourism as percentage of exports was slightly associated with the total number of cases and the daily growth of cases (rs=-0.33, rs=-0.33) (p < 0.0001 for both). The clinical and public health care providers must realize the potential for the transmission of infections across regions and put more effort to prevent and respond to future infections.

Tourism Development and Economic Growth in Southeast Asian Countries under the Presence of Structural Break: Panel Kink with GME Estimator

This study examines the nonlinear impact of tourism development on economic growth in Southeast Asian countries using the panel kink regression model. Due to the paucity of Southeast Asian data, we may face the overparameterization problem in our model. To deal with this problem, this study proposes the Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimator to estimate the unknown parameters in this nonlinear model. Several important tourism development indicators consisting of the total international arrivals, international tourism expenditure, and tourism receipts are considered. In addition, we also consider the gross capital formation and real effective exchange rate as a control variable in our nonlinear model. Our findings show that the effect of international tourist arrivals on economic growth should be separated into two regimes, while other factors do not exhibit a nonlinear relationship with Southeast Asian economic growth. Thus, we construct the empirical model with the kink effect in the variable of international tourist arrivals. To confirm the performance of the GME estimator, we compare it to the ordinary least squares and the fixed effect estimators. According to the mean squared and root means squared errors, we find that our GME estimator performs better than the ordinary least squares and the fixed effect estimators. This indicates that GME estimation is an applicable method for estimating the nonlinear effect of tourism growth on economic growth. Our empirical results show that there are positive impacts of tourism growth on economic growth for regime 1 (low tourism demand) and regime 2 (high tourism demand) with the effect of the low tourist arrivals regime being relatively larger. We also find a positive influence of gross capital formation, real effective exchange rate, international tourism expenditure, and tourism receipts on Southeast Asian economic growth.

ЮНВТО Всемирная туристская Барометр, и статистическое приложение Обновленная информация, Июль 2021 года

Перевод охватывает основные главы публикации. Отдельные главы публикуются на языке оригинала (Английский). International travel largely on hold despite uptick in May 2021 International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) dropped by 85% in January-May 2021 compared to the same period of pre-pandemic year 2019, or 65% over 2020, as travel restrictions remained high due to the coronavirus pandemic. This follows an unprecedented drop of 73% in 2020, the worst year on record for international tourism This sharp decline represents a loss of some 147 million international arrivals compared to the same five months of 2020, or 460 million compared to 2019. By regions, Asia and the Pacific continued to suffer the largest decline with a 95% drop in international arrivals in the first five months of 2021 over the same period in 2019. Europe (-85%) recorded the second largest decline in arrivals, followed by the Middle East (-83%) and Africa (-81%). The Americas (-72%) saw a comparatively smaller decrease. Despite the weak results, international tourism saw a minor uptick in May 2021 with arrivals declining by 82% (versus May 2019), after falling by 86% in April, as some destinations started to ease travel restrictions and consumer confidence rose slightly. After an estimated 64% plunge in international tourism receipts in 2020, destinations continued to report very weak revenues in the first five months of 2021, ranging from 50% to 90% declines compared to 2019. However, several countries recorded a small uptick in the month of May following a minor improvement in international arrivals. In terms of outbound travel among the top 20 source markets, Saudi Arabia (-42%) and Belgium (-46%) saw relatively better results in January-May 2021, as well as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Switzerland, all recording 50% declines in international tourism expenditure compared to the same period in 2019. France is also worth noting, with -54% in expenditure compared to 2019. International travel is slowly picking up from very low levels, though the recovery remains fragile and uneven amid much uncertainty. Domestic travel is driving the recovery of tourism in several destinations, especially those with large domestic markets. Domestic air seat capacity in China and Russia has already exceeded pre-crisis levels. Along with the ongoing vaccination roll-out, the safe and responsible restart of tourism will continue to depend on a coordinated response among countries regarding travel restrictions, harmonized safety protocols and effective communication to help restore consumer confidence.

