TEHRAN – International tourism has reached nearly 60 percent of its pre-pandemic levels in the first seven months of 2022, the World Tourism Organization announced on Tuesday.

According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourist arrivals almost tripled from January to July 2022 (+172%) compared to the same period in 2021.

In addition to the easing or lifting of travel restrictions, the steady recovery is attributed to strong pent-up demand for international travel.

Europe and West Asian countries including Iran showed the fastest recovery from January to July 2022, with arrivals reaching 74% and 76% of 2019 levels respectively.

West Asia saw international arrivals grow almost four times year-on-year from January to July 2022 (+287%).

According to UNWTO stronger-than-expected demand has also created important operational and workforce challenges in tourism companies and infrastructure, particularly airports. Additionally, the economic situation, exacerbated by the intensive military operations in Ukraine, represents a major downside risk. The combination of increasing interest rates in all major economies, rising energy, and food prices, and the growth prospects of a global recession as indicated by the World Bank, are major threats to the recovery of international tourism through the remainder of 2022 and 2023.

Back in April, the UN body announced that international tourism continued its recovery in January 2022, with a much better performance compared to the weak start to 2021.

Based on the latest available data, global international tourist arrivals more than doubled (+130%) in January 2022 compared to 2021 - the 18 million more visitors recorded worldwide in the first month of this year equals the total increase for the whole of 2021.

While these figures confirm the positive trend already underway last year, the pace of recovery in January was impacted by the emergence of the Omicron variant and the re-introduction of travel restrictions in several destinations.

In 2020, international arrivals plunged by 73% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, causing assessed losses of $2.4 trillion in tourism and related sectors, according to the report by UNCTAD and the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

ABU/MG