TEHRAN – Global tourism is projected to gain full recovery by 2025, says GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company.

International departures will reach 68% of the pre-COVID-19 levels globally in 2022 and are expected to improve to 82% in 2023 and 97% in 2024, before making a full recovery by 2025 at 101% of 2019 levels, with a projected 1.5 billion international departures, the company has announced.

However, the trajectory for the recovery in international departures is not linear across regions or countries, the analytics company suggests.

For instance, “In 2022, outbound departures from North America are projected to reach 69% of 2019 levels, before making a full recovery by 2024, at 102% of 2019 levels, ahead of other regions,” Hannah Free, a tourism analyst at GlobalData, comments.

“International departures from European countries are expected to reach 69% of 2019 figures in 2022. As travel confidence rebuilds, the intra-European market is expected to benefit, driven by preferences for short-haul travel.”

Free concludes: “While global international travel is set to recover to pre-pandemic levels by 2025, tourism demand may look quite different. From two years of very limited travel, several long-term shifts and short-term trends have emerged.”

When It comes to Iran, many believe it is potentially a booming destination for travelers seeking cultural attractions, breathtaking sceneries, and numerous UNESCO-registered sites. Under the 2025 Tourism Vision Plan, Iran aims to increase the number of tourist arrivals from 4.8 million in 2014 to 20 million in 2025.

Some experts believe the Islamic Republic is still somehow “unknown” to many potential travelers due to the Western “media war”. Several estimates have been released so far on the extent of the tourism-related losses incurred by the pandemic.

AFM