The World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) new Economic Impact Reports 2016 show that despite the problems the sector has faced in the first six months of the year, it grew by 3.1%. This outpaced the global economic growth forecast of 2.3%.
South Asia was the strongest performing region at 5.9% while north-east and south-east Asia each saw growth of 4.7% and 4% respectively, although this was largely driven by China’s growth of 6.3%.
North America also performed well with forecast growth of 3.1% while Europe was hit by lower visitor spend to see growth of 2.2%.
Only Latin America reported a decline, anticipated at 0.9%, due to ongoing weakness in Brazil.
France has been able to record positive growth of despite the recent terrorist attacks it suffered, although forecast growth has been downgraded from 2.9% to 1.1%.
Brazil has gained little joy from the Olympics with an anticipated increased contraction from 0.9% to 1.6% thanks to its weak economy and ongoing political problems.
Turkey too has been hard hit by security fears and the attempted coup on the president, with the contraction anticipated to grow from 0.2% to 3.2%.
Meanwhile, the UK has avoided being hard hit by the Brexit decision with growth of 3.6% predicted as the favourable exchange rate for overseas visitors more than wipes out other factors.
David Scowsill, president and chief executive of the WTTC, said: “Our update report highlights the resilience of travellers and the robustness of our sector, as tourism continues to outpace global economic growth by nearly 1%.
“Whilst we should not downplay the impact of incidents or turmoil at individual country level, on a macro-economic level we continue to register strong growth.
“It is important to remember that tourism is a force for good. It brings tremendous social and economic benefits to countries and connects people from different cultures and backgrounds.
“We call on governments to continue to focus on the economic and social benefits of travel and tourism, and to work together with the private sector to combat some of the challenges we face.”
