The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), for its acronym in English, revealed in its report on the Economic Impact of Cities that Latin America is advancing steadily in the reactivation of the sector, and highlighted the role of Mexican destinations that lead the tourism recovery .
The Economic Impact of Cities report, produced in collaboration with Oxford Economics, analyzed key factors for the Travel & Tourism sector in 82 cities around the world, including contribution to GDP, employment and international spending.
Travelers are returning to major cities such as Mexico City and Cancun, key destinations that during 2022 showed remarkable growth compared to the previous year. The analysis of data in Mexican cities shows that the direct contribution of Travel and Tourism to the GDP of each city and employment is on the right track.
In 2019, the Travel and Tourism sector contributed to the GDP of the Mexican capital with 25.2 billion dollars, which corresponded to 8.8% of its total economy. In 2020, the pandemic caused a drop of almost 60%. However, in 2022 it had a 50.2% recovery, thus contributing 6.8% of the city's GDP and almost 16% of the country's total.
Likewise, the level of jobs corresponding to the sector grew 61.4% compared to 2021, with which it generated more than 538,720 direct jobs; that is, 5.7% of the total jobs in the Mexican capital; just 2% below 2019 levels.
The same report reveals that during 2022 international tourists spent 1.64 trillion dollars in Mexico City. As for domestic travelers, a spill of 12.8 billion dollars was reported, which meant an increase of 67.5% compared to 2021.
On the other hand, Cancun, one of the leading international tourist destinations, in 2019, had a contribution of 48% to the city's GDP, which was equivalent to 5.96 billion dollars. However, during the pandemic it fell 44.5%. During 2022, it showed a recovery of almost 9% compared to 2021, with a contribution to the state economy of 37.5%, that is, a contribution of 4.14 billion dollars.
In terms of jobs generated by the sector during the past year, there were 133,900 direct jobs, a contribution of almost 30% of the total jobs in the destination. It is expected that by 2023 it will reach pre-pandemic levels, since it is considered a city dependent on national and international tourism.
Traveler spending was also modified, presenting a contribution of 7.01 billion dollars in international tourists, while a growth of 31.2% was observed in domestic tourists, with an expense of 8.83 billion dollars, a notable approach to pre-pandemic levels. .
Although the levels of the Mexican cities in the various items are still not on par with those of 2019, they show clear progress, which is why it is an indicator that tourists are beginning to return to these destinations.