The World Tourism Organization forecasts international travel will increase from 703 million travelers at present to 1.6 billion by 2020. The figure comes from the Tourism 2020 Vision report published by the WTO that provides a long-term forecast and assessment of the development of tourism up to the first 20 years of the new millennium.
“Experience shows that in the short-term, periods of faster growth (1995, 1996, 2000) alternate with periods of slow growth (2001 and 2002),” states the report. The WTO says that the current slowdown should be compensated in the mid- to long-term. For 2010, travel is forecast to increase to 1 billion travelers, of which 791 would be intraregional travelers, and 216 million would be long-haul travelers. Travel is estimated to leap to 1.5 billion (1.18 billion intraregional and 377 million long-haul) by 2020. Travel in 1995 was at 108.9 million to the Americas, and is expected to increase to 190.4 million by 2010 and to 282.3 million by 2020. Long-haul travel worldwide is forecast to grow faster, at 5.4% per year over the period, while intraregional travel will increase 3.8%.