International Tourist Arrivals Have Grown in 2016, But Europe Is Slow
Skift Take
International tourism remains strong this year in the face of plenty of reasons to avoid it. But regions like Western Europe, the Caribbean and South America, while seeing their arrivals grow year-over-year, are missing out on more arrivals because of a series of events including terrorism, the Zika virus and weak local economies.
The northern hemisphere's summer travel season has ended and while we don't have the number of international tourist arrivals for June to August, we do know that Western Europe and the Caribbean in particular had slower visitor growth for the first half of 2016 compared to last year.
That's according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) which tracks tourist arrivals in destinations around the world. While overall international, overnight tourist arrivals are up four percent year-over-year for January to June -- 561 million, 21 million more than the same period in 2015 -- it's clear that global headlines about terrorism, Zika virus and stronger and weaker currencies impacted travelers' decisions to visit certain regions (see chart below).
Europe's drop-off in arrivals growth is most apparent in the second quarter when all sub-regions saw smaller growth than second quarter 2015. The second quarter 2016 followed a terrorist attack in Paris in November 2015 and included multiple attacks in Turkey and Belgium. Europe's overall growth was the smallest of any other region (2.6 percent) for
