COMCEC Tourism Outlook 2017
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In 2016, Travel & Tourism directly supported 2.4% of total employment in 48 member states
(See Appendix). Tourism continues to be an important economic sector capable of the creation
of employment opportunities and poverty alleviation.
According to WTTC, 19.7% of total employment depends on travel and tourism in Maldives for
the year 2016. Direct contribution of travel and tourismwas 9.2% in Tajikistan, 7.7% in Albania,
7.4% in Gambia and 7.1% in Morocco in 2016. Since tourism affects transportation, hotels and
lodging, food & beverage, cultural and entertainment, banking & finance and promotion and
publicity services and so on tourism’s contribution to employment tends to be slightly higher in
these countries. However, in some countries like Uzbekistan, Chad and Gabon, travel and
tourism contribution is less than other sectors.
Figure 4.3 displays international tourism activity in the member countries in terms of both
tourist arrivals and tourism receipts in recent years. Because of lack of data on the number of
tourist arrivals and tourism receipts of some countries estimations are made. During the 2010-
2014 period, shown in Figure 4.2, there was a trend of increasing tourist arrivals, however, in
2015 the number of tourist arrivals decreased from 178 million to 173 million in OIC Member
States. The share in the total international tourist arrivals worldwide decreased from 15.7
percent to 14.6 percent in 2015. 2016 data for the majority of OIC member are not yet available.
Figure 4.3 Tourist Arrivals and Tourism Receipts in the OIC Member Countries
Source: adopted from UNWTO, 2016
The number of tourism receipts of the member countries decreased from $140 billion to $131
billion in 2015, corresponding to a 10 percent share in world’s total tourism receipts. In 2015,
unusually strong exchange rate fluctuations significantly influenced receipts for member
countries expressed in current US dollars. As the US dollar appreciated against virtually all other
currencies in 2015, earnings in local currencies converted to US$ were in many cases lower than
in 2014. In absolute terms, tourism receipts in OIC member states decreased by US$ 9 billion.
Generally, a certain destination becomes more price-competitive when its currency depreciates
152
157
163
159
178
173
114
117
124
127
140
131
100
110
120
130
140
150
130
140
150
160
170
180
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
OIC Tourist Arrivals (millions) OIC Tourism Receipts (Billion $)