The international tourism market is increasingly recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a small portion of the market has yet to fully recover by 2024.
This is evident from the latest World Tourism Barometer report released by UN Tourism, the United Nations' specialized agency for tourism.
According to UN Tourism data, before the pandemic, during the period 2010-2019, international tourist travel globally increased consistently every year.
The highest record was recorded in 2019 with 1.46 billion international tourist arrivals worldwide.
Then in 2020, the number plummeted drastically due to the emergence of Covid-19. The recovery was also slow, because until 2023 the number of international tourist arrivals was still below pre-pandemic levels.
Despite being slow, the recovery continued. In 2024, the number of international tourist arrivals globally increased again, almost matching the highest record before the pandemic.
"With 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals globally, 2024 marks the recovery of the world tourism sector from the worst crisis in the history of this sector," said UN Tourism in a press release (20/1/2025).
"In 2024, most tourist destinations received more international tourist visits than before the pandemic," it continued.
However, measured against the pre-pandemic achievement of 2019, the international tourism market in 2024 only recovered about 99%, while 1% has not yet fully recovered.
These unrecovered tourism markets are located in the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions.
In 2024, the number of international tourist arrivals in the Americas was only 97% compared to 2019. Then in the Asia-Pacific region, the recovery was only 87%.
On the other hand, the Middle East, European, and African tourism markets experienced very strong recovery above 100%, with the number of international tourist arrivals exceeding pre-pandemic achievements.