Tourism has become the golden industry worldwide. Travel has become popular with the consequent growth for the sector, which, because of this rise, is also seeing certain problems grow. Overcrowding and sustainability are two of them, and they are interrelated.
However, Julia Simpson, president and CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), reminds us that all human activity generates polluting emissions. She is committed to tackling these challenges from a global perspective.
“It’s been a long time since the 2019 numbers, but we’ve seen that some countries were a little slower to open up to the world. China opened its doors early last year, if you remember, so getting the Chinese to fully come back into the tourism market has been a little slower,” he said.
Growth explained
He explained that “for now we’re about where we are in 2019, so it’s about $10 billion that tourism generates annually. The really interesting thing about travel and tourism is that in the next 10 years it will grow at twice the rate of global GDP.”
He further said that “so the annualized global GDP is expected to be around 2.2%, while over the next 10 years, travel and tourism growth will be 5%, which is one of the 
reasons why you see big investors traveling around the world and investing in travel and tourism in a sustainable way,” according to Capital.
“The best example of that is here in Saudi Arabia. I’ve come to Saudi Arabia to celebrate that they have surpassed 100 million tourists, something they achieved six years earlier than they intended. It’s incredible because they took a country that had some tourism and absolutely opened it up to the world,” he added.
Simpson reported that “they are investing 800 billion dollars and they are doing it in a really sustainable way. They are really taking care of nature. They’re rebuilding it and, in a way, they’re breaking all our preconceptions about what we thought of Saudi Arabia.”
“I’m European, I thought this was pure desert, but no, it has rainforest. It’s even very cold in some of the mountains. It’s a brilliant country and, of course, there’s the Red Sea,” he said.
Source: Arecoa.com
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