Global tourism raises its head, without returning to pre-pandemic levels

Despite the war in Ukraine and travel restrictions still in place due to Covid-19, global tourism continues to recover, led by Europe and the Americas, without returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Tourists are now regaining confidence. They go on vacation, more and more often abroad. In the airports, the queues are reconstituted.

International tourist arrivals worldwide thus more than doubled (+130%) in January 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, according to the latest available figures from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with 18 million additional visitors worldwide, “equivalent to the total increase recorded over the whole of 2021”.

In 2019, world tourism receipts had reached 1.482 billion dollars, before being divided almost by three the following year because of the pandemic.

While January confirms the recovery trend set in motion in 2021, the UNWTO nevertheless points out that the Omicron variant has recently given a new brake and that international arrivals in January 2022 remained 67% lower than those before the pandemic.

All regions saw travelers return and thus were able to rebound from the low levels of early 2021.

Europe in particular did three times better and the Americas twice as well. They still have half the way to go to regain their pre-pandemic tone.

“I traveled at the beginning of the week and I can tell you that the airports, the international terminals in the United States are very congested and that there is a demand or an interest in traveling to Europe, because for several years we We weren’t able to do it. So we miss coming to Paris, going to Rome and Berlin,” Best Western general manager Larry Cuculic told AFP.

The Middle East is also experiencing a boom compared to 2021 (+89%), according to the UNWTO, as is Africa (+51%), but these two regions are still very far from the tourism scores of 2019.

And unsurprisingly, it is Asia-Pacific, with several closed destinations, which is plummeting.

In January, international tourist arrivals there were 93% lower than before the pandemic.

– Destination Caribbean –

Better than yesterday and worse than tomorrow: according to the firm ForwardKeys, the second quarter of 2022 still looks “more promising for international travel around the world than the first quarter”.

For summer holidays, the sun and the sea in the Caribbean and Latin America are particularly popular.

Costa Rica, Aruba in the Netherlands Antilles, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica are among the 20 most popular destinations and even exceed pre-pandemic levels.

In Europe, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Iceland are taking off, without however filling up with tourists as before the pandemic.

France is doing well: tourists come back, and they spend. International tourism receipts in February in the country “came closer to those of 2019”, at 2.7 billion euros, “up 1.5 billion compared to last year and -8% compared to compared to 2019”, declared Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, French Minister in charge of tourism during a telephone press briefing.

The tourism sector in France represented, in 2019 before the pandemic, 7.4% of GDP and 9.5% of jobs.

According to Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, France is “very well positioned”, destination “number one for travel in Europe for Americans, Belgians, Italians, Spaniards”.

As for the air sector, “this summer we will find 100% of the 2019 level on short and medium-haul. On the other hand, on the long-haul, we will rather remain on 85-90% of the 2019 level”.

For Didier Arino, director of the Protourisme consultancy, “it’s not the market that will be problematic, it’s the production cost of tourist stays, competitiveness, the match between products and purchasing power: actors are all increasing their prices, and for the moment it’s okay because people want to have fun. But we’re reaching the limit of what’s acceptable for a lot of customers.”

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