(Madrid) The arrivals of international tourists in the world should not return to their pre-pandemic level until 2024, according to a barometer published on Tuesday by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), which forecasts a start to the year 2022 still “disturbed” by the Omicron variant.
Posted at 1:30 p.m.
According to the Madrid-based UN agency, the number of international tourist arrivals increased by 4% worldwide last year compared to 2020, while remaining 72% lower than in 2019, the year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pace of recovery” has remained “slow and uneven across regions of the world due to differences” in “restrictions on mobility (to) vaccination rates and (to) traveler confidence levels” , explains the UNWTO.
In Europe and the Americas, arrivals of foreign visitors thus rebounded by 19% and 17% respectively over one year. In the Middle East, on the contrary, they fell by 24% compared to 2020, while in Asia-Pacific they fell by 65% and remain 94% below the level of 2019.
For 2022, UNWTO experts consider the outlook “more favourable”, even if the situation should remain “disturbed” at the start of the year, due to the recent wave of COVID-19 cases, boosted by the Omicron variant .
International tourist arrivals are expected to increase by “30% to 78%” compared to 2021, while remaining much lower than 2019. According to a majority of experts, the return to the pre-pandemic level will thus only occur “in 2024” or even after.
The restart of international tourism is eagerly awaited by professionals in the sector, but also by many countries, whose economy has been damaged by the pandemic.
According to the UNWTO, the “economic contribution of tourism” thus peaked at 1900 billion dollars last year worldwide. A figure far removed from the 3.5 trillion dollars reported by the sector in 2019.