Recovery in world tourism is happening says WTO

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Recovery of the travel industry is already underway and the industry is expected to regain pre-crisis levels by the third or fourth quarter of this year, according to the forecasts by the World Tourism Organization.

"Our industry has weathered the most serious crisis in its history and we already see light at the end of the tunnel," said WTO secretary-general Francesco Frangialli last week, addressing the organisation's Tourism Recovery Committee meeting in Berlin.

"Tourism in January and February was significantly stronger than in November and December. We expect a staggered recovery to take place in Europe, Africa, the Western Mediterranean and the Caribbean between July and September," he said.

The crisis committee, formed by the WTO three weeks after the terrorist attacks, met last Friday to take stock of the recovery and analyse some of the lessons learned over the past six months.

"The crisis taught us how vulnerable the tourism industry is and how quickly consumers change their ways," said committee chairman and Egyptian Tourism Minister Mamdouh El Beltagui.  "The tourism industry has now passed the low point of the downswing," said Gunter Ilhau of Germany's Preussag Group. "January and February bookings have been lower than previous years but we see a gradual return of consumer confidence in both leisure and business travel."

While tourism demand is slowly returning, WTO noted the crisis had changed the face of the airline industry forever. Overcome by massive cost impacts and sharp decline in demand, several well-known airlines have gone out of business: Sabena, Swissair, Air Afrique and Ansett. In Europe the market is being transformed by new low-fare airlines.

WTO said it will continue to provide assistance to member countries in the areas of marketing, communications, crisis management and particularly with regard to much-needed air links to developing tourism markets.