Growth in the tourism industry sees a slowdown in 2019 largely due to cooling global economy - UN report
The rise in the number of international tourist arrivals slowed to 4.0 percent in 2019, its slowest rate since 2016 due to a cooling global economy, geopolitical tensions and uncertainty regarding Brexit, the World Tourism Organization said on Monday.
The Madrid-based UN body, UNWTO, predicted global tourism will grow by 3.0-4.0 percent this year, buoyed by major sporting and cultural events such as the Tokyo Olympics in Japan. The number of international tourist arrivals hit 1.5 billion last year, up from 1.4 billion in 2018, the body said in a statement."The slowdown in linked to the results of the global economy, with economic growth of around 3.0 percent," UNWTO's market intelligence chief, Sandra Carvao, told a news conference.
She said "strong uncertainty around" Britain's looming exit from the European Union, simmering geopolitical tensions and the collapse of Thomas Cook, the world's oldest travel firm, had also contributed to the slowdown."What is happening is we are returning to historical levels of tourism growth," she said.Arrivals rose by 4.0 percent in Europe in 2019, down from 6.0 percent in 2018, while in Asia-Pacific arrivals rose by 5.0 percent compared to 7.
UNWTO expects France, Spain and the United States to once again be the three most visited countries in the world last year once it has final figures.In 2018, France remained the world's most visited nation with 89 million arrivals followed by Spain and the United States.
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