84th Session of the Executive Council of UNWTO Addressed Tourism, Ongoing Financial Crisis

UNWTO’s Executive Council met in Madrid from October 14 to 15 and agreed to create a “Resilience Committee” to support its members with accurate economic analysis and response mechanisms. The tourism sector is already suffering from reduced consumer demand –both business and leisure tourism businesses are already feeling the credit crunch.

International tourism registered solid growth in the first half of 2008 ­at around 5 percent between January and April, compared to the same period of 2007.
The slowdown began with the summer holidays in the northern hemisphere.

The panel of experts of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, which up until then maintained favorable views of the sector’s situation, now shows a perceptible loss of confidence regarding the short-term outlook.

Addressing the Executive Council, UNWTO secretary-general Francesco Frangialli said that, “Experience teaches us that tourism is resilient, but there is no denying that there is a certain stage of deterioration of the situation beyond which all economic sectors will begin to suffer.”

Early in 2008, signs of en economic downturn emerged. Although demand still produced solid growth figures in that period, UNWTO commissioned a study of the impacts of economic scenarios on the sector.

An outline of “Global Imbalances and Structural Change in World Tourism” was discussed during the Executive Council, with close attention paid to the economic shocks and crisis of the current year, the analysis of the impacts on world tourism, and the identification of key factors of change.

In considering these matters, the members the UNWTO Executive Council confirmed the deterioration in their own markets, while maintaining the long-term confidence in the resilience of the tourism sector.

The Executive Council therefore agreed to create of a Resilience Committee open to all of its public and private sector members, to support this work with state-of-the-art information with special focus on air transport and major origin markets, and to provide its members with ICT-based, up-to-date information on these impacts and emerging response initiatives.

A full assessment of the world’s tourism results (the first 8-9 months of 2008) and a 2009 forecast will be presented in the next edition of the UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, to be released on the occasion of the World Travel Market (November 10-13, London UK).