Recent figures from the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) show that global tourism has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, there were 1,500 million international tourist arrivals, while 2022 registered just 963 million - albeit a significant increase on 2021.
During the first two years of the pandemic lockdowns and travel restrictions were the main drivers of the downturn. Despite the UNWTO citing "strong pent-up demand" in 2022, one other factor is still having a dampening effect: cost. As survey results from Statista Consumer Insights show, up to almost a third of adults in the United States and Canada said in 2022 and 2023 that they simply couldn't afford to go on vacation.
As this infographic illustrates, this was less pronounced in the likes of Mexico, South Korea and India. But other major economies such as Germany, the UK, Japan and Australia are also seeing considerable shares of people without the excess financial means to spend their vacation days away from home.
