ROME -- The travel industry is not just surviving but thriving, despite conflict and geopolitical shifts, leaders at the World Travel & Tourism Council Global Summit said this week. The industry's real threat to growth is a workforce shortfall.
In a report published this week, the WTTC said that 10 years from now, global demand for workers in travel and tourism will outpace supply by more than 43 million people, or 16% below required levels.
The hospitality sector alone faces an expected gap of 8.6 million workers by 2035, around 18% below the staffing levels needed.
"We must recognize that wider demographic and structural changes are reshaping labor markets everywhere," said Gloria Guevara, the WTTC's interim CEO.
Among the examples she gave were workers who left the sector during Covid but did not return, while global unemployment falls and working-age populations shrink.
"This is creating an increased pressure on labor supply, especially for fast-growing sectors like travel and tourism," she said. She added that the WTTC planned to work with government officials around the world to implement policies to reduce the travel workforce gap.
Low-skilled roles, which are critical to the sector, remain the most sought after, with a projected need of more than 20 million additional workers. Positions that rely heavily on human interaction and services that cannot be easily automated are also in high demand. While the labor challenge impacts most major economies, the largest absolute shortfalls forecast are in China (16.9 million), India (11 million) and the EU (6.4 million).
Despite workforce concerns, travel is "booming," Guevara said, and will not "wait for the world to settle."
"There is so much happening in the world: conflict, shifting geopolitical priorities. And in spite of all of this, travel and tourism is booming," she said. "It's booming everywhere -- we see that in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, everywhere."
Tourism's expected economic impact of more than $11 trillion this year will represent more than 10% of global GDP, Guevara said, adding that based on those figures, if travel and tourism were a country it would be the third largest in the word.
But the WTTC's Economic Impact Research report forecasts that international visitor spending in the U.S. will fall by $12.5 billion in 2025. The WTTC warned that without destination promotion, traveler-friendly policies and reduced visa costs, the country could lose its competitive edge.
Undertourism?
Just over half of the world's 1.5 billion travelers were in Europe in 2024, according to the WTTC, supporting 40 million jobs but also contributing to concerns about too much tourism.
Some leaders at the WTTC Summit, however, said the problem is not about overtourism but overly concentrated tourism. Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, said in a keynote address that in Italy, the fifth most-visited country, its 58 million visitors must be better dispersed around the country.
Italy's minister of tourism, Daniela Santanche, was more direct: For 96% of the country, she said, the situation is one of "undertourism." That was echoed by Francesco Cacciapuoti, chief sales officer for Trenitalia, who said that 75% of international tourists visit only 4% of Italy, "focusing mainly on our major cities."
IHG Hotels & Resorts CEO Elie Maalouf said the problem was not just Italy's, and that if more people spread out tourism in countries such as Spain and France, "we will have less stress about overtourism."
"We don't have an overtourism issue in the world," he said. "We have a maldistribution of tourism."
The WTTC's newly appointed chairman, Manfredi Lefebvre, who is also the chairman of A&K Travel Group, said that cruise ships, often blamed for overtourism in parts of Europe, can help disperse travelers by taking passengers to less-busy destinations. He added that cruise guests do not overnight in cities where tourism is blamed for housing shortages.