Economics of Tourism

The popularization of tourism as a social activity on a mass scale after World War II fostered the tourism industry to grow to the extent that now, a few decades later, it is one of the largest and fastest-growing economic sectors in the world. Data published by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in 2014 clearly attest to the truth of this statement. According to UNWTO, the tourism industry accounts for 1 in 11 jobs, 9% of the world’s total GDP, and 6% of the world’s exports, with the total value of tourism exports estimated at $1.4 trillion. Moreover, the constant increase in international tourist trips (from 25 million in 1950 to 1.087 billion in 2013 and the predicted number of 1.8 billion in 2030), ...