The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017

[caption id="attachment_864" align="alignnone" width="601"] The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ranking 2017[/caption]

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index measures “the set of factors and policies that enable the sustainable development of the travel and tourism sector, which in turn, contributes to the development and competitiveness of a country”.

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The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017 Ranking

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017 Ranking. according to World Economic Forum, The 2017 Report covers 136 economies that account for over 98% of world GDP. Six new economies included in the current edition were not analysed in the previous Report: Benin; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Congo, Democratic Rep.; Ecuador and Ukraine. Ten that were covered in the 2015 Report—Angola, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Myanmar, Puerto Rico, Seychelles, Suriname, Swaziland—are not covered this time due to insufficient data.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index Rankings 2017

Given the importance of the regional dimension for tourism, the following sections present country performances in the context of five regional groups: Europe and Eurasia; the Americas (headed by the United States, 6th in the overall list); Asia-Pacific, including Central Asia (headed by Japan, 4th overall); the Middle East and North Africa (led by the United Arab Emirates, 29th); and Sub-Saharan Africa (topped by South Africa, 53rd). For each region, the performance of a few countries is outlined to give a sense of how the results can be interpreted at the national level.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Europe and Eurasia:

Europe is once again the region with the strongest overall T&T competitiveness performance. It boasts six of the 10 most competitive countries in the T&T sector, and attracted 620 million of the 1.2 billion international visitors in 2016. While the region continues to improve, it does so at a slower rate than other less mature regions. Yet, to date, Europe remains the largest T&T market, almost twice as large as Asia-Pacific, the second largest and rapidly growing market.

While the number of arrivals continues to grow in Europe, international receipts started to decline in 2015, suggesting possible re-adjustments in the sector at the regional level. Different hypotheses can be put forward to explain this phenomenon. For instance, given the importance of intra-regional travel, lower spending may reflect lower purchasing power and more attention towards lower-cost travel solutions. At the international level, shifts in international arrivals from North America to Asia may entail shifting spending patterns. As these trends evolve, the continuous improvement of the sector’s competitiveness will be essential in light of the industry’s transformation, especially in the more mature destinations.

To date, strong health and hygiene conditions, cultural richness and safety are common T&T competitiveness advantages across the majority of European countries. Despite slightly declining security perceptions in Western and Southern Europe resulting from the recent terrorist attacks, the impact on international arrivals was only short term. Since the last edition of the Report in 2015, many European countries have reduced their attention to the T & T sector as suggested by indicatively lower T&T prioritization scores10 At the same time, the region has improved on many factors, including ICT readiness and price competitiveness. These improvements have counterbalanced some of the less positive trends in public investment in the sector and security. Remarkably, despite recent terrorist attacks and increased fear of terrorism, tourism performance of countries such as France, Germany and Belgium have not declined significantly, confirming a strong resilience of the T&T sector to security shocks, in presence of strong institutions and sound T&T fundamentals.

While there are broad commonalities, large intra-regional diversity exists across the entire European continent. The strengths of a sub-region may be weaknesses of another. For instance, while Southern European countries tend to be characterized by stronger cultural and natural resources and tourism service infrastructure, their business environment, ground transport infrastructure and attention for environmental sustainability performance scores tend to be somewhat lower than those in Western and Northern Europe. These countries provide better enabling environments, including some of the most advanced ICT systems in the world, and better transport
infrastructure, but have not developed their natural and cultural resources to the same extent. They also tend to be pricier
destinations.