Baromètre OMT du tourisme mondial et annexe statistique, juillet 2021

Seuls les principaux chapitres de la publication ont été traduits. Le reste de la publication figure dans la langue originale (Anglais). International travel largely on hold despite uptick in May 2021 International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) dropped by 85% in January-May 2021 compared to the same period of pre-pandemic year 2019, or 65% over 2020, as travel restrictions remained high due to the coronavirus pandemic. This follows an unprecedented drop of 73% in 2020, the worst year on record for international tourism This sharp decline represents a loss of some 147 million international arrivals compared to the same five months of 2020, or 460 million compared to 2019. By regions, Asia and the Pacific continued to suffer the largest decline with a 95% drop in international arrivals in the first five months of 2021 over the same period in 2019. Europe (-85%) recorded the second largest decline in arrivals, followed by the Middle East (-83%) and Africa (-81%). The Americas (-72%) saw a comparatively smaller decrease. Despite the weak results, international tourism saw a minor uptick in May 2021 with arrivals declining by 82% (versus May 2019), after falling by 86% in April, as some destinations started to ease travel restrictions and consumer confidence rose slightly. After an estimated 64% plunge in international tourism receipts in 2020, destinations continued to report very weak revenues in the first five months of 2021, ranging from 50% to 90% declines compared to 2019. However, several countries recorded a small uptick in the month of May following a minor improvement in international arrivals. In terms of outbound travel among the top 20 source markets, Saudi Arabia (-42%) and Belgium (-46%) saw relatively better results in January-May 2021, as well as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Switzerland, all recording 50% declines in international tourism expenditure compared to the same period in 2019. France is also worth noting, with -54% in expenditure compared to 2019. International travel is slowly picking up from very low levels, though the recovery remains fragile and uneven amid much uncertainty. Domestic travel is driving the recovery of tourism in several destinations, especially those with large domestic markets. Domestic air seat capacity in China and Russia has already exceeded pre-crisis levels. Along with the ongoing vaccination roll-out, the safe and responsible restart of tourism will continue to depend on a coordinated response among countries regarding travel restrictions, harmonized safety protocols and effective communication to help restore consumer confidence.

Barómetro OMT del Turismo Mundial y anexo estadístico, Julio 2021

La traducción sólo cubre el anexo estadístico. Los otros capítulos se publican en el idioma original (inglés). International travel largely on hold despite uptick in May 2021 International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) dropped by 85% in January-May 2021 compared to the same period of pre-pandemic year 2019, or 65% over 2020, as travel restrictions remained high due to the coronavirus pandemic. This follows an unprecedented drop of 73% in 2020, the worst year on record for international tourism This sharp decline represents a loss of some 147 million international arrivals compared to the same five months of 2020, or 460 million compared to 2019. By regions, Asia and the Pacific continued to suffer the largest decline with a 95% drop in international arrivals in the first five months of 2021 over the same period in 2019. Europe (-85%) recorded the second largest decline in arrivals, followed by the Middle East (-83%) and Africa (-81%). The Americas (-72%) saw a comparatively smaller decrease. Despite the weak results, international tourism saw a minor uptick in May 2021 with arrivals declining by 82% (versus May 2019), after falling by 86% in April, as some destinations started to ease travel restrictions and consumer confidence rose slightly. After an estimated 64% plunge in international tourism receipts in 2020, destinations continued to report very weak revenues in the first five months of 2021, ranging from 50% to 90% declines compared to 2019. However, several countries recorded a small uptick in the month of May following a minor improvement in international arrivals. In terms of outbound travel among the top 20 source markets, Saudi Arabia (-42%) and Belgium (-46%) saw relatively better results in January-May 2021, as well as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Switzerland, all recording 50% declines in international tourism expenditure compared to the same period in 2019. France is also worth noting, with -54% in expenditure compared to 2019. International travel is slowly picking up from very low levels, though the recovery remains fragile and uneven amid much uncertainty. Domestic travel is driving the recovery of tourism in several destinations, especially those with large domestic markets. Domestic air seat capacity in China and Russia has already exceeded pre-crisis levels. Along with the ongoing vaccination roll-out, the safe and responsible restart of tourism will continue to depend on a coordinated response among countries regarding travel restrictions, harmonized safety protocols and effective communication to help restore consumer confidence.

