A traveler at the airport, illustration - Pixabay

The growth in the number of tourists in the world slowed in 2019 to 4%, due in particular to the global economic slowdown, geopolitical uncertainties and Brexit, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) announced on Monday. In 2017 and 2018, the number of international tourists increased by 7% and 6% respectively.

France, Spain and the United States should remain at the top of the most visited countries, in that order according to provisional data available for 2019, said at a press conference officials of the UNWTO, the organization of United Nations based in Madrid. The UNWTO recorded 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals in 2019.

Abnormal previous years

"The slowdown is linked to the performance of the world economy, with economic growth of around 3%," said Sandra Carvao, head of market trends at the UNWTO, also citing "fairly strong uncertainty related to Brexit ", The" weakness of the German economy "and the impact of" geopolitical problems ". The bankruptcy of the British tour operator Thomas Cook also contributed to the slowdown, according to the UNWTO.

Sandra Carvao, however, put into perspective the importance of the slowdown, after two years of growth "spectacular (...) much higher than what could be expected". 2017 and 2018 "were not years of normal growth (...). We are returning to historic levels of growth in international tourism, ”she said.

The Middle East as a growth engine

The regions most affected by the slowdown are Europe, where the number of tourists increased by 4% compared to 6% in 2018, and Asia-Pacific, (+ 5% against + 7% in 2018), where s is felt the impact of the political crisis in Hong Kong. Africa also saw arrivals slow considerably (+ 4% compared to + 9% in 2018).

Growth was fueled by the recovery in the Middle East (+ 8% of tourists compared to + 3% in 2018), due in particular to the ambitious plan launched by Saudi Arabia to attract foreign tourists.

Similar growth in 2020

The data of arrivals by country are still provisional but "by remaining very cautious (...) we do not really expect changes in the ranking from last year", underlined Sandra Carvao.

In 2018, France remained at the top of the ranking with 89 million foreign tourists, followed by Spain and the United States. In 2020, the global growth in the number of tourists should remain of the same order (3-4%).

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