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A newly released report from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) shows that global tourism directly sustains twice as many jobs as the financial sector, and five times as many jobs as the chemicals manufacturing sector.

Compares tourism to eight other industries which are considered to have similar breadth and global presence, across 27 countries and six regions, the WTTC Benchmarking Report 2017 show that tourism supported 108 million jobs directly, and 292 million in total (taking the direct, indirect, and induced impact into account) last year.

The report shows that both on direct and total level, tourism employs more people than the automotive manufacturing, banking, mining, chemicals manufacturing, and financial services sectors. It also shows that the power of tourism to create jobs is significantly higher than that of financial services when contribution to GDP is compared.

Financial services generate 19.4% of the world’s GDP compared to 10.2% through tourism, with the latter supporting twice as many jobs worldwide.

Overall, tourism generated a total of USD$7.6 trillion in GDP in 2016, which makes the sector’s GDP contribution larger than that of banking (USD$4.8 trillion), mining (USD$5 trillion), agriculture (USD$5.8 trillion), automotive manufacturing (USD$6.1 trillion), and chemicals manufacturing (USD$6.5 trillion).

In addition, tourism is forecast to grow by 4% per year over the next decade, which is significantly faster than the global economy at 2.7% and all other sectors covered in the study apart from the financial sector and banking.

On a regional level when we look at total tourism GDP and employment generated in 2016 benchmarks as following to the other eight sectors researched in this report:

Africa: USD$166 billion in GDP and 20.7 million jobs in 2016, making the sector larger than chemicals manufacturing, automotive manufacturing and banking in terms of GDP contribution, and all of these sectors as well as financial services in terms of jobs. 
Americas: USD$2.2 trillion in GDP exceeds that of every sector included in this study except for the construction, financial services, and retail sectors in the Americas. The 42.7 million jobs makes the sector larger than banking, chemicals manufacturing, automotive manufacturing and mining in terms of job creation. 
Asia Pacific: USD$2.3 trillion in GDP makes the sector larger than that of Asia’s mining sector. The 159.2 million supported jobs exceeds the impacts of banking, mining, automotive manufacturing and financial services. 
Europe: USD$2 trillion in GDP makes the sector larger than mining, agriculture, banking, chemicals manufacturing, and automotive manufacturing in Europe. The 36 million jobs exceeds that of automotive manufacturing, mining, chemicals manufacturing, banking and financial services. 
Middle East: USD$227 billion in GDP exceeds that of the Middle East’s automotive manufacturing, agriculture, banking, and chemicals manufacturing sectors. The 5.7 million supported jobs are larger than that of the automotive manufacturing, banking, financial services, chemicals manufacturing and mining. 

Commenting on the findings, WTTC President and Chief Executive David Scowsill stated “it is easy to applaud the efforts or even to criticise the failings of travel and tourism in isolation without looking at the picture of our industry separate from the overall industrial context.

“Our sector contributes 10.2% of global GDP and supports one in 10 jobs when you look at the total impact and this research helps to put these achievements in context, and gives a clear picture as to the strength of travel and tourism.

“Business and leisure travel creates opportunities, empowers communities and enhances local livelihoods.

“There are still challenges to sustainable growth, and WTTC will continue to urge public and private sector to invest into our sector and implement policies that are favorable for growth while safeguarding the world’s assets.”

For more information go to www.wttc.org

Image: Team/cast members at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast.

8th May 2017 - 2017 TOURISM FOR TOMORROW AWARDS WINNERS NAMED BY WORLD TRAVEL & TOURISM COUNCIL

5th May 2017 - DAVID SCOWSILL TO DEPART WORLD TRAVEL & TOURISM COUNCIL

21st March 2017 - TOURISM SUPPORTS ONE IN 10 JOBS, OUTPACING GLOBAL ECONOMY FOR SIXTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR

19th January 2017 - WTTC ANNOUNCES FINALISTS FOR 2017 TOURISM FOR TOMORROW AWARDS

8th November 2016 - ALMOST A BILLION GLOBAL TOURISTS ON THE MOVE IN THE FIRST NINE MONTHS OF 2016

10th September 2016 - UNITED NATIONS DECLARES 2017 AS THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM FOR DEVELOPMENT  

19th September 2013 - PATA ADVOCATES SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF THE VISITOR ECONOMY 

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