After a difficult period that recast much of the Travel & Tourism (T&T) industry’s landscape, the sector is slowly recovering from the economic downturn. In this context, the fourth edition of The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report is released at a time when the industry is looking forward with cautious optimism and exploring new and innovative ways of ensuring successful development.
Despite its recent difficulties, the T&T sector is widely recognized as a critical sector worldwide and one that provides significant potential for economic growth and development. A growing national T&T sector contributes to employment, raises national income, and can improve a country’s balance of payments.
The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011 measures and analyzes the drivers of T&T competitiveness in economies around the world. Its main goal is to provide a useful tool for governments and business leaders in overcoming the obstacles to T&T competitiveness, in order to benefit fully from the sector’s development. The Report includes an analysis of the rankings of the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), which aims to measure the factors and policies that make it attractive to develop the T&T sector in 139 industrialized and emerging economies. It also features a variety of essays on key T&T issues by prominent industry thinkers.
In this year's report findings, Switzerland, Germany and France have the most attractive environments for developing the travel and tourism industry, according to the fourth Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report, released by the World Economic Forum at the Global Tourism Forum 2011 (GTF) held in Andorra. Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Spain and Singapore complete the top 10.