COMCEC Tourism Outlook-2016
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In 2015, Travel & Tourism directly supported 2.8% 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, particularly in developing countries and
the Least Developed Countries.
According to WTTC, 30.2% of total employment depends on travel and tourism in Maldives for
the year 2015. Direct contribution of travel and tourism was 7.9% in Lebanon, 6,9% in Gambia,
6.8% in Morocco and 6.4% in Saudi Arabia in 2015. Since tourism affects transportation, hotels
and lodging, food & beverage, cultural and entertainment, banking & finance and promotion and
publicity services, tourism’s contribution to employment tends to be slightly higher in these
countries. However, in some countries like Uzbekistan, Chad and Gabon, travel and tourismdoes
not generate employment and business opportunities unlike other sectors.
In Figure 4.3, international tourism activity in the member countries is shown in terms of both
tourist arrivals and tourism receipts in recent years. For the number of tourist arrivals and
tourism receipts of some countries, estimations are made to overcome the unavailability of the
data problem. 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
173million in OIC Member States. The share in the total international tourist arrivals worldwide
decreased from 15.7 percent to 14.6 percent in 2015.
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
152
157
163
159
178
173
114
117
124
127
140
131
90
100
110
120
130
140
135
145
155
165
175
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
OIC Tourist Arrivals (millions) OIC Tourism Receipts (Billion $)
(Millions) (Billion $)