World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) forecasts that the importance of travel and tourism is growing with its estimated GDP of US$2 trillion and 100 million jobs worldwide. What’s more interesting – while the predicted rate of the global economic growth for 2012 is 2.5%, the forecasted growth of the global travel and tourism industry is 2.8%.
Today the importance of the industry is hard to overestimate – by 2022 the annual growth of travel and tourism will reach 4%. This is a significant result, especially when compared with the overall slowing down of the global economy. Can the industry become the gear up for the international economy in general? Probably it can as WTTC forecasts that in the middle-term prospects the industry may generate 260 million jobs or 1/12 of all jobs on the planet. The contribution to the global GDP will increase up to US$6.5 trillion.
WTTC has also published some forecasts concerning the results for this year. In 2012 South and Northeast Asia will be the fastest growing regions with the estimated growth of 6.7%. The Middle East will keep suffering from the civil unrest in some countries that will spoil the overall situation for the region. If hotels in Qatar expect the growth of 13.2%, accommodations in Syria will be around 20% down. The situation with Europe and North America will be full of challenges. Most likely the regions will gain some insignificant growth in 2012.