Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Europe’s set to travel

There’s optimism in the air. First, there were reports from the UNWTO and PATA that 2009 wasn’t as bad as it was expected to be for the global tourism industry. Now, a survey done at the behest of the European Commission shows that around 80 per cent of EU citizens will travel for their holidays this year.
The Eurobarometer survey on ‘The attitudes of Europeans towards tourism 2010’, found that only around 20 per cent of the respondents were almost certain that they “will not travel” this year. This figure, it appears, is down from the approximately 33 per cent of respondents who had not travelled in 2009. At the same time, 28 per cent said they were undecided about the type of vacation they wanted to take.
About 50 per cent of those surveyed said they would like to spend their holiday in either their own country or another EU country. Now that’s good news for tourism businesses in Europe. For tourism accounts for 5 per cent of Europe’s GDP and 6 per cent of employment, the survey adds.
Done in February this year, the Eurobarometer survey sought the views of 30,000 randomly selected Europeans from 27 EU member states.

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