The figure was taken from the World Travel and Tourism Council’s (WTTC) annual autumn update to its Economic Impact research, and is slightly lower than the forecast at the beginning of the year. This was mostly in part to weaker domestic spending.

The industry has been rocked by a series of economic and natural disaster challenges this year, as well as devastating terrorist actions.

These include he diseases of MERS in South Korea and Ebola in West Africa; natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Nepal and typhoons in the Philippines; terrorism attacks in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, France and Mali; and political turmoil and continued unrest in Ukraine and Syria.

David Scowsill, president and chief executive of WTTC said: “Travel and tourism is a tremendously resilient sector. Despite a number of terrible regional incidents throughout the year, the sector will still grow 1% faster than global GDP in 2015.”
In total, WTTC estimates that the sector’s total contribution to the world economy in 2015 will be $7.8 trillion and will support 284 million jobs around the world.

Visitor exports – that is, money spent by foreign travellers - are forecast to grow by 2.9% percent in 2015, in line with the continuous growth of international travel.

South Asia is still expected to be the fastest growing travel and tourism region, with 7.7% growth, heavily stimulated by the growth in India.

Meanwhile Latin America is expected to be the slowest growing travel and tourism region, with a low-level growth of 1.7%, predominantly caused by the slowdown of the Brazilian economy, which is estimated to decline by 2.1% this year, the WTTC said.

Over the next ten years, travel and tourism is anticipated to contribute $11.3 trillion in GDP to the world economy and will support 355 million jobs worldwide, equating to one in 10 jobs on the planet.