The latest statistics from the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Monitor, released by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) in Paphos, Cyprus earlier today, reveals that Luxembourg, Maldives and Aruba are overall leaders in providing an open and liberal framework helping to attract foreign, direct investment to the Global Travel & Tourism industry. The Monitor also revealed that the top three most competitive nations in terms of social development are Norway, Bermuda and the USA.
The World Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Monitor tracks a wide range of information, which indicates to what extent a country offers a competitive environment for travel & Tourism development. Supported by the Christel de Haan Tourism & Travel Research Institute at the University of Nottingham, the World Travel & Tourism Council’s updated and expanded Monitor aims to highlight the importance of long-term planning and the need to factor Travel & Tourism into all government policy developments and decisions.

The significance of the Monitor is that Travel & Tourism is one of the largest sectors of the world economy, responsible for over 10 per cent of global GDP and 200 million jobs worldwide. The industry is strategically important to virtually every country as it is growing and incoming visitors bring precious foreign currency.

Ufi Ibrahim, WTTC Vice President, Development, said: “WTTC’s competitiveness data will help governments benchmark themselves against other countries. Compelling economic data such as this will assist the more dynamic nations to take positive action, stimulating their tourism economies. Only two weeks ago, Maison de la France, France’s national tourism organisation, was allocated a 30 per cent increase in funding following an in-depth WTTC report predicting that China would overtake France as the world’s top tourism destination.”

The monitor can be accessed by visiting the World Travel & Tourism Council’s web site, www.wttc.org/NU_compmon/Monitor.htm
. Its functionality has recently been upgraded to allow the user to make an unlimited selection of countries and to compare results instantly.
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