UNWTO World Tourism Barometer and Statistical Annex, July 2021

International travel largely on hold despite uptick in May 2021. International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) dropped by 85% in January-May 2021 compared to the same period of pre-pandemic year 2019, or 65% over 2020, as travel restrictions remained high due to the coronavirus pandemic. This follows an unprecedented drop of 73% in 2020, the worst year on record for international tourism This sharp decline represents a loss of some 147 million international arrivals compared to the same five months of 2020, or 460 million compared to 2019. By regions, Asia and the Pacific continued to suffer the largest decline with a 95% drop in international arrivals in the first five months of 2021 over the same period in 2019. Europe (-85%) recorded the second largest decline in arrivals, followed by the Middle East (-83%) and Africa (-81%). The Americas (-72%) saw a comparatively smaller decrease. Despite the weak results, international tourism saw a minor uptick in May 2021 with arrivals declining by 82% (versus May 2019), after falling by 86% in April, as some destinations started to ease travel restrictions and consumer confidence rose slightly. After an estimated 64% plunge in international tourism receipts in 2020, destinations continued to report very weak revenues in the first five months of 2021, ranging from 50% to 90% declines compared to 2019. However, several countries recorded a small uptick in the month of May following a minor improvement in international arrivals. In terms of outbound travel among the top 20 source markets, Saudi Arabia (-42%) and Belgium (-46%) saw relatively better results in January-May 2021, as well as the Republic of Korea, Malaysia and Switzerland, all recording 50% declines in international tourism expenditure compared to the same period in 2019. France is also worth noting, with -54% in expenditure compared to 2019. International travel is slowly picking up from very low levels, though the recovery remains fragile and uneven amid much uncertainty. Domestic travel is driving the recovery of tourism in several destinations, especially those with large domestic markets. Domestic air seat capacity in China and Russia has already exceeded pre-crisis levels. Along with the ongoing vaccination roll-out, the safe and responsible restart of tourism will continue to depend on a coordinated response among countries regarding travel restrictions, harmonized safety protocols and effective communication to help restore consumer confidence.

Measuring the effects of tourists’ relative willingness to spend and third-degree price discrimination on inbound tourism expenditure differentials

Tourism expenditures are determined by a set of antecedents that reflect tourists’ willingness and ability to spend, and de facto incremental monetary outlays at which willingness and ability is transformed into total expenditures. Based on the neoclassical theoretical argument of utility-constrained expenditure minimization, we extend the current literature by applying a sustainability-based segmentation criterion, namely, the Legatum Prosperity IndexTM to the decomposition of a total expenditure differential into tourists’ relative willingness to spend and an upper bound of third-degree price discrimination, using mean-level and conditional quantile estimates. Our results indicate that understanding the price–quantity composition of international inbound tourism expenditure differentials assists agents in the tourism industry in their quest for profit maximization.

Internet penetration and international travel and tourism expenditure: The role of foreign exchange control

The total amount of digital travel sales worldwide increases significantly every year, yet previous studies on outbound tourism expenditures have scarcely discussed the role of foreign exchange control (Fxc) as a barrier to e-internationalization. In the era of e-commerce, residents of more than 40 economies are not allowed to buy or pay for foreign products by the Internet. This article, with data from 95 economies in the period 2012–2017, concludes that Internet penetration development increases international tourism expenditure. On the other hand, the control of foreign exchange decreases the relationship between internet penetration and tourism expenditure. Therefore, Fxc is clearly a barrier to electronic internationalization and tourism expenditure.

محددات الطلب على المنتجات الحرفية التذکارية (دراسة حالة منطقة خان الخليلي بالقاهرة)

Craft Souvenirs are one of the cultural tourist attractions. They are also one of the international tourist expenditures items and thus they are considered as a source of tourist revenues which indicates its role in the tourism industry. Consequently, it should to identify the determinants of tourist demand of craft souvenirs in order to be able to identify the factors that encourage tourists to purchase them and thus maximize their economic role in the tourism industry. The study adopted a case study approach, whereby 100 survey questionnaires were distributed to international tourists in Khan EL-Khalil district in Cairo. The results revealed that the local atmosphere is the most important characteristic that encourage tourists for shopping from Khan EL-Khalili district. The results also indicated that the more authentic souvenirs are, the more tourist demand on them increases; regardless of the varied perceptions of tourists about the concept. The results also indicated that there is a statistically significant relationship between the purpose of the trip and the percentage that tourist spends on souvenir craft products.

Examining the connection among national tourism expenditure and economic growth in Algeria

Tourism is one of the most important sectors for several researchers and decision makers, due to its influence on the world economic growth in the twenty-first century, making it as a source of competition between countries to a global industry for its effective strategic role in the development of countries. In this paper, we used two variables natural logarithm of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and natural logarithm of per capita international and national tourism expenditure (ITE) to study the relationship between the tourism sector and economic growth in Algeria over the period of 1995–2017. We established with the unit root test with and without breakpoint that the variables are stationary in the first difference and there is a structural break in (ITE) and (GDP). Thus, with the presence of a breakpoint, we employed the methodology of Gregory–Hansen to avoid such issue, but we found that there was no evidence of cointegration with breakpoint, so then we used the vector autoregressive model (VAR). The model showed that the tourism sector has a positive and insignificant coefficient on the economic growth, while the economic growth factor has a positive and significant on the tourism sector. In the short run, there was a one-way causality from GDP to ITE at the level of 1%, confirming the economic-driven tourism growth hypothesis. Also, we found with Breitung and Candelon causality that there was same causality at the level of 10%.

