Tourism has bounced back strongly from recent crises, supporting economic growth and well-being. However, the recovery is uneven and rising geopolitical tensions, cost-of-living pressures and climate- related events bring new challenges. Active, forward-looking policies are needed to step up efforts to build a more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive future for the sector.

Tourism trends and outlook as new challenges emerge

Tourism has rebounded strongly following sharp declines triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic that led tourism flows to plummet in 2020-21, following six decades of consistent growth. Tourism ́s direct contribution to GDP had recovered to 3.9% in 2022 in OECD countries with available data, half a percentage point below 2019 levels, and the evidence suggests that the recovery has continued since. The return of international tourism demand following the lifting of travel restrictions has been a significant driver of this recovery, with tourism’s share of services exports growing to 14.8% in 2022 in OECD countries. Although this was still 5.6 percentage points below pre-pandemic shares, international tourist arrivals have continued to strengthen and already exceeded pre-pandemic levels in some OECD countries in 2023.

A full global recovery is projected by the end of 2024, buoyed by positive traveller and business sentiment, and pick up in travel in Asia Pacific, including from China, with growth anticipated to return to pre-pandemic trends as demand and supply imbalances continue to unwind. However, recovery is uneven, and challenges remain. While tourism demand has proven resilient, businesses struggle to attract and retain workers and although inflation is abating, price pressures continue to impact transport, accommodation, and hospitality costs. Geopolitical tensions remain high, and the increasing frequency of wildfires, floods, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events is impacting the sector. Looking ahead to the longer term, tourism is expected to continue to grow. This creates significant opportunities but also brings renewed challenges, reinforcing the importance of policies to support a resilient, sustainable, and inclusive future.

Top policy priorities to promote sustainable development through tourism

Governments took exceptional measures to support tourism as recent crises raised awareness of the sector’s importance as an economic and social force. The strong recovery is providing a new wakeup call for governments and the sector as a whole, as destinations struggle to manage demand and the impacts on the environment and local communities. This is putting pressure on the social licence for tourism and has highlighted the need to rebalance the impacts, understand the trade-offs and manage tourism sustainably, so the benefits outweigh the costs. At the same time, tourism offers untapped potential for many people, businesses, and places.

Governments, at all levels, have a role to play in shaping tourism development to respond to these challenges, capitalise on opportunities, and deliver better outcomes. Many countries have updated or developed tourism strategies to reflect the post-pandemic context and priorities. These strategies look to build on recent momentum to shift to more sustainable models of tourism, to adapt to an increasingly dynamic environment and engage stakeholders around a common vision for the future of the sector. Diversifying the tourism offer and attracting new source markets and segments to emerging destinations and outside of peak periods underpins many tourism strategies, to better spread the benefits and tourist flows. Significant investments are needed to reduce the environmental impact of tourism activities, while adapting to the impacts from climate change. Tourism destinations and businesses need support to keep pace with rapid technological developments, while resources are also required to develop the transport and other infrastructure needed to better manage tourism development. Boosting the capacity of the sector to attract, retain and develop a strong and sustainable workforce is a further area of ongoing focus.

However, implementation remains an issue and there is a risk that tourism slips down national policy agendas as the sector returns to pre-pandemic levels and growth paths. Effective governance practices and co-ordinated policy action are needed to deliver on these ambitions, supported by sufficient resources at national, regional, and local level. Action at destination level has an increasingly important role to play in driving momentum for change, guided by an overarching national vision for the future of tourism that in turn considers local needs and priorities, and supported by effective co-ordination mechanisms across levels of government. More granular, timely and robust evidence is also needed to manage and track progress on potential trade-offs, determine ‘what works’ and identify emerging policy impacts and risks, as well as the costs of inaction.

Key policy priorities

Promote co-ordinated action to deliver on a forward-looking sustainable tourism agenda

• Foster the development and implementation of forward-looking tourism policies to boost tourism’s role in climate action and ensure the sector keeps pace with rapid technological advances.
• Encourage broad stakeholder engagement in the tourism policy process to deliver more equitable and inclusive benefits to everyone engaged in and impacted by tourism.
• Bolster co-ordination and delivery structures, including at destination level, to encourage better management of visitor flows, diversify the tourism offer and develop critical infrastructure.

Strengthening the tourism workforce

• Better integrate tourism into wider economic and community development strategies to address the specific needs of tourism workers and make tourism work a more attractive and viable option.
• Leverage private sector initiatives to address barriers to recruiting and retaining workers and implement new training and models of working to improve work conditions in the sector.
• Facilitate linkages with and between the private sector and education providers to meet the changing needs of the tourism sector and prepare for the green and digital transitions.

Building the evidence base for sustainable tourism policies

• Better define priority policy issues to identify key indicators and ensure decision makers have timely access to data to monitor these issues and balance trade-offs in the policy making process.
• Explore new opportunities to fill tourism data gaps, monitor and measure actions targeting environmental and social priorities, and accelerate shift to more sustainable models of tourism.
• Design tailored toolkits with indicators, tools, and metrics to monitor short and long-term priorities, exploring new methods, and building the capacity of decision makers at all levels to use this data.

1. Reader’s Guide
2. Executive Summary
3. Reader’s Guide
4. Tourism Trends and Policies
5. Strengthening the tourism workforce
6. Building the evidence base for sustainable tourism policies