UNWTO World Tourism Barometer and Statistical Annex, March 2022

Tourism enjoys strong start in 2022 while facing new uncertainties International tourism continued its recovery in January 2022, with much better performance compared to the weak start of 2021. World arrivals more than doubled (+130%) compared to January 2021, an increase of 18 million. This is the same increase as in the whole of 2021 compared to 2020. Despite the robust results, the pace of recovery in January was impacted by the Omicron variant and the re-introduction of travel restrictions in several destinations. Arrivals were at -67% in January 2022 compared to 2019, after reaching -60% in Q4 2021. All world regions enjoyed a significant rebound in January 2022 compared to the low levels of January 2021. Europe (+199%) and the Americas (+97%) continued to post the strongest results, though international arrivals were still around half of pre-pandemic levels (-53% and -52% respectively). The Middle East (+89%) and Africa (+51%) also saw growth in January 2022 over 2021, but these regions saw a drop of 63% and 69% respectively compared to 2019. While Asia and the Pacific recorded a 44% year-on-year increase, several destinations remained closed to non-essential travel resulting in the largest decrease in international arrivals over 2019 (-93%). By subregions, the best results were recorded in Western Europe which saw four times more arrivals in January 2022 than in 2021, but 58% less than in 2019. Additionally, the Caribbean (-38%) and Southern and Mediterranean Europe (-41%) showed the fastest rates of recovery towards 2019 levels. After the unprecedented growth of 2022 and 2021, international tourism is expected to continue its gradual recovery in 2022. As of 24 March, 12 destinations had no COVID-19 related restrictions in place and an increasing number of destinations were easing or lifting travel restrictions, which is helping to unleash pent-up demand. However, high uncertainty derived from the military offensive of the Russian Federation on Ukraine coupled with a challenging economic environment and the travel restrictions still in place due to the ongoing pandemic, could affect overall confidence and disrupt the upward trend seen in tourism in 2021.