“The Multiplier Effect” in Travel and Tourism - WTTC

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council and the nonprofit Social Progress Imperative, reinstating international travel and tourism is a major driver in augmenting social progress in the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Travel and tourism is signaled to be a much more significant driver of community growth than other economic factors (infrastructure, energy, etc). To illustrate, between 2011-2019, Southeast Asia noted the fastest annual growth rate in travel and tourism GDP per capita at 6.7 % compared to the region's 3.7 % overall economic growth. This data additionally puts the spotlight on jobs within the travel and tourism sector. One job is typically created for approximately every 34 international visitors to a location. However, the research indicates that there is a more direct impact on regions in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, where it may take as few as 11 to 24 international visitors to produce one job. 

The research demonstrates the tremendous economic impact to the global economy due to the severe cuts in international travel, largely worsened by the “multiple” associated with tourism job creation. Based on current economic forecasting, 174 million travel and tourism jobs were affected. However, the impact was not the same across the board, as travel and tourism is a sector which impacts across all socio-economic backgrounds, where employed people in the sector are composed of individuals across age, gender and ethnicity groups, with almost 54 percent of whom are women and up to 30 percent youths."

This “multiplier” effect is critical to how travel authorities, destination marketing organizations, tourism development consulting firms and tourism boards should approach tourism development, as there there is an even more pressing need to come together locally, regionally and internationally to assess the economic impact related to the pandemic, develop master plans, new marketing campaigns, and develop new initiatives to begin to recover. In addition, as small and medium sized enterprises - not only limited to the hospitality sector but beyond - were often the hardest hit economically, a key factor in tourism development globally must include direct involvement of business owners.