The United Nations World Tourism Organisation has urged governments to make it easier for people to travel overseas, as it forecast that international tourism numbers would hit one billion in 2012.
While the agency acknowledged the “great strides” that had been made to date, it stressed that there was plenty more progress to be made. It advised countries to utilise information and communication technologies to improve visa application and processing procedures and analyse the impact this could have on their respective tourism economies.
“Travel facilitation is closely linked with tourism development and can be key in boosting demand,” UNWTO secretary general Taleb Rifai said. The latest reading of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer revealed that international tourist arrivals grew more than 4% in 2011 to hit 980 million, despite a barrage of challenges worldwide in the form of natural disasters, political and economic instability.
“For a sector directly responsible for 5% of the world’s GDP, 6% of total exports and employing one out of every 12 people in advanced and emerging economies alike, these results are encouraging, coming as they do at a time in which we urgently need levers to stimulate growth and job creation,” Rifai said.
Asia Pacific rose 6% for the year to 216 million international tourists. South Asia and South East Asia demonstrated the strongest growth due to “strong intraregional demand”. North East Asia and Oceania proved less popular with growth of 4% and 0.3% respectively. UNWTO attributed the weaker performances to the temporary decline in the Japanese outbound market.
The agency predicted that growth in 2012 would continue at a slower rate but that arrivals would still rise by 3% or 4% to hit the “historic” one billion mark by the end of the year.
The growth would be spearheaded by emerging economies with strong growth of 4% to 6% expected in Asia Pacific.
