In 2001, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), international tourist arrivals worldwide fell by 0.5 % in 2001, attributed in large part to an 11 % slump in the final four months of the year after the terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September. Prospects for the travel industry have been portrayed as bleak ever since, but the publication of this report comes at a time of genuine recovery across the board. However it is to be hoped that this is not another false dawn, as represented by the
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result in 2002 when the 700 million arrivals mark was surpassed for the first time thanks to a 2.7 % growth worldwide. In 2002, all regions, the Americas excepted, posted year-on-year increases, but recovery was brought to a halt in 2003 when a combination of SARS, conflict in Iraq and economic depression produced a decline of 1.2 %.
The slumps in 2001 and 2003 were not simply involuntary responses to terrorism and conflict. The desire to travel is such that if this was the case, then security fears would merely divert travel flows elsewhere to unaffected destinations. The fact that an actual decline occurred serves to emphasise the role of economics, and specifically recession, in this shortfall. A 'cooling period' in growth from the major outbound markets of Germany, Japan and the US had already been detected during the first eight months of 2001. The result was that worldwide, a growth rate of 4.3 % in terms of tourist arrivals generated in the first eight months of 2000 had already retracted to 3 % in 2001. Besides economics, a number of other factors had inhibited growth in the pre-September period that year. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict deterred Western travel to the Middle East, the outbreak of foot and mouth disease did likewise for the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands and the strength of the US dollar contributed to a shortfall in international arrivals to the US.