The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) released the 2024 edition of its annual Economic Impact Trends Report.

This most recent edition shows that, despite global travel spending has been slow to recover, the United States remains the world’s most powerful market for travel and tourism.

In the past year, the travel and tourism sectors broke records by contributing a total of US$2.36 trillion to the US economy.

China is not far behind

At the same time, the report notes how China slid into the spot of the world’s second most powerful tourism market, as tourism brought US$1.3 trillion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the past year.

Last year, Chinese tourism experienced a massive surge resulting in year-on-year growth of 135.8 percent. Its counterparts in Asia, on the other hand, including the Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, and the Philippines, struggled to recover despite the relaxing or outright removal of travel restrictions.

Interestingly, the WTTC predicts China will become the world’s largest travel and tourism market within the current decade. Likewise, rapid growth could position India in fourth place, significantly jumping from where it stands now at eighth.

India rose two slots from where it was in last year’s report as its tourism sector made a substantial contribution worth US$231.6 billion to the national economy.

These shifts illustrate the dynamic nature of the global travel and tourism sectors, with emerging markets gaining ground and traditional powerhouses maintaining their strongholds.