Travel News

UNWTO has released its latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer figures and it has come up with some interesting cross-border tourism stats.

The Palestine Territories has come out at top of the list of fastest growing nations with a rise of 57.8%, albeit from a very low starting point.

The figures shows that destinations worldwide received 369 million international tourists (overnight visitors) in the first four months of 2017 – which is a huge leap, 21 million  to be precise in terms of the same period in 2016.

The results are surprising which highlighted the fastest growing tourists destinations of 2017, based on the international arrivals. Countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, despite the socio-political turbulence in the scenarios have seen a higher graph in the tourism numbers. Along with Iceland and Vietnam, Mongolia is also emerging as one of the most prominent tourism destinations.

1. Palestinian territories: up 57.8%. (400,000 visitors in 2016).
2. Egypt: up 51%. (5.26 million visitors in 2016).
3. Northern Mariana Islands: up 37.3%. (531,000 visitors in 2016).
4. Iceland: up 34.9%. (1.79 million visitors in 2016).
5. Tunisia: up 32.5%. (5.7 million visitors in 2016).
6. Vietnam: up 31.2%. (10 million visitors in 2016).
7. Uruguay: up 30.2%. (3 million visitors in 2016).
8. Nicaragua: up 28.4%. (1.5 million visitors in 2016).
9. Mongolia: up 28.3%. (404,000 visitors in 2016).
10. Israel: up 25.1%. (2.9 million visitors in 2016).