A new report from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has revealed strong signs of recovery of the economic impact from travel and tourism in the five city ‘powerhouses’ of Western Europe. The "Cities Economic Impact Report," sponsored by Visa and researched in partnership with Oxford Economics, analyzed key indicators such as Travel & Tourism’s contribution to GDP, employment and traveler spend. The study examined the impact of the sector in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Madrid.
The report from the global tourism body shows that in 2019, the travel and tourism sector contributed over $83.5 billion to the economies of the five European capitals; last year, the figure was just 15 percent below 2019 at almost $71 billion.
Paris has shown the strongest recovery of the five capital cities, with the sector's GDP contribution totaling an estimated $35.7 billion in 2022—just 6 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels ($38 billion in 2019). The remaining four cities came in at 18 percent to 30 percent below 2019, demonstrating slightly slower recoveries than the French capital.
Although the sector’s GDP contribution to London was worth almost $15 billion in 2022, it was slightly behind Berlin in terms of recovery to 2019 levels. The German capital’s contribution to the city’s economy was worth over $7.7 billion in 2022, 18 percent below 2019. Madrid’s GDP contribution was more than $5.5 billion in 2022, 24 percent below 2019. Rome, however, appears to be witnessing the slowest recovery—30 percent below 2019 levels with a sector contribution of almost $7 billion.
Just before the pandemic there were over 976,000 jobs in travel and tourism across the five cities. In 2020, job numbers in the five capitals fell by 41 percent to just over 580,000 jobs. The following year, job numbers rose by 13 percent to 654,000, and last year job numbers rose again by a further 23 percent to reach 807,000, just 17 percent below the combined total in 2019. Not surprisingly, Paris currently has the largest job market in travel and tourism of the five capitals with almost 322,000 jobs.
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