World travel and tourism will continue to grow next year despite the gloomy economic environment, according to leading international organisations and market researchers.

Chinese tourists remain a growth driver. Foto: iStockphoto

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) announced this week that international tourist arrivals grew by 4% to 705 million between January and August 2012 and confidently predicted that one billion international tourists will have travelled the world by the end of the year. The UNWTO expects growth of 3% to 4% for the year as a whole and currently forecasts a slight slowdown in demand for 2013 (+2% to 4%).

This growth is a very positive result in view of the global economic situation. We must remain cautious, however, as we have also observed some weaker months during the year, a trend that might return in the remainder of the year, said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai.

Emerging economies (+5%) have clearly regained the lead as compared to advanced ones (+4%), according to the UN agency. By regions, growth was stronger in Asia and the Pacific and Africa, followed by the Americas and Europe. The Middle East continues to show signs of recovery, with particularly promising results in Egypt.

Similarly, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) also predicted that the global travel & tourism industry will see robust growth this year and grow again in 2013. The organisation forecast growth of 2.7% this year, only slightly lower than its original 2.8% prediction made at the start of this year.

David Scowsill, WTTC President & CEO, said: The latest figures from WTTC confirm the resilience of the Travel & Tourism industry around the world. Despite some specific and regional downgrades to short-term economic and industry forecasts, the longer-term prospects for Travel & Tourism remain very positive, and continue to be boosted by strong growth and rising prosperity in emerging markets. We expect the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to global GDP to grow by an average of 4% per annum between 2011 and 2021 with North East Asia making up a growing share of the overall Travel & Tourism contribution to GDP.

German-based market researchers IPK International reported in their World Travel Monitor 2012 that global travel is likely to increase by 2.5% to 6.8 billion trips this year, with domestic travel up 2% at 5.8 billion trips and international travel increasing by 4% to top the one billion mark. For 2013, IPK sees international travel growing slightly more slowly by about 2-4%.

IPK chief Rolf Freitag said the continuing upward trend in the global travel industry is due mainly to an economic boom in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and in other developing countries. Significant income growth in countries such as Russia and India and the emergence of a new middle class in almost every BRIC country has sparked a desire to travel which prevails in times of crisis, he commented.

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Optimism for 2013 despite economic gloom