Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WORLD TOURISM FORECASTS FOR 2020
As shown in Table 20.1, international tourist arrivals were forecast to top 1 billion in 2010 (they reached
880million in 2009) and reachmore than 1.6 billion in 2020. These volumes represent an overall average
annual rate of growth between 1995 and 2020 of 4.3 percent, with no slackening of growth over the
period (i.e., 1995
20, 4.4 percent
p.a.).
3
Europe will remain the largest receiving region, though its below-global average rate of increasewill
result in a decline in market share from 59 percent to 45 percent. East Asia and the Paci
c, increasing at
7.0 percent p.a., will pass the Americas as historically the second largest receiving region, holding a
27 percent market share in 2020 against 18 percent by the Americas. The respective shares of Africa, the
Middle East, and South Asia will all record some increase to 5 percent, 4 percent, and 1 percent by 2020.
-
2000, 4.2 percent per annum [p.a.]; 2000
-
2010, 4.2 percent p.a.; 2010
-
&
Most signi
cantly, World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) research shows that some 303.0
million people around the globe will be employed in jobs that exist because of demand generated
by travel and tourism by 2020.
The bottom line is that travel and tourism is driving, directly and indirectly, more than 9 percent of
employment today, globally, regionally, and nationally.
THE NATURE OF FUTURE GROWTH
As we have seen, tourism is expected to continue to grow. However, the nature of this growth and
developmentmay inmany ways be quite different from that of the previous
ve decades. As has become
abundantly clear over the past several years, we are a global community, living through widespread
changes whose scope and signi
cance are barely perceptible at this point in time. Yet somehow, we
understand that what came to be known as the New World Order of the post
Cold War era evolved in
some very fundamental ways as we passed the magical year 2000 and moved into the third millennium
of Western history. And even though the Cold War now belongs to history, the reality of war is still with
us. The wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, are very visible indicators of the kind of social and economic
disruption that tourism has constantly faced in the past
-
and perhaps serve as a segue into the new
major disruptions that tourism managers face if the theory of climate change should morph into a
con
rmed reality. The ongoing war on terrorism that is being fought in our own lands, the civil wars
throughout Africa and the Middle East, and the increasingly militant attitude toward the effects of travel
on the environment havemore than replaced the ColdWar as a negative in
uence on people
—
'
s desire and
TABLE 20.1
Forecasts of International Tourist Arrivals Worldwide and by Region: 2010-2020
Tourist Arrivals (millions)
Regions
2000
2010
2020
Europe
390
527
717
East Asia/Paci
c
116
231
438
Americas
134
195
284
Africa
27
46
75
Middle East
19
37
69
South Asia
6
11
19
World
692
1,047
1,602
Source: United Nations World Tourism Organization.
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