Establishing a pre-COVID-19 baseline for surf tourism: Trip expenditure and attitudes, behaviors and willingness to pay for sustainability

This manuscript provides the only empirically derived pre-COVID-19 global estimation of international surf travel spending and the first assessment of sustainable surf tourism attitudes, behaviors, and willingness to pay. It establishes important baselines that can serve as points of comparison as, and after, surf tourism returns, inevitably changed, post-COVID-19. Employing a direct cost method, international surf tourism expenditure was valued between $31.5 to $64.9 billion USD per year and surfers reported being willing to pay between $1.99 and $4.1 billion USD more annually for sustainable surf tourism products. These results suggest surfing tourism deserves a more significant place in funding initiatives, discussions, and research related to fostering sustainable development from ocean resources in the rapidly changing world.

Baromètre OMT du tourisme mondial et annexe statistique, Decembre 2020

International tourism expected to decline over 70% in 2020, back to levels of 30 years ago International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) fell by 72% in January-October 2020 over the same period last year, curbed by slow virus containment, low traveller confidence and important restrictions on travel still in place, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline in the first ten months of the year represents 900 million fewer international tourist arrivals compared to the same period in 2019, and translates into a loss of US$ 935 billion in export revenues from international tourism, more than 10 times the loss in 2009 under the impact of the global economic crisis. Asia and the Pacific saw an 82% decrease in arrivals in January-October 2020. The Middle East recorded a 73% decline, while Africa saw a 69% drop this ten-month period. International arrivals in both Europe and the Americas declined by 68%. Data on international tourism expenditure continues to reflect very weak demand for outbound travel. However, some large markets such as the United States, Germany and France have shown some shy signs of recovery in the recent months. While demand for international travel remains subdued, domestic tourism continues to grow in several large markets such as China and Russia, where domestic air travel demand has mostly returned to pre-COVID levels. Based on current trends, UNWTO expects international arrivals to decline by 70% to 75% for the whole of 2020. This would mean that international tourism could have returned to levels of 30 years ago. The estimated decline in internationals tourism in 2020 is equivalent to a loss of about 1 billion arrivals and US$ 1.1 trillion in international tourism receipts. This plunge in international tourism could result in an estimated economic loss of over US$ 2 trillion in global GDP, more than 2% of the world’s GDP in 2019. Looking ahead, the announcement and the roll-out of a vaccine are expected to gradually increase consumer confidence and contribute to ease travel restrictions. UNWTO’s extended scenarios for 2021-2024 point to a rebound in international tourism by the second half of 2021. Nonetheless, a return to 2019 levels in terms of international arrivals could take 2½ to 4 years.

Barómetro OMT del Turismo Mundial y anexo estadístico, Diciembre 2020

International tourism expected to decline over 70% in 2020, back to levels of 30 years ago International tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) fell by 72% in January-October 2020 over the same period last year, curbed by slow virus containment, low traveller confidence and important restrictions on travel still in place, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline in the first ten months of the year represents 900 million fewer international tourist arrivals compared to the same period in 2019, and translates into a loss of US$ 935 billion in export revenues from international tourism, more than 10 times the loss in 2009 under the impact of the global economic crisis. Asia and the Pacific saw an 82% decrease in arrivals in January-October 2020. The Middle East recorded a 73% decline, while Africa saw a 69% drop this ten-month period. International arrivals in both Europe and the Americas declined by 68%. Data on international tourism expenditure continues to reflect very weak demand for outbound travel. However, some large markets such as the United States, Germany and France have shown some shy signs of recovery in the recent months. While demand for international travel remains subdued, domestic tourism continues to grow in several large markets such as China and Russia, where domestic air travel demand has mostly returned to pre-COVID levels. Based on current trends, UNWTO expects international arrivals to decline by 70% to 75% for the whole of 2020. This would mean that international tourism could have returned to levels of 30 years ago. The estimated decline in internationals tourism in 2020 is equivalent to a loss of about 1 billion arrivals and US$ 1.1 trillion in international tourism receipts. This plunge in international tourism could result in an estimated economic loss of over US$ 2 trillion in global GDP, more than 2% of the world’s GDP in 2019. Looking ahead, the announcement and the roll-out of a vaccine are expected to gradually increase consumer confidence and contribute to ease travel restrictions. UNWTO’s extended scenarios for 2021-2024 point to a rebound in international tourism by the second half of 2021. Nonetheless, a return to 2019 levels in terms of international arrivals could take 2½ to 4 years.