Confidence in tourism sector gradually picking up: UNWTO World Tourism Barometre

According to the latest edition of United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) World Tourism Barometre, the decline in international tourism may have started to bottom out. Worldwide international tourist arrivals declined by seven per cent between January and August 2009, but the rate of decline has eased in the past few months. These results, as well as the most recent economic data, confirm UNWTO's initial forecast of a five per cent decline in international tourist arrivals for the full year 2009. For 2010, UNWTO expects a moderate growth.

International tourist arrivals worldwide are estimated to have declined by seven per cent between January and August 2009. Destinations worldwide recorded a total of 600 million arrivals, down from 643 million in the same period of 2008. Nevertheless, the downward trend that started in September last year may have begun to bottom out. Arrivals in the two high-season months of July and August declined by three per cent compared with a decrease of eight per cent in the first half of the year, and data available for September points to a continuation of this upward trend.