| |
World tourism on the road to
recovery
MANILA - For the first
time in history, the global number of international
tourist arrivals exceeded the 700 million mark last
year, and despite all the grim expectations and debates
about a crisis in the travel industry, the year ended
with a 3.1 percent increase.
The World Tourism
Organization (WTO) said that almost 715 million
international tourist arrivals were registered last
year, 22 million more than 2001 - or, compared with the
"millennium year" 2000, which many experts claim should
be taken as the reference, almost 19 million more than
in that year.
Receipts from international
tourism have increased by an average of 9 percent
annually for the past 16 years to reach US$476 billion
in 2000.
The WTO forecasts that international
tourist arrivals will top 1 billion by 2010, while
earnings will grow to $1.5 billion also by that year.
"The results we have are credible and give a
rather clear picture," said Augusto Huescar, WTO chief
of marketing intelligence and promotion.
He
underlined that international tourist arrivals count for
only part of world tourism, in which domestic markets
are not included. The latter has profited a great deal
during tourism's greatest crisis, especially in the
United States, he said.
On the other hand,
Francesco Frangialli, secretary general of the WTO
Commission, said, "We can be relatively satisfied with
the year 2002 and cautiously optimistic about the
development of 2003. The statistics did meet our
expectations, in some parts of the world they even
exceeded them; however, we should not forget that the
threats are anything but over."
He added, "We
have a lot of work to do to reaffirm positive trends,
but first of all, to regain consumer confidence where it
is needed. Taking all the problems into account, we can
all be certain that tourism is firmly in the way to
recovery, back to the trends predicted in Tourism 2020
Vision."
World Tourism has never before felt
such a need for cooperation as now, Frangialli said.
The preliminary results for 2002 show a
substantial change in the world tourism map: Europe
remains firmly in first place, while the Asia-Pacific
region claimed the No 2 spot from the Americas.
The world's top tourism destinations in 2002
were France with 76.7 million international tourist
arrivals; Spain, 51.7 million; the United States, 6.4
million; China, 5.1 million.
More than 130
million international tourist arrivals were registered
in the Asia-Pacific, which many regard as the
"destination of the future". Northeast Asia led all
subregions with almost 12 percent growth, followed by
Southeast Asia (less than 4 percent), Oceania (1
percent) and South Asia (2 percent increase).
The international arrivals to African and Middle
Eastern destinations are growing slightly above the
world's average, but the base remains rather low.
All the European subregions ended 2002 with
positive results. South Mediterranean Europe - Spain,
Italy and Greece - led the way, with its share of the
world market exceeding 20 percent, eclipsing Western
Europe by barely half a percentage point.
Germany managed to maintain the status quo with
respect to 2001, the Benelux and Austria saw slight
growth, and the United Kingdom experienced growth of
more than 3 percent. However, growth in Western Europe
was below average overall while international arrivals
increased by an average of 3.9 percent in Central and
Eastern Europe. The unlucky exceptions were Poland and
the Czech Republic, with a serious decline of more than
5 percent.
The Americas were the only region to
close 2002 in the red. But it should be noted that the
decline from dramatic 2001 averages out to 0.6 percent,
with North America (the United States, Canada and
Mexico) increasing. North America still holds a "decent"
global master share of almost 12 percent, but this is
much lower than its 14.6 percent share in 1995.
The Caribbean islands experienced a decline for
the second year in the row, with a 3 percent drop, much
bigger than the 1.9 percent decline the subregion
suffered in 2001. The only subregion to have enjoyed
growth in Americas was Central America, almost 10
percent, but on a rather low base compared with other
subregions.
(Asia Pulse/PNA)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
