World tourism just keeps on growing, despite bumps and slumps here and there, and the UN’s World Tourism Organization says the first half of this year showed the strongest growth in 7 years, with an overall 6.4% increase.
Double-digit numbers came in non-intuitive places, including 16% for North Africa (and 8.9% for the Middle East overall). But that doesn’t mean true growth for those areas, but rather the beginning of a real recovery from the crashed rates following terror attacks in Tunisia, Egypt and Turkey.
Southern and Mediterranean Europe, which benefited from tourists who otherwise might have gone to inexpensive resorts in North Africa, Egypt and Turkey, grew by 12%. Europe overall, the world’s biggest tourist draw, grew 7.7%.
Africa saw a 7.6% rise, with 5.7% for Asia and the Pacific, a number that’s expected to grow substantially in coming years from increased Chinese travel. South America was up by 6%, but tourism to North America grew by only 2%. Substantial gains by Canada and Mexico were offset by a sharp drop in international visitors to the U.S.
Photo: Brodie319/Wikimedia
