[Economics] Tourism will grow twice as fast as the world economy in the next 10 years

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The contribution of tourism to GDP will recover by 2023, but not employment

The data provided by the WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council) at its Global Summit being held in the Philippines invites optimism. Not surprisingly, the results of the study carried out by Oxford Economics show that the tourist GDP will grow an annual average of 5.8% in the next 10 years, double what the world economy is expected to grow, 2.7%. And it is that, in the words of its president and CEO, Julia Simpson, "tourism will not only recover the levels of 2019 in 2023, but will once again be the global economic engine." A recovery that will have its focus on Asia-Pacific, where 60% of that growth will occur, although to return to the 2019 figures in tourism employment in the world, we will have to wait another year.

 

In the next decade, as Julia Simpson has confirmed, "there will be a massive recovery of world tourism and its contribution to global GDP, with the expected creation of 126 million new jobs, that is, one in three of all those are generated in the world. Of these, 77 million will be located in Asia-Pacific, where an annual increase of 8.5% is expected, three percentage points more than the world average and more than double the estimated growth of 4% in its economy.

 

In 2019, the contribution of tourism to world GDP stood at 9.6 trillion dollars, a figure that with the outbreak of the pandemic fell by half to 4.8 trillion, although in 2021 it recovered 21.7%, reaching at 5.8 trillion. The organization's forecasts for this year point to a rise of 43.7% to reach 8.35 billion, still 13.3% below pre-pandemic data, although it already represents 8.5% of total world economic GDP , and in 2023 it will return to 9.6 billion in 2019 after experiencing an increase of 15.1%.

Regarding tourism employment, the 333 million jobs generated by the sector in 2019 worldwide fell to 271 million in the year of the coronavirus, which represented a decrease of 18.6% that began to recover in 2021, 6.7% to stand at 289 million. The estimate for this year goes through an increase of 3.5% to 300 million, still 10.1% below the figures for 2019, to reach 324 million a year later with a rise of 8.2% and only 2.7% lower than the pre-pandemic data.

Pacific Asia
In Asia-Pacific, the only region for which the WTTC has provided segmented data at the moment, the contribution of tourism to GDP in 2020 fell more than the world average, 59%, from 3.3 to 1.36 trillion dollars ; it has cost more to start the recovery, with a rise of 16% in 2021 to stand at 1.58 trillion, but this year it is expected to grow 71% to 2.7 trillion, still 18.2% below 2019 figures; which will be exceeded in 2023 by almost 3%, standing at 3.4 trillion dollars. However, as Simpson has recognized, "everything depends on the recovery of China."

Regarding employment, the indices are very similar to the world average, with a drop of 19% in 2020, from 185 million jobs to 150 million, which rose to 159 million the following year, 6% more ; growth that will almost match this year, with an expected increase of 5.3% to 168 million, reaching 183 million jobs in 2023, 8.9% more than a year earlier and only 1.1% below of the pre-pandemic figures.

 

Link: https://www.hosteltur.com/151165_el-turismo-crecera-el-doble-que-la-economia-mundial-en-los-proximos-10-anos.html