U.S. Ranks among Top Five Most Competitive Markets for Tourism

As the competition for business travelers and tourists becomes increasingly international, the U.S. still ranks as one of the top five most attractive environments for developing the travel and tourism industry, following Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Iceland.

This is the finding of the first-ever Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report (TTCR), developed by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with international strategy and technology consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton and other partners.

The rankings, covering 124 countries in total, are based on a measurement of 52 variables that impact a country’s appeal in developing travel and tourism, including the statutory regulatory framework, health and safety, infrastructure, local price levels, and aspects relating to the environment and culture.

Data from international travel and tourism organizations, industry expert views, and information from the Forum’s regularly-conducted “Executive Opinion Survey” supplemented these variables. The Forum is using the information from the TTCR to build a platform for information exchange between international stakeholders in the travel and tourism industry.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. gets high marks for overall infrastructure and business environment for travel and tourism, ranking number one in that sub-index. It has the most well-developed air transport system in the world by a significant margin, as well as an excellent tourism infrastructure in terms of hotels and rental car company density.

With 20 “World Heritage” sites and a relatively large percentage of protected land area, the U.S. is among the top three countries in natural and cultural resources. While ranked fifth overall for human resources, difficulty in hiring foreign workers is seen a competitive disadvantage, which is a concern due to the seasonality of much of the tourism work force.

Travel & tourism generate approximately $1.7 billion in the U.S., making it the largest global market in this sector. The nearly six million employees in the industry make a significant contribution to the U.S. economy.