The UN World Travel and Tourism Council published their 2015 benchmark report last week comparing travel and tourism to eight other sectors, which are considered to have similar breadth and global presence, across 26 countries. The report shows that travel and tourism comes third out of the eight researched sectors, after retail and agriculture. The industry supported 277 million jobs in 2014, which is 9.4% of world employment. With 105 million people directly employed in 2014, the industry globally employs 7, 5 and 4 times more than auto, chemical manufacturing and banking sectors respectively. According to the report, travel and tourism is the second-fastest growing sector globally. Forecast to grow at 3.9% per annum over the next 10 years, the industry’s growth will outpace the global economy, which is estimated to increase by 2.9% per annum over the next decade. The research shows that the sector, generating $ 7.6 trillion in contribution to GDP (9.8%) in 2014, is the fourth largest sector after mining, financial services and retail respectively.
