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UN Tourism Data Dashboard

The UN Tourism Data Dashboard – provides statistics and insights on key indicators for inbound and outbound tourism at the global, regional and national levels. Data covers tourist arrivals, tourism share of exports and contribution to GDP, source markets, seasonality and accommodation (data on number of rooms, guest and nights)

Two special modules present data on the impact of COVID 19 on tourism as well as a Policy Tracker on Measures to Support Tourism

The UN Tourism/IATA Destination Tracker

UN Tourism Recovery Tracker

• International tourist arrivals and receipts and export revenues
• International tourism expenditure and departures
• Seasonality
• Tourism Flows
• Accommodation
• Tourism GDP and Employment
• Domestic Tourism

International Tourism and COVID-19

• The pandemic generated a loss of 2.6 billion international arrivals in 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined
• Export revenues from international tourism dropped 62% in 2020 and 59% in 2021, versus 2019 (real terms) and then rebounded in 2022, remaining 34% below pre-pandemic levels.
• The total loss in export revenues from tourism amounts to USD 2.6 trillion for that three-year period.
• International tourist arrivals reached 88% of pre-pandemic levels in January-December 2023

COVID-19: Measures to Support Travel and Tourism

By Bastian Herre, Veronika Samborska and Max Roser

Tourism has massively increased in recent decades. Aviation has opened up travel from domestic to international. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of international visits had more than doubled since 2000.

Tourism can be important for both the travelers and the people in the countries they visit.

For visitors, traveling can increase their understanding of and appreciation for people in other countries and their cultures.

And in many countries, many people rely on tourism for their income. In some, it is one of the largest industries.

But tourism also has externalities: it contributes to global carbon emissions and can encroach on local environments and cultures.

On this page, you can find data and visualizations on the history and current state of tourism across the world.

Interactive Charts on Tourism

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This is how the COVID-19 crisis has affected international tourism

International tourist arrivals increased by 58 percent in the three months ended September 30 compared to the same period of 2020 but remained 64 percent below 2019 levels. Image:  Unsplash/ Iwan Shimko

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• International tourist arrivals increased by 58 percent in the three months ended September 30.
• Compared to the same period of 2020 these numbers remained 64 percent below 2019 levels.
• While the latest rebound is certainly encouraging, the recovery of the global tourism sector has been going slower than many had anticipated last year.

Amid fears that the newly discovered COVID-19 variant named Omicron could disrupt global travel once again, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) published its latest update on the state of international tourism on Sunday. According to the latest World Tourism Barometer, global travel activity rebounded sharply in the third quarter of 2021, while remaining far below pre-pandemic levels.

International tourist arrivals increased by 58 percent in the three months ended September 30 compared to the same period of 2020 but remained 64 percent below 2019 levels. Looking at the first nine months of 2021, the situation looks even bleaker with international arrivals down 20 percent even compared to 2020 and 76 percent below pre-Covid levels. Looking ahead, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said that “we cannot let our guard down and need to continue our efforts to ensure equal access to vaccinations, coordinate travel procedures, make use of digital vaccination certificates to facilitate mobility and continue to support the sector.”

Have you read?

Aviation industry suffers 'worst year in history' as covid-19 grounds international travel, futurism is a means to see beyond covid-19. here's how to time travel, 4 charts showing covid-19's impact on chinese new year travel.

While the latest rebound is certainly encouraging, the recovery of the global tourism sector has been going slower than many had anticipated last year. According to its latest forecast, the UNWTO expects international tourist arrivals to remain 70 to 75 percent below 2019 levels this year. That translates to roughly $1 trillion in foregone export revenues, which amounted to $1.7 trillion in 2019 and are expected to reach $700 to $800 billion this year. Even this forecast could prove too optimistic, however, if the Omicron variant turns out to be as dangerous as initially feared.

As other sectors proceed to decarbonize, the aviation sector could account for a much higher share of global greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century than its 2%-3% share today.

