A baby mountain gorilla in the Sabyinyo Mountains of Rwanda. The country is the first African host of the ongoing World Travel and Tourism Council's annual global summit. AFP
A baby mountain gorilla in the Sabyinyo Mountains of Rwanda. The country is the first African host of the ongoing World Travel and Tourism Council's annual global summit. AFP
A baby mountain gorilla in the Sabyinyo Mountains of Rwanda. The country is the first African host of the ongoing World Travel and Tourism Council's annual global summit. AFP
A baby mountain gorilla in the Sabyinyo Mountains of Rwanda. The country is the first African host of the ongoing World Travel and Tourism Council's annual global summit. AFP

Global tourism sector recovering faster than expected this year, WTTC says


Deena Kamel
  • English
  • Arabic

The global tourism sector is rebounding at a faster pace than expected this year, despite macroeconomic and geopolitical tensions, but environmental sustainability must be central to its recovery.

That is according to the latest global tourism outlook revealed by the World Travel and Tourism Council on Wednesday at its annual global summit, held for the first time in Africa, in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

Total tourism arrivals worldwide are expected to grow 5 per cent in 2023, compared to 2019, according to WTTC's latest forecast in partnership with Oxford Economics. That is an improvement on the 2 per cent the organisation predicted in March.

“Despite economic and geopolitical turmoil in 2023, we're seeing that this year so far is showing a faster recovery than our initial expectations,” Julia Simpson, the WTTC's president and chief executive, said at the summit's opening press briefing.

“Our previous predictions in March have now been exceeded by travel and tourism's current performance … every single region is growing faster than we had originally predicted.

“Once again, our sector has shown its true resilience and grit in the reopening after the pandemic.”

Julia Simpson, president and chief executive of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said the sector is growing faster than predicted in every region. Photo: WTTC
Julia Simpson, president and chief executive of the World Travel and Tourism Council, said the sector is growing faster than predicted in every region. Photo: WTTC

Tourism arrivals into the Middle East are set to rise 28 per cent this year, from their pre-Covid levels, the October forecast showed. The organisation in March had predicted 22 per cent growth.

Asked specifically about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars on the recovery of global tourism, Ms Simpson said: “All I can say is that the WTTC, as an organisation that represents travel and tourism, we stand for peace, we stand for building bridges and we stand for connecting people.”

Airlines in the Middle East have said that the Israel-Gaza war has led to a drop in air travel to the region, as the conflict rages on amid international calls to halt the fighting to ease the humanitarian disaster in the enclave.

Challenges include costly flight diversions for security reasons, steep fuel bills and a drop in international visitors.

The global travel and tourism sector contributed to more than 10 per cent of the global gross domestic product in 2019, with the industry worth $10 trillion.

It lost about 50 per cent of its value during the Covid-19 pandemic, making it one of the hardest hit sectors.

So far this year, the sector has nearly recovered to its pre-Covid levels, according to the WTTC.

Travel and tourism is expected to contribute 9.2 per cent to the global GDP at a value of $9.5 trillion in 2023, just 5 per cent below its 2019 levels. That is a 23.3 per cent year-on-year increase from the $7.7 trillion recorded in 2022.

“We are very resilient, we come back. It's deep in our DNA to travel and to connect,” Ms Simpson said.

The industry has not fully rebounded to 2019 levels yet partly because China's full recovery potential has yet to be realised, Ms Simpson said.

“The reason we're not quite there is that China, which is one of the biggest travel and tourism economies, only opened this year and is still going through those opening processes of making sure people can travel and get visas,” she said.

“We've also had some issues around labour shortages, which were short-term, but hampered a little bit the recovery. But we're practically there.”

In the next 10 years, the value of the travel and tourism industry is going to increase to reach about $15.5 trillion, according to Ms Simpson.

But rebuilding the sector following the pandemic-induced turmoil must also take into account its impact on the environment, she said.

Travel and tourism was responsible for 8.1 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, 10.6 per cent of total global energy and 0.9 per cent of freshwater use, according to a study revealed last year by the WTTC and Sustainable Tourism Global Centre, part of Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Tourism.

“Travel and tourism is recovering but as we know, sustainability needs to be at its centre,” Ms Simpson said. “Growing back better means growing sustainably.”

Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate 

U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)

  • Saturday 15 January: UAE beat Canada by 49 runs 
  • Thursday 20 January: v England 
  • Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh 

UAE squad:

Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles
Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly,
Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya
Shetty, Kai Smith  

Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE

There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.

It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.

What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.

When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.

It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.

This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.

It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.

Updated: November 02, 2023, 12:20 PM`