The World Economic Forum has released impressive numbers on tourism: 1.5 billion visitors in 2025 (up 5% year-on-year and 4.4% compared with 2019) and a total economic contribution of $11.6 trillion, equivalent to nearly one-tenth of global production, with 366 million jobs (one in nine people).
The organization’s Travel and Tourism Development Index 2026, produced in partnership with Zurich Insurance Group, shows that 92% of the 110 economies analyzed improved their overall score. A more careful look at the document, however, reveals a less positive outlook.
You Build More, You Distribute Less
The increases were all on the supply side: cultural resources (up 9.6%), tourism services (up 9.2%) and air transport (up 7.2%). More relevant indicators, those relating to people, fell: the socioeconomic impact, down 3.5%, was only improved in 17% of economies, and price competitiveness, down 3.1%, deteriorated in three-quarters of countries, with mid-range and luxury hotels becoming 6% more expensive on average. The document itself explains that the connection between more visitors and more benefits for the people is not automatic.
Between the Podium and Anti-tourism Protests
Japan leads the pack, followed by the United States, Spain, Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and Italy. Of the ten best-performing economies, nine are advanced. However, the top twenty are outperformed by the rest of the world on price competitiveness and are slightly behind on demand sustainability. The European region, in particular, has the lowest score on this indicator, at nearly 12 percentage points below the world average. Spain, in third place, has been the center of the anti-tourism protests that have flared up in recent months in Barcelona and the Balearic and Canary Islands. If the index is biased towards the availability of resources, it is also true that the most visited countries have few advantages in terms of popular support.
What the Index Evaluates and Who Guides It
The index must be considered with several caveats. It does not measure visitors, spending or revenues, but rather looks at facilitating factors. Trends are difficult to identify because of the methodological changes, and some data are based on executive opinions or are several years old. The advisory board, which includes airlines, online platforms, payment processors and tourism-related organizations such as the International Air Transport Association, the World Travel and Tourism Council, Visa and Trip.com, can hardly be accused of promoting a travel industry conspiracy, but it does help explain why a report on tourism leans towards boosting investment, interconnectivity and digitalization.
Investment, Jobs and Vulnerabilities
Tourism investment rose 8.5% in 2025 to $1.1 trillion, but is still below the 2019 level and has been below the demand threshold since 2022, a situation expected to continue until 2033. By 2035, the sector will face a shortage of 43 million workers, or 16% of needs. If the offer does not catch up with the demand, the response will be to increase prices and saturate the market, which is precisely the point of vulnerability highlighted by the report.
Vulnerabilities are visible: in April 2026, Middle Eastern airline traffic fell 46.6%, dragging down the world’s airlines by 3.4%, the first decrease since the post-pandemic recovery. When it comes to openness, only a third of economies have eased visa restrictions, while Europe and North America continue to have some of the toughest requirements in the world.
Investment, Jobs and Fragility
The ten largest tourist emerging economies grew 4.7% since 2019, compared with 2.9% for the overall index and 1.9% for the top twenty. Mexico, which belongs to the first group, came forty-first in this year’s rankings (and has fallen six places compared with 2024), with a mere 0.9% improvement. Only 1.1% of sub-Saharan Africa improved, compared with other regions. Among emerging economies, tourism services continue to lag behind, as do the business environment and human resources.
The Hard Debate
The document concludes that the main challenge facing the industry is not so much one of growth, but of managing it. This is a fair point, but one that raises some difficult questions. For tourism companies, the priority is to increase supply to meet demand. For local governments and populations, the priority is to ensure that what is produced benefits them and is not concentrated elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with either position, but they are not easily reconciled.
One and a half billion tourists is a huge number, but it means little if hotel prices rise, jobs remain seasonal and residents find themselves displaced and harassed. A look at an index composed of objective factors is no longer sufficient; measuring the impact on life in the territory will require more data and a political will that is lacking. What is really lacking is a debate on who benefits from visitors – and who does not benefit from them.