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) can reduce the life-cycle carbon footprint of aviation fuel by up to 80%, but they currently make up less than 0.1% of total aviation fuel consumption. Enabling a shift from fossil fuels to SAFs will require a significant increase in production, which is a costly investment.

The Forum’s Clean Skies for Tomorrow (CST) Coalition is a global initiative driving the transition to sustainable aviation fuels as part of the aviation industry’s ambitious efforts to achieve carbon-neutral flying.

The coalition brings together government leaders, climate experts and CEOs from aviation, energy, finance and other sectors who agree on the urgent need to help the aviation industry reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The coalition aims to advance the commercial scale of viable production of sustainable low-carbon aviation fuels (bio and synthetic) for broad adoption in the industry by 2030. Initiatives include a mechanism for aggregating demand for carbon-neutral flying, a co-investment vehicle and geographically specific value-chain industry blueprints.

Learn more about the Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition's impact and contact us to find out how you can get involved.

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Investigating the Key Factors Influencing the International Tourists’ Decision-Making on Choosing a Destination

• Conference paper
• First Online: 12 February 2020
• Cite this conference paper

• Anna Kyriakaki 3 ,
• Theodoros Stavrinoudis 3 &
• Georgia Daskalopoulou 4  

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics ((SPBE))

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The main purposes of this paper are to investigate the push and pull factors that influence the tourists’ decision to travel to specific destinations and to identify their connection to the individual organizational characteristics of the trip and to the tourists’ demographic profile. To do so, a primary quantitative survey was conducted by means of a structured questionnaire filled in by tourists who arrived at the Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos” (as an intermediate or final destination) in the course of May–June 2018. The sample of the survey consisted of 769 individuals selected by Purposive Sampling (Iosifidis, Th., Qualitative methods of research and epistemology of social sciences. Tziola, Thessaloniki, 2017), the nationalities and countries of provenance of whom are ranked among the main tourism markets of Greece. The data analysis was conducted with the use of SPSS24 and its statistical processing yielded intriguing results as to the push and pull factors affecting the decision-making process of modern tourists undertaking a trip with specific characteristics. The findings contribute to the understanding of the decision-making process of the modern tourist and partially confirm earlier as well as recent theoretical approaches and relevant researches regarding the motivation of tourists (Mohammad et al., International Journal of Business and Management, 5(12), 41–50, 2010; Kruger and Saayman, South African Journal of Wildlife Research, 40(1), 93–102, 2010; Mutinda and Mayaka, Tourism Management, 33, 1593–1597, 2012).

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Anna Kyriakaki & Theodoros Stavrinoudis

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Kyriakaki, A., Stavrinoudis, T., Daskalopoulou, G. (2020). Investigating the Key Factors Influencing the International Tourists’ Decision-Making on Choosing a Destination. In: Katsoni, V., Spyriadis, T. (eds) Cultural and Tourism Innovation in the Digital Era. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36342-0_27

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What's Standing in the Way of Tourism's Full Recovery?

International tourism.

International tourism continues its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic this year, reaching 80 percent of 2019 levels in Q1 2023, 85 percent in Q2 2023 and 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels in July 2023. According to the UNWTO , an estimated 700 million tourists travelled internationally between January and July 2023, up 43 percent from the same period of last year but still 16 percent below 2019 levels.

The UNWTO expects international tourism to reach 80 to 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels this year, depending on whether pent-up demand and tourists’ desire to travel is strong enough to defy the difficult economic and political circumstances.

As our chart based on results from the UNWTO’s Panel of Tourism Experts shows, the pandemic or the uneven vaccine rollout is no longer considered a major roadblock on the way to a full recovery. It’s the economic environment and high transport and accommodation costs that are now seen as the biggest inhibitors to international travel demand.

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This chart ranks the main factors weighing on the recovery of international tourism according to tourism experts.

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