06/14/09 - Global travel and tourism industry to contract in 2009

The global economic downturn will lead to the travel and tourism industry shrinking in 2009, with Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe markets faring slightly better, according to Euromonitor International, an international provider of business intelligence and strategic market analysis.

"The general industry consensus is that 2009 will be tough for travel and tourism with falling consumer demand. Overall, most regions are contracting especially North America and Latin America, whereas the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe are faring slightly better," said Caroline Bremner, Research Manager, Euromonitor International, Global Travel and Tourism .

"However, the downturn is likely to be followed by a slight recovery in 2010. Euromonitor expects two per cent growth driven by constrained demand and incentives from trade and governments to boost overall tourism flows. Apart from being impacted by the slowdown in arrivals, hotels value sales growth will register slower rates in 2009 as consumers continue to trade on less expensive budget hotel options," said Bremner.

Meanwhile, the Forecast Restatement Travel and Tourism in a crisis report explores the correlation between global GDP and the worldwide tourism industry.

The worldwide travel and tourism industry was expected to grow by more than four per cent in 2009, however the latest forecasts show the industry will in fact shrink with hotels and air travel particularly suffering.

Hotels were forecast to grow by 4.8 per cent in 2009 but are now expected to shrink by -3.6 per cent. Air travel was originally forecast to grow by 5.3 per cent but will now decrease by -2.3 per cent. Travel and tourism arrivals, departures, hotel and air-value sales are now predicted to contract by -1.1, -0.9, -3.6 and -2.3 respectively in 2009.