The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index 2017

Country/Economy	Rank	Score	Change since 2015
Spain	1	5.43	0
France	2	5.32	0
Germany	3	5.28	0
Japan	4	5.26	5
United Kingdom	5	5.20	0
United States	6	5.12	–2
Australia	7	5.10	0
Italy	8	4.99	0
Canada	9	4.97	1
Switzerland	10	4.94	–4
Hong Kong SAR	11	4.86	2
Austria	12	4.86	0
Singapore	13	4.85	–2
Portugal	14	4.74	1
China	15	4.72	2
New Zealand	16	4.68	0
Netherlands	17	4.64	–3
Norway	18	4.64	2
Korea, Rep.	19	4.57	10
Sweden	20	4.55	3
Belgium	21	4.54	0
Mexico	22	4.54	8
Ireland	23	4.53	–4
Greece	24	4.51	7
Iceland	25	4.50	–7
Malaysia	26	4.50	–1
Brazil	27	4.49	1
Luxembourg	28	4.49	–2
United Arab Emirates	29	4.49	–5
Taiwan, China	30	4.47	2
Denmark	31	4.43	–4
Croatia	32	4.42	1
Finland	33	4.40	–11
Thailand	34	4.38	1
Panama	35	4.37	–1
Malta	36	4.25	4
Estonia	37	4.23	1
Costa Rica	38	4.22	4
Czech Republic	39	4.22	–2
India	40	4.18	12
Slovenia	41	4.18	–2
Indonesia	42	4.16	8
Russian Federation	43	4.15	2
Turkey	44	4.14	0
Bulgaria	45	4.14	4
Poland	46	4.11	1
Qatar	47	4.08	–4
Chile	48	4.06	3
Hungary	49	4.06	–8
Argentina	50	4.05	7
Peru	51	4.04	7
Cyprus	52	4.02	–16
South Africa	53	4.01	–5
Latvia	54	3.97	–1
Mauritius	55	3.92	1
Lithuania	56	3.91	3
Ecuador	57	3.91	n/a
Barbados	58	3.91	–12
Slovak Republic	59	3.90	2
Bahrain	60	3.89	0
Israel	61	3.84	11
Colombia	62	3.83	6
Saudi Arabia	63	3.82	1
Sri Lanka	64	3.81	–1
Morocco	65	3.81	–3
Oman	66	3.78	–1
Vietnam	67	3.78	8
Romania	68	3.78	–2

Country/Economy	Rank	Score	Change since 2015
Jamaica	69	3.71	7
Georgia	70	3.70	1
Azerbaijan	71	3.70	13
Montenegro	72	3.68	–5
Trinidad and Tobago	73	3.67	–4
Egypt	74	3.64	9
Jordan	75	3.63	2
Dominican Republic	76	3.62	5
Uruguay	77	3.61	–4
Bhutan	78	3.61	9
Philippines	79	3.60	–5
Kenya	80	3.59	–2
Kazakhstan	81	3.59	4
Namibia	82	3.59	–12
Cape Verde	83	3.55	3
Armenia	84	3.53	5
Botswana	85	3.52	3
Guatemala	86	3.51	–6
Tunisia	87	3.50	–8
Ukraine	88	3.50	n/a
Macedonia, FYR	89	3.49	–7
Honduras	90	3.49	0
Tanzania	91	3.45	2
Nicaragua	92	3.44	0
Iran, Islamic Rep.	93	3.43	4
Lao PDR	94	3.40	2
Serbia	95	3.38	0
Lebanon	96	3.37	–2
Rwanda	97	3.36	1
Albania	98	3.35	8
Bolivia	99	3.34	1
Kuwait	100	3.33	3
Cambodia	101	3.32	4
Mongolia	102	3.31	–3
Nepal	103	3.28	–1
Venezuela	104	3.28	6
El Salvador	105	3.28	–14
Uganda	106	3.20	8
Tajikistan	107	3.18	12
Zambia	108	3.18	–1
Côte d’Ivoire	109	3.16	8
Paraguay	110	3.15	3
Senegal	111	3.14	1
Gambia, The	112	3.12	–3
Bosnia and Herzegovina	113	3.12	n/a
Zimbabwe	114	3.11	1
Kyrgyz Republic	115	3.10	1
Ethiopia	116	3.10	2
Moldova	117	3.09	–6
Algeria	118	3.07	5
Gabon	119	3.06	5
Ghana	120	3.04	0
Madagascar	121	2.99	0
Mozambique	122	2.91	8
Malawi	123	2.91	3
Pakistan	124	2.89	1
Bangladesh	125	2.89	2
Cameroon	126	2.88	–4
Benin	127	2.84	n/a
Lesotho	128	2.84	1
Nigeria	129	2.82	2
Mali	130	2.78	–2
Sierra Leone	131	2.69	1
Mauritania	132	2.64	5
Congo, Democratic Rep.	133	2.64	n/a
Burundi	134	2.57	1
Chad	135	2.52	6
Yemen	136	2.44	2