Tourism

A joint effort by UNWTO, UNDP and other partners, Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals – Journey to 2030 aims to build knowledge, and empower and inspire tourism stakeholders to take necessary action to accelerate the shift towards a more sustainable tourism sector by aligning policies, business operations and investments with the SDGs.
The publication intends to disentangle the links between tourism and the SDGs and provides recommendations on how to steer the road towards 2030, based on an analysis of 64 countries’ Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) on the SDGs, as well as eight Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support (MAPS) country roadmaps and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of 60 global tourism companies.

After a surge in prosperity over the past decade fueled by rising oil prices, Saudi Arabia’s economy is at an inflection point. We see a real opportunity for the country to inject new dynamism into its economy through a productivity- and investment-led transformation that could help ensure future growth, employment, and prosperity. In a new McKinsey Global Institute report, Saudi Arabia beyond oil: The investment and productivity transformation, we discuss how the country has significant opportunities to transform its economy to become more sustainable and less dependent on oil. Among our findings:

- The oil price boom from 2003 to 2013 fueled rising prosperity in Saudi Arabia, which became the world’s 19th-largest economy. GDP doubled, household income rose by 75 percent, and 1.7 million jobs were created, including jobs for a growing number of Saudi women. The government invested heavily in education, health, and infrastructure and built up reserves amounting to almost 100 percent of GDP in 2014.
- The country can no longer rely on oil revenue and public spending for growth, in the face of a changing global energy market and a demographic transition that will significantly increase the number of working-age Saudis by 2030. The current labor participation rate is 41 percent, and productivity growth of 0.8 percent annually from 2003 to 2013 trailed many emerging economies.
- Our model integrating Saudi Arabia’s economic, labor-market, and fiscal perspectives shows that even if the country responds to these challenging conditions with policy changes such as a budget freeze or immigration curbs, unemployment will rise rapidly, household income will fall, and the fiscal position of the national government will deteriorate sharply.
- However, a productivity-led economic transformation could enable Saudi Arabia to double its GDP again and create as many as six million new jobs by 2030 (exhibit). We estimate this would require about $4 trillion in investment. Eight sectors—mining and metals, petrochemicals, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade, tourism and hospitality, healthcare, finance, and construction—have the potential to generate more than 60 percent of this growth opportunity.

Airbus’ Global Market Forecast for 2015-2034 offers a forward-looking view of the air transport sector’s evolution – accounting for factors such as demographic and economic growth, tourism trends, oil prices, development of new and existing routes, and ultimately highlighting demand for aircraft covering the full spectrum of sizes from 100 seats to the very largest aircraft like the A380.

Entitled “Flying by numbers” this new forecast – which serves as a reference for airlines, airports, investors, governments, non-government agencies and others – anticipates that air traffic will grow at 4.6 per cent annually, requiring some 32,600 new passenger and dedicated freighter aircraft at a value of US$4.9 trillion.