2014 Expected to be Boom Year for Tourism

Post 2013, figures are pointing to a very successful world travel year 2014. There has been a global increase in MICE travel, a decline in conventional business travel, and culturally-motivated travel and sun and beach holidays continue a popular trend.

Financial crises, recessions, political turmoil and civil unrest, even wars – none of these things couldn’t stop people from travelling. After 2013, people will again be travelling more often than ever before also in 2014. The driving forces behind this growth are first-time travelers from China, Russia and Brazil. Speaking on Tuesday at the opening of the 21st World Travel Monitor® Forum in Pisa, Rolf Freitag, president of the tourism consultancy IPK International, said: “Without a doubt travelling continues to be a global mega trend. Already today, one-third of the human race is travelling.”

The IPK trend surveys carried out in 20 of the world’s most important source markets, which were presented on Tuesday, last year tourism grew by 4 per cent, making 2013 one of the most successful years to date. However, in terms of international travel volume market shifts are taking place. Whereas countries with a minor population and small GDP previously generated a low volume of international travel, and countries with a large population and high GDP a correspondingly large volume, this balance continues to change.

Established international travel markets such as Germany, the USA and the UK registered only moderate single-digit growth (+2 per cent, +1per cent and +3 per cemt respectively) and the Japanese market even reported a 2 percent decline. By contrast, the markets in China and Russia registered double-digit increases (+26 per cent and +12 per cent respectively) and Brazil reported high single-digit growth (+6 per cent).