The continent is the number-one region for international arrivals with 581 million in 2014, although Asia Pacific is catching up rapidly and could overtake Europe by 2030.

According to figures from research firm ForwardKeys, Europe is set to record a rise of around 5% in international arrivals from non-European countries during 2015. This follows a 5.1% increase in international tourists during the first nine months of the year, and a 4.8% upturn in forward bookings for the final quarter of the year.

But Tom Jenkins, chief executive of the European Tourism Association (Etoa), said this increase “masked” a long-term decline in tourism arrivals.

“Travel and tourism in other parts of the world is increasing faster than in Europe,” said Jenkins, during the Etoa Destination Europe Summit in London last week. Although the statistics show we are continuing to grow at an average annual growth rate of 3.6% since 2007, the rest of world is growing at a rate of 5.7%.”

European arrivals from North America have remained strong with a 7.9% rise in the first nine months of 2015, but the number of Russian tourists has dropped by 15.9% after the collapse in the value of its currency. Arrivals from north-east Asia, which includes China, went up by 14%.

Krisztina Boros, policy officer with the European Commission, said: “The challenges are coming for Europe as market share is going to decline because of increased competition. “Asia Pacific is going to catch up by 2030 – we are going to lose serious market share and the industry is going to struggle if we don’t do anything about it.”

The European Commission wants to back tourism businesses by giving more support to small businesses to help them improve their digital services and by raising skill levels across the sector by creating a European training academy. Eduardo Santander, executive director of the European Travel Commission, said the difficulties in obtaining visas remained the “main problem” in attracting tourists from fast-growing source markets such as China. “European policymakers are not able to act quickly enough and we are losing opportunities,” he said.

Santander added that other major issues included a “lack of competitiveness” within European tourism due to constraints on the growth of its aviation sector and hotels that were “not competitive” with other parts of the world. “There’s a huge necessity to adapt to new markets – we can’t just offer the same things we have been selling for the last 60 years,” he said. “We need to develop the product.”