Travellers are Returning to Asian Cities
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has today revealed positive signs of recovery for the Asian Travel & Tourism sector, with five major metropolises seeing a significant economic rebound.
The analysis, which was written in collaboration with Oxford Economics, examined significant data from 82 global locations, including traveler spending, employment, and the GDP impact of travel and tourism.
There were five Asian cities in the top 25 whose local economies are most impacted by the travel and tourism industries.
Bangkok, Beijing, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo will have the best performances among Asian cities in 2022, according to the report.
The analysis demonstrates that, despite modest progress, travel and tourism's direct contribution to GDP is rebounding in these global economic powerhouses in the wake of ongoing border closures and severe travel restrictions.
Although the picture for spending by foreign visitors is slightly different, all cities are beginning to show signs of economic recovery as a result of the spending by foreign visitors once again.
Most of the cities’ sector job levels are also increasing once again, with the exception of To-kyo, whose sector job market is recovering at a slower rate.
GDP contribution of Travel & Tourism sector slowly recovering
The WTTC’s Cities Economic Impact Report shows that in 2019, the Travel & Tourism sector contributed $106.9BN to the capitals of these five countries combined.
But only Bei-jing has recovered to levels that are near to 2019, indicating that the epidemic has had a serious and enduring impact on the region.
The largest city in Asia and the one with the most positive indicators of revival is Beijing. Because to a robust domestic tourist rebound, the sector's contribution to the GDP in 2022, at $32.6BN, was just 4% lower than it was in 2019.
Tokyo has the second-largest travel and tourism industry in the area, with a 2022 value of $18BN, albeit this is still 30% below the value of 2019.
In Seoul, the GDP contribution last year was $8BN, 33% lower than in 2019.
In Singapore, the GDP contribution last year was 45% lower than in 2019.
The sector's contribution to Bangkok's GDP in 2022 was $9.2BN, 54% less than in 2019.
Asia has always been a popular vacation destination across the world, so it is wonderful to see tourists and business travelers returning after more than two years of unrest. The economy and employment creation are both greatly boosted by tourism.
“Our Cities Economic Impact Report shows that we expect Beijing to overtake Paris to be-come the world’s largest city Travel & Tourism economy within the next decade.
“It is crucial that the national and local governments continue to recognise the importance of Travel & Tourism for the local and national economies, jobs, and businesses.”
Jobs on the rise
In these five Asian capital cities, the travel and tourism industry employed more than 3 million people in 2019.
The two cities with the highest employment rates were Beijing and Bangkok, each with over 1.3 million and slightly over one million workers, respectively.
However after two traumatic years of job losses, the overall number of jobs in the industry recovered to 2.5 million by 2022.
The number of sector positions across all cities was lower in 2022 than it was in 2019, but Tokyo's troubling year-over-year job reductions persist.