WTTC: Global Tourism Supports Twice as Many Jobs as Financial Sector

Source: WTTC

The global Travel & Tourism sector directly sustains twice as many jobs as the financial sector and five times as many jobs as the chemicals manufacturing sector, according to a new report by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).

The WTTC Benchmarking Report 2017 compares Travel & Tourism to eight other sectors (Agriculture, Automotive manufacturing, Banking, Chemicals manufacturing, Construction, Financial services, Mining, Retail), which are considered to have similar breadth and global presence, across 27 countries and six regions.

Source: WTTC

In 2016, Travel & Tourism supported 108 million jobs directly, and 292 million in total, taking the direct, indirect, and induced impact into account. The report shows that both on direct and total level, Travel & Tourism employs more people than the automotive manufacturing, banking, mining, chemicals manufacturing, and financial services sectors.

It also shows that the power of Travel & Tourism to create jobs is significantly higher than that of financial services when you compare their contribution to GDP. Financial services generates 19.4 percent of the world’s GDP compared to 10.2 percent by Travel & Tourism, but the latter supports twice as many jobs worldwide.

Travel & Tourism generated a total of USD$7.6 trillion in GDP in 2016, which makes the sector’s GDP contribution larger than that of banking (USD$4.8 trillion), mining (USD$5.0 trillion), agriculture (USD$5.8 trillion), automotive manufacturing (USD$6.1 trillion), and chemicals manufacturing (USD$6.5 trillion).

Global Travel & Tourism is forecast to grow by four percent per year over the next decade, which is significantly faster than the global economy at 2.7 percent and all other sectors covered in the study apart from the financial sector and banking.

“Our sector contributes 10.2 percent of global GDP and supports 1 in 10 jobs when you look at the total impact and this research helps to put these achievements in context, and gives a clear picture as to the strength of Travel & Tourism,” David Scowsill, President & CEO, WTTC, said.