Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024

The Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024 evaluates the readiness of 119 economies for sustainable tourism growth. While global arrivals are expected to reach pre-pandemic levels in 2024, the recovery is uneven, with high-income economies in Europe and Asia-Pacific maintaining the most favorable conditions. The report highlights a critical supply-demand imbalance caused by lagging air route capacity, capital investment, and labor shortages, which has reduced price competitiveness. It also emphasizes the potential for developing economies to leverage natural and cultural resources for economic growth, provided they bridge infrastructure and ICT gaps. A special focus is placed on the sector's role in addressing global challenges, including the energy transition, biodiversity loss, and socioeconomic inequality.

• Global international tourist arrivals are projected to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, though the recovery has been uneven across different regions and market segments.
• The top 30 TTDI scorers in 2024 are heavily concentrated in high-income economies and Europe, accounting for over 75% of T&T industry GDP in 2022 and 70% of GDP growth between 2020 and 2022.
• The United States, Spain, Japan, France, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Italy, and Switzerland are the highest-ranked economies in the 2024 index.
• A significant supply-demand imbalance exists because air route capacity, T&T capital investment, and productivity have not kept pace with the rebound in demand, leading to service disruptions and reduced price competitiveness.
• Developing economies have shown the most momentum since 2019, with 52 of the 71 economies that improved their scores being low to upper-middle-income; Uzbekistan recorded the greatest growth.
• ICT Readiness has increased by 7.2% since 2019, driven by expanded mobile network coverage and digital payment usage, which facilitates the digitalization of T&T services.
• Labor shortages are a persistent challenge, particularly in mature T&T economies, with the WTTC estimating shortfalls of 11.0% in the European Union and 7.0% in the United States by the end of 2022.
• Developing economies possess a strong portfolio of natural and cultural resources that can drive tourism-led growth, but they often lack the management, promotion, and infrastructure needed to leverage them effectively.
• Environmental sustainability progress is mixed; while T&T energy sustainability improved due to renewable energy policies, T&T demand sustainability scores fell by 4.7% between 2021 and 2024 as overcrowding and seasonality resurfaced.
• T&T is a critical source of high-wage employment in developing countries, where 33.2% of sector jobs are in high-wage segments compared to 19.5% in high-income economies.
• The T&T sector contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, with air travel alone accounting for 8% of global GHG emissions in 2019.
• The sector can address global challenges by adopting a regenerative model for nature conservation, transitioning to sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), and using big-data analytics for smarter destination management.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024 |date=May 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024travel, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Travel \& Tourism Development Index 2024}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = may, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }