OECD: Tourism sector will have recovered its pre-Covid level globally by the end of the year

The tourist activity will have recovered globally to pre-Covid crisis levels by the end of the year, according to the OECD, which in a report published on Monday insists on seeking more sustainable models in terms of environmental impact and the involvement of all those affected.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) points out that international tourist arrivals in 2023 already exceeded the figures for 2019, the year preceding the coronavirus crisis, in some countries, especially in Europe.

Specifically, this happened in the Old Continent in Portugalwhich with 19.4 million last year received 12.1% more, but also in France (7.8% more), in Italy (4.4%) or Spain (2%), but also outside Europe in Colombia (33.6%) or in Morocco (12.3%).

Overall, major European destinations benefited in 2023 from travel within the region, as well as from the favorable exchange rate of the dollar against the euro, which favored visits from Americans.

In the Asia-Pacific region, recovery is taking longer largely because border reopening has occurred more recently, particularly in China.

This explains why in 2023 the volume of foreign visitors remained well below the 2019 level in Australia (-24.1%), Japan (-21.4%) or New Zealand (-24%).

The various geopolitical crises are affecting tourist flows and the economy of the sector. Thus, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has left visitor arrivals in Finland (-22.3% at the end of 2023) and in other neighbouring countries of Russia and Ukraine well below the pre-Covid volume.

Something similar has happened with Hamas terrorist attacks on Israeli soil and the conflict in Gaza, which last year reduced entries into Israel by 33.9%.

In 2022, the number of international tourists worldwide was still 33% lower than in 2019. It should be noted that in 2020 it had fallen by as much as 72%.

In the OECD as a whole, if in 2019 the tourism sector represented 4.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 6.9% of employment and generated 20.4% of exports in services, in 2020 the contribution to the activity sank to 2.5% of GDP.

Two years later, the percentage had partially recovered to 3.9% on average.

The authors of the study say that in the long term tourism will continue to grow and that this creates “significant opportunities”, but it also poses a series of challenges that policies must address to make it more sustainable and so that its benefits are more widely shared and outweigh the costs.

This involves adapting to an increasingly changing environment; involving all stakeholders in “a common vision”, diversify the offer, attract new markets and segments to emerging destinations and outside of peak periods.