The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released its Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI), where it scores 119 countries around the world based on the tourism conditions they offer.
The index takes into account 17 pillars and 102 individual indicators, across 5 pillars. The Enabling Environment dimension captures the general conditions necessary for operating and investing in a country, covering business environment, safety and security, health and hygiene, human resources and labour market, and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and digital services.
The T&T Policy and Enabling Conditions dimension captures specific policies or strategic aspects that affect the T&T sector more directly, including prioritisation of T&T, openness to T&T and price competitiveness. The Infrastructure and Services dimension captures the availability and quality of physical infrastructure and tourism services, specifically air transport, ground, port and tourism services infrastructure.
The Travel & Tourism Resources dimension captures the principal “reasons to travel” to a destination, consisting of natural, cultural and non-leisure resources. Lastly, the Travel & Tourism Sustainability dimension captures the current or potential sustainability challenges and risks facing T&T, focusing on environmental sustainability, T&T socioeconomic impact and T&T demand sustainability.
WEF names the United States as the top best-placed country for travel and tourism, followed by Spain and Japan. The remainder of the top 10 is dominated by European destinations, except for Australia at number 5 and China at number 8.
“The rebound in travel and tourism has coincided with rising global air route capacity and connectivity, improved international openness, and increased investment in natural and cultural resources driving tourism”, WEF said. “On the other hand, non-leisure demand is still lagging, there are ongoing labour shortages, and air route capacity and connectivity, capital investment and productivity have struggled to keep pace with demand. This has created a supply and demand imbalance which, along with inflationary pressures, has led to reduced price competitiveness and service disruptions.”
Moreover, when looking at improvement in the TTDI scores compared to 2019, low to middle-income economies that exhibited the most significant enhancement in performance, accounting for 52 out of 71 countries that improved their TTDI scores. despite progress, developing economies account for nearly 90% of below-average index scorers.
Despite WEF’s ranking, where tourists actually go is a little different. Middle East, Africa and Europe have already exceeded pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2024, while the Americas still fall short, data from UN Tourism shows.
Moreover, customer surveys from organisations like TripAdvisor and Global Hotel Alliance do not place the US anywhere near the top destination, with European, Middle Eastern and Southeast-Asian countries taking the top on most rankings. Despite the States’ favourable environment for tourism, it seems its appeal to international travellers is yet to peak.
