Tourism becomes the world's third-largest export sector, generating $1.6tn in 2017
The UN body, in its latest collection of tourism highlights, further notes that the strong results were driven by sustained travel demand for destinations across all world regions, including a firm recovery by those that have suffered from security challenges in recent years.
In 2017, China remained the leader in global outbound travel, with an expenditure of $258bn on international tourism. This translates to approximately one-fifth of the world’s total tourism spending in 2017, which stood at $ 1.3tn, some $94bn more than in 2016. 2018 is seen to continue with the robust growth, with available data showing that international tourism recorded a year-on-year increase of 6% in arrivals between January and April.