Economic Impact of TT 2013 Annual Update - Summary
Economic Impact of TT 2013 Annual Update - Summary
Economic Impact of TT 2013 Annual Update - Summary
Understanding the relative strength of international Travel & Tourism demand in 2012
Global consumer spending growth was weaker in 2012 compared to the outlook one year ago - a result of persistent high unemployment and downward pressure on household disposable incomes. Despite this, visitor exports performed strongly and above expectation while domestic spending growth was below expectation. In normal economic cycles, consumer spending, visitor exports and domestic Travel & Tourism spending would move closely in line. More recently, however, visitor exports have been more volatile than both consumer and domestic Travel & Tourism spending and international travel has become more of a luxury discretionary spending category. There are however various reasons to explain the relative strong performance of international Travel & Tourism in 2012 versus domestic Travel & Tourism spending: While 2012 was the third successive year of strong growth in visitor exports, part of this growth may still reflect a rebound from the global recession in 2008/2009. Global visitor exports fell by over 6% in 2009, compared to a smaller fall in domestic Travel & Tourism spending. The domestic share of total Travel & Tourism demand has been on a downward trend since the late 1990s. While this trend temporarily reversed in 2009 at the depth of the global recession, it has subsequently returned and is likely to have continued at least into early 2012. Behaviourally, the appetite for travel beyond national borders, from leisure and business visitors, has remained undimmed. Although the evidence is not fully available, the implied data for some countries suggests that short domestic trips are being sacrificed to retain international trips. International destinations are increasingly offering discounts to attract visitors, who in turn are taking shorter trips and spending less per trip to make international travel affordable within constrained budgets. Many of the people most affected by the sluggish recovery of the world economy are typically low income travellers who are more likely to take trips domestically as opposed to travelling abroad. Last, as a more general point, it is important to remember that while global economic growth slowed, the world economy, and world trade, still grew in 2012, even in countries like Germany in the weakest performing region of Europe. With visitor exports more volatile on the upside and downside, the positive growth of the world economy will have contributed to this more volatile upside growth in international Travel & Tourism.
In 2013, industry growth in Europe is again forecast to lag the rest of the world, with only modestly stronger growth of 0.8% in its contribution to total GDP. This compares to a much more robust growth forecast of 2.4% for North America. Asia will continue to be the strongest growing Travel & Tourism region in 2013, followed by Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Indonesia, China, India and Brazil are forecast to be the strongest growing of the largest Travel & Tourism economies in 2013, with growth in Japan and South Korea set to slow following strong performance in 2012.
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27022013 - ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TRAVEL & TOURISM 2013 ANNUAL UPDATE: SUMMARY 2013 World Travel & Tourism Council