3.1 The global significance of tourism

In its booklet on ‘Fifty years of tourism’ (2024) UN Tourism reveals that ‘international tourism has grown from 222 million arrivals in 1975 to a projected 1.5 billion in 2025 (and) 2 billion tourist arrivals foreseen for 2030’ this is in spite of world banking shocks and pandemics. The World Bank also pointed out the amount of money going into countries from tourism totalled around $1.6 trillion in 2023 and, if transport was included, the figure rose to $2.2 trillion. This is just the amount for one year.

In January 2026, the World Economic Forum suggested that the tourism sector would create 91 million jobs by 2035, which chimes with the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) saying, in April 2025, that growth in global travel and tourism would be greater than overall economic growth. Therefore, tourism has two main functions for countries:

This has meant tourism is an important part of many countries’ economies and many countries try to promote tourism as much as they can.

In 2023, the Barcelona Field Studies Centre commented that a study in Thailand ‘estimated that 70% of all money spent by tourists ended up leaving Thailand…estimates for other…countries range from 80% in the Caribbean to 40% in India’.

What is wanted instead is the multiplier effect. Simply, if a tourist stays at a local hotel (so money doesn’t leave the location), the hotel will employ local people, source food from local stallholders, maybe entertainment from local dance troupes or find antiques from local dealers. Each transaction benefits the locality and maintains jobs at every level. It also gives people a range of opportunities to be involved in tourism.

In October 2025, an online travel agency – On The Beach – put up recognisable posters (like ones from the First World War but this time with Lord Kitchener in) on the Canary Islands and in mainland Spain. At the time there were protesters complaining about the numbers of tourists on the islands. A senior manager at the agency said ‘Spain needs tourists, Spain wants tourists. Those taking part in the tourism protests are in the minority, and our posters are there to show Brits they’re not just welcome, they’re vital to the communities and businesses that rely on tourism’ (Evans and Ankers, 2025). Overtourism will be covered later, but for now it is important to understand why increasing tourism is attractive to many countries.

Let’s look at the most visited countries.

In November 2024, the British government set an ambitious goal of wanting ‘to welcome fifty million international tourists by 2030’ and saw government and industry needing to work together, more than they had done in the past, to achieve this aim. In particular, the plan aimed to increase tourist travel outside of London and Edinburgh by improving marketing, making sure workers had appropriate skills and by revising the established tourist board infrastructure with stronger links to government. According to Al Khodairi (2025), London was the third most visited city in the world in 2024. It was important, to the government, that other areas had benefits from tourism too.

This section has shown the economic importance of tourism. This has meant that many countries see a need to increase their tourism offer, to make it attractive to as many people as possible, and to encourage more tourists. It has also suggested that this could be challenged by people within a country (or region) given why those posters were put up in the Canary Islands and Spain. The other important aspect of why tourism matters is that tourism can be extremely important to a country’s development efforts.