Tourism Driving Europe’s Growth

What do Iceland, Montenegro and Romania have in common?

Well the answer is that they’re the best performers in the European Travel Commission’s (ETC) newly released “European Tourism 2015 – Trends & Prospects” report that shows that European tourism is maintaining a “firm footing” this year.

The report indicates that a significant majority of European destinations registered positive growth in the pre-summer months proving the resilience of the sector and underlining its significance as a contributor to the region’s on-going-economic recovery.

Best performers are Iceland (up 30%), Montenegro (up 19%) and Romania (up 16%) experiencing a substantial growth in the number of international tourist arrivals. Following are Ireland (up 14%), Croatia (up 14%), Slovenia (up 10%) Serbia and Cyprus (both up 10%) also reporting double-digit increases.

Among Europe’s most popular destinations, Germany (up 5%), Spain (up 4%), Italy (up 4%) and the UK (up 3%) saw healthy growth with optimism set towards the peak travel season.

In its report, the ETC points out that international tourism worldwide is experiencing growth primarily driven by the performance of advanced economies and long-haul markets.

The travel and tourism sector still remains Europe’s main driver of growth under the cloud of socio-economic disruptions. However, to ensure Europe’s leading position as the number one tourist destination worldwide amid a challenging and uncertain socio-economic environment, European tourism organizations are called to foster sustainable product development and promotion encouraging the diversity of products and experiences offered by the destination at a pan-European level.

Eduardo Santander, executive director for the ETC, said: “In order to remain the world’s first tourist destination, Europe must respond to these shifting patterns in global tourism capitalizing on the potential of tomorrow’s outbound travel markets whose expanding middle classes are a growing market for European destinations.”

Go to http://www.etc-corporate.org and go to Trends Watch in Research.