The World Tourism Day

The World Tourism Day will be marked throughout the world on 27 September, and Ghana has been chosen as the host of World Tourism Day celebrations which will be held under the theme: “Celebrating Diversity”. The main theme of the Day, which also commemorates its 30th anniversary this year, focuses on the world’s cultural wealth and the important role sustainable tourism plays in revitalising local traditions. In fact, this diversity is the very thing that allowed tourism industry to become the leading force in the service sector.

The first World Tourism Day took place in 1979 and the date 27 September was chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the adoption of the UNWTO Statutes on 27 September 1970. From then on, many countries hosted the event and many themes were elaborated, but all of them had one common denominator, which is fostering awareness of the importance of tourism and of its economic, social, cultural and political significance in the international community.

According to the World Tourism Organisation, the total number of international tourist arrivals in the period from 1950 to 2008 leapt up from 25 million to 922 million. Moreover, while more than half a century ago 98% of all tourists flowed to 15 top destinations, in 2007 this number dropped to 57%, which indicates that new destinations emerged and many of them are located in the developing countries.

In 2008 all regions recorded an increase in the number of international tourist arrivals, with the exception of Europe, which stagnated. The highest leap of the number of arrivals as compared to 2007 was recorded in the Middle East region, as much as 18%, where the international arrivals reached the number of 55 million. Africa recorded an increase of 4% and America of 3%, while Asia and the Pacific Ocean area held the fourth place with an increase of 1%, which was significantly lower than in 2007, when it had been 10%.

In 2008, vacation was the top motivation for the most of international tourist arrivals, 51% to be precise, while 15% were business-motivated. Non-response was recorded for 7% of the arrivals, while 27% stated religious and medical reasons as well as visits to relatives as their motivation. The largest number of tourists, as much as 52%, arrived by plane. The road transport was used by 39% of tourists, waterways by 6% and the railroad transport by only 3%.

Generating as much as 642 billion euro in 2008, which is the total income of tourism according to the World Tourist Organisation estimate, tourism is definitely one of the main pillars of economy in many countries. As compared to the previous year, when the income amounted to 625 billion euro, there was an increase of 1.7%.

During the last ten years, Europe lost market share due to the emersion of new destinations, but it still kept one of the main roles in the world tourism. In 2006 just over 2 million of tourist arrivals were recorded in the EU countries, while out of the total number of tourist nights, 72% was realised in five European countries: Spain, Italy, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. A year later, according to the Eurostat data, there were about 599 million international tourist arrivals and 1 585 861 880 tourist nights recorded, while in 2008 there were 1 574 084 659 nights¹⁾ realised.

As for Croatia, in 2008 there was a total of 11 260 million tourist arrivals and 57 103 494 tourist nights recorded. Out of the total number of tourist nights, domestic tourists realised 11.3% and foreign tourists 88.7% nights. Regarding the structure of foreign tourist nights, tourists from Germany made up the largest percent, 21.7%, followed by tourists from Slovenia (11.5%) and Italy (10.0%).

By types of accommodation facilities, the largest number of tourist arrivals was registered in hotels, about 4 141 million, in which there were 15 144 million tourist nights realised. In private accommodation facilities there were 2 587 million arrivals and 18 571 nights realised.

As for the type of arrivals, there were more individual arrangements than organised trips. Thus, in 2008 there were 7 355 individual arrangements and 3 906 organised trips. Regarding organised trips, only 15.5% refer to domestic tourists and the rest to foreign tourists.

According to the most recent data of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, in the period from January to July 2009 there were 5 959 million arrivals, which was by 4.9% less than in the same period last year. This decrease was registered in the number of nights as well, total of 29 497 million, indicating a decrease of 4.5%. Regarding the structure of foreign arrivals, most of them arrived from Germany, 21.1%.

According to the types of accommodation facilities, the largest number of arrivals in collective accommodation facilities was recorded in hotels, 2 195 million, followed by camping sites with realised 1 119 arrivals. As for the number of tourist nights by types of collective accommodation facilities, the largest number of them was recorded in hotels, 7 787 million, and camping sites, 7 364 million.

Regarding the type of arrivals, a trend favouring individual arrangements over organised trips continued. Thus, in the first seven months of 2009 there were 3 864 million individual arrangements and 2 094 million organised trips.

The county with the record number of tourist nights in 2008, 17 966 million, was the County of Istria. It also held the first place in the first seven months of this year with 9 713 million nights, which represented 32.9% of the total number of tourist nights in that period.

The largest number of tourist nights in the period from January to July 2009 was realised by the City of Rovinj with 1 372 million nights, which was 4.7% of the total number of tourist nights.

¹⁾ EU data exclude private accommodation.

Source:
- World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO); Tourism Highlights, 2008.
- Eurostat