What: Perspectives in international tourism according to Euromonitor.

Why it is important: A set of examples in innovation to handle the problems caused by the decrease in tourism. More importantly, the projections of the industry recovery by market and segment.

Travel and tourism have been very significantly affected by Covid-19 pandemic, following a global GDP growth expected to fall by -4.8% in 2020 and a recovery between 2022 and 2023. Interestingly, at the global level, this led to the realization from customers that their traveling habits are not sustainable (21% of customers not planning to revert to intercontinental flights for this reason) while due to the economic difficulties, 42% of the companies involved in tourism are planning to either roll back or cancel their sustainable product and services programmes. Taking a look by region:

• Europe is heavily affected, with discrepancies between countries (France, Italy, Spain, and the UK are facing drops between -11 to -12%). Recovery is not expected before 2024, and value-driven tourism will probably prevail over the numbers-driven model. Furthermore, regional tourism will be key: domestic expenditures are expected to revert to 2019 levels within 2022, whereas inbound receipts will revert to this level only in 2023.
• In the Americas, the US and Canada are expected to suffer a drop of -6.5% and -8% in 2020, with airlines and lodging businesses going back to normal in 2023.
• In Asia Pacific, the crisis led to putting a halt in the growth, but some countries did not end up in the red. China, for instance, expects its growth to be reduced to 1.7% in 2020 and pick up gain in 2021 by +7.6%. However, South Korea and Japan are expected to decrease by -1.2% and -5.8% respectively in 2020.

Accelerating Travel Innovation After Coronavirus