Cheap airplane tickets and cheap vacation packages helped drive international tourism up by 4 percent between January and August of this year. If the trend continues, international tourism is expected to hit the 1 billion visitor mark for the first time in a single year by the end of 2012.
The UN World Tourism Organization is forecasting total growth for 2012 not to exceed 4 percent.
Chinese travel abroad is a key contributor to the total growth of global tourism, where spending on travel abroad increased 30 percent, followed by 22 percent in Poland, 15 percent in Russia, 18 percent in Malaysia, 16 percent in Argentina and 11 percent in India. America, Australia, Canada, and Germany all ran single digit increases in travel expenditures.
Earnings from tourism rose 48 percent in Japan, 26 percent in South Africa, South Korea, and Sweden, and 17 percent in Hong Kong.
Tourist numbers were up 5 percent in emerging economies vs. 4 percent increase in advanced economies.
The only region to experience a decline in the number of international tourists was the Middle East which ran a 1 percent drop.
Italy and France experienced drops in spending of overseas tourists.
Last year total earnings derived from international tourism were $1.2 trillion, equal to 6 percent of the worlds total exports.
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