The Gulf Region Leads Tourism In The Middle East!

• The Middle East region maintains its lead as the region with the highest tourism growth in the world during the first seven months of 2024 compared to the situation before the health pandemic.
• The Arabian Gulf region tops the list of countries that achieved the most prominent growth in tourism across three countries.
• Several reasons helped the Middle East region and the Gulf countries to lead tourism globally, most notably hosting various events.

In 2020, the world collided with a health pandemic, which cast a very bad shadow over many sectors that are related to and greatly affect the economy in general, making 2019 a reference year for making comparisons between the reality of any sector at the present time and what it was before the pandemic and determining the extent of its improvement or decline.

Because tourism was one of the most prominent sectors that was harmed by the closure imposed by the health pandemic, it was necessary to know and follow up on developments in this important industry at various levels, which is the task carried out by the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

The United Nations World Tourism Barometer monitors global tourism trends and provides the latest facts about them, in reports issued four times a year.

According to the latest reports issued by the United Nations, the data indicated the recovery of a total of 64 tourist destinations out of 120 destinations around the world, by measuring tourism movement during the first seven months of 2024.

It turned out that the number of international tourists reached 790 million international tourists, and although it was 4% less than the same period in 2019, it came in at more than 11% of what was recorded in 2023.

The report confirms that this improvement is due to several things, the most important of which are:

• Strong demand in most regions.

• Continued recovery of Asia-Pacific destinations.

• Increased air connectivity and visa facilitation.

The Middle East region remains the strongest growth!

The Middle East region remained the strongest growth region, as the number of international arrivals increased by 26% above 2019 levels (the year before the health pandemic).

This is a remarkable growth rate compared to other global regions that are either close to returning to what they were in 2019, or have achieved a slight growth rate compared to what they were in that year, as the following table indicates:

Tourism revenues globally:

Revised data for 2023 show that export revenues from international tourism amounted to US$1.8 trillion (including revenues and passenger transport), which is almost the same as before the pandemic (-1% in real terms compared to 2019).

Direct tourism GDP also recovered from pre-pandemic levels in 2023, reaching an estimated US$3.4 trillion, equivalent to 3% of global GDP.

As for the most prominent challenges that could stand in the way of tourism growth, the UN Tourism Expert Committee pointed out specific points, the most important of which are:

• Inflation.

• High prices for transportation and accommodation.

• High geopolitical tensions.

The Gulf region leads tourism in the Middle East.

Returning to the UN data, the Middle East region was the fastest growing region in the world during the first seven months of 2024 compared to 2019, but by focusing on growth rates within the Middle East region, the extent of growth in the Gulf region will be noted.

Qatar was among the strongest performing countries in the period from January to July 2024 (+147% compared to 2019) as the number of arrivals doubled, followed by Saudi Arabia, which came in second in the Arab world and fourth globally, with an improvement of +73%, then Bahrain with 45%.

The Gulf region witnessed this improvement, thanks to many factors, most notably:

• Major tourism projects.