NEW YORK -- How important is travel and tourism to an urban
destination?
The specifics vary depending upon the city, but generally
speaking, the answer is "very," according to the World Travel and Tourism
Council (WTTC).
WTTC, a global organization of multinational travel
companies that promotes tourism through public affairs activity, broke from its
traditional research focus on the economic importance of tourism for countries
and released the first regional impact report analyzing tourism's effect on job
creation and the gross domestic product (GDP) in 65 cities.
The report on North America was presented Thursday in New
York by WTTC CEO Gloria Guevara and looks at Cancun, Chicago, Honolulu, Las
Vegas, Los Angeles, Mexico City, New York, Orlando, San Francisco, Toronto, and
Washington, D.C.
The data shows that Cancun is most dependent upon tourism as
a revenue source, with 49% of the city's GDP attributed to the sector. (Although
there are urban areas of Mexico that have higher populations, Cancun was
included because of its very high volume of tourism-related airport arrivals).
For pure dollar volume, New York comes out on top in North
America with $23.7 billion in tourism-related economic activity, though that
figure is only 3.5% of the city's total GDP.
Orlando ranks second in dollars with $23 billion (18.1% of GDP),
followed Las Vegas at $19.5 billion (18.2% of GDP).
Urban destinations account for a large proportion of total
tourism activity and GDP in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Mexico City accounts
for 25% of all tourism GDP contribution in Mexico, Toronto accounts for 16% of
Canada's and the combined U.S. cities in
the study account for 20%.
WTTC research also showed that almost half of tourism GDP
for New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Cancun comes from international
visitors, while Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando each receive over 85% of spending
from domestic travelers. For Mexico City, the domestic percentage was 91%.
Included in the numbers is data on tourism-related job
creation. In Las Vegas, one in five jobs is directly related to tourism. "We
are forecasting 100 million jobs will be created by travel and tourism in the
next seven years," said Guevara.
The research, she said, is intended to stress the importance
of tourism to city leaders and the underlying urgency to plan for growth in
urban tourism over the next five to 10 years if civic governments want to reap
the full economic benefit.
"We have seen that when there is more tourism product,
spending is higher and people stay longer," she said. "An important
question is, how do you make sure you spread the benefit of tourism? Some
destinations have done a better job than others."
The full report covering 65 cities will be presented on Oct.
24 in Singapore. Later in the year, WTTC will release an analysis of
tourism-related problems in cities. Its conclusions will be presented on Dec.
13 in Barcelona, a city famously facing a tourism backlash.
"We are working with McKinsey & Co. to identify
specific symptoms [of the negative effects of tourism on urban centers] and
will have specific recommendations related to planning and policy,"
Guevara said.
The addition of city-focused research was foreshadowed by a
general session two years ago at the WTTC Global Summit in Madrid, during which
Tim Kitchin, CEO of market research and business intelligence firm Euromonitor
International, spoke of the rising importance of megacities.
The number of cities with populations above 10 million will
have increased from one (New York) in 1950 to 30 by 2030, and the concentration
of economic activity in cities may make them more worthy of focus than entire
nations.