International tourism could take a big leap this year
The latest figures from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) predict a major breakthrough: experts expect global tourism to grow by an average of 55% by 2022, up from 4% last year. Although the 645 million tourist arrivals forecast for this year are still less than half of the nearly 1.5 billion arrivals recorded in 2019, the year before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the year is set to see a surge in tourist arrivals and a corresponding recovery in hotel demand.
The Council of the European Union will significantly relax travel restrictions from February by linking them to the protection of individual travellers. Further liberalisation expected in the second quarter in the community, and to greatly ease and in some places completely remove restrictions countries from other continents will join. Denmark will be the first country to join the EU, following an announcement last week by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, which will completely abolish the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 from 1 February. At the global level, this process will of course take a long time, with the Asia-Oceania region being the last mitigating actors, but it will be a key factor in restoring traveller confidence.
„At international level the number of tourist arrivals is conservatively expected to reach 645 million this year, and could exceed one billion again in 2023 - emphasises Márton Takács, head of the consulting business of Moore Hotel and Tourism. - In 2022, the first catalyst for a recovery in travel will be a major relaxation of travel restrictions in some countries. In 2019, the However, it will be at least two years before the 1.5 billion level is reached: experts consulted by UNWTO 64 per cent will do so in 2024 at the earliest sees it as realistic. Faster growth is currently constrained by a number of factors, including the challenging economic environment, including soaring inflation worldwide.”
Domestic effects
„The international tourism environment that we are now seeing, with the gradual lifting of travel restrictions, will have a clear impact on Hungary: a large we expect an improvement primarily in the Budapest hotel market, but also in the performance of rural hotels with foreign guests. We will still be far from the peak performance of the hotel market in 2019, but market players can now look forward to this year with justified optimism” added the Moore Hungary expert.
Last year, a sharp dichotomy emerged in the Hungarian hotel market: while rural hotels achieved outstanding performance in the first half of the year, even in periods of closure, and record performance in the summer season, Budapest hotels started to find their feet only from the end of summer, according to market data. The improving international environment and further easing of travel restrictions now offers a chance to finally make this dichotomy much less stark.
Moore Hungary
Moore Global, which started in a London office more than 110 years ago, is now one of the world's leading consulting and audit networks. Present in over 100 countries worldwide, the network has more than 600 independent offices and over 30,000 employees. The group's turnover for the last financial year exceeded $3 billion.
Moore Global's services will be directly available in the domestic market from March 2021. Moore Hungary has been offering a full range of consulting services in the fields of business, financial, tax, accounting and auditing with a team of almost 100 experts since its inception.
In our fast-changing world, Moore provides strategic guidance and practical advice to help clients navigate and understand the complex regulatory and changing market environment and industry conditions, and thereby find the best solutions.
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