Global tourism growing despite many challenges

The aggressive Israelis are disrupting the Middle East, the Russians attacking western Europe and the US scaring away tourists with increased costs and unwelcoming immigration policies. 

But despite all these bad actors, global tourism is up by 5% over the past six months. 

New figures from UN Tourism show almost 690 million tourists travelled internationally between January and June 2025, which is around 33 million more than in the same period of 2024. 

Results were, not surprisingly, mixed among regions and sub-regions.

UN Tourism secretary-general Zurab Pololikashvili said: “In the face of global challenges, international tourism continues to see strong momentum and resilience. 

"The first half of 2025 brought growing arrival numbers and revenues for most destinations around the world, which contribute to local economies, jobs and livelihoods. Yet, this also reminds us of our great responsibility to ensure this growth is sustainable and inclusive and to work with all local stakeholders in that sense.”

Africa saw strongest performance while Asia Pacific continued to rebound.

The newest edition of the World Tourism Barometer assesses the sector’s performance by region and sub-region in the first six months of 2025. Key takeaways include: 

# Africa saw a 12% increase in January-June 2025 compared to the same period last year. Both North Africa (+14%) and sub-Saharan Africa (+11%) recorded double-digit growth this period.

# Europe welcomed nearly 340 million international tourists this first half of 2025, about 4% more than in 2024 and 7% more than in 2019. Northern, western and southern Mediterranean Europe all recorded 3% growth this period despite uneven monthly results. Central and Eastern Europe continued to rebound strongly (+9%), but remained 11% below 2019 levels, according to available data.

# The Americas recorded 3% growth in January-June 2025, with mixed results. While South America (+14%) continued to enjoy solid growth, Central America saw a 2% increase in arrivals and North America saw flat results (+0%) mostly due to declines in the United States and Canada. 

# The Middle East recorded 4% fewer arrivals this six-month period, though after a very strong post-pandemic rebound, with 29% more arrivals than the same period of 2019, the strongest regional results relative to 2019.

# Arrivals in Asia and the Pacific grew 11% this period, which is 92% of the pre-pandemic figure (-8% compared to 2019). North-East Asia (+20%) saw the strongest performance relative to 2024, though it remained 8% below 2019 levels.

Some of the highest growth rates among large destinations in H1 2025 were recorded by Japan and Vietnam (+21%), the Republic of Korea (+15%), Morocco (+19%), Mexico and the Netherlands (+7%). 

Malaysia and Indonesia both recorded 9% growth and Hong Kong 7%, though arrivals remained somewhat below 2019 levels in these destinations.

Image: Naveen Kumar Singh, Scop.io

Finally some good news for Australian wine producers

At last there is some good news for the Australian wine industry.

Australian wine exports increased in value by 17% to $2.2 billion in 2023–24, the highest level since the 12 months ended September 2021, Wine Australia’s Export Report released today reveals.

The growth in value was due to a surge in exports to mainland China in the last three months of the financial year, as Australian wine re-stocked supply pipelines following the removal of the duties on Australian bottled wine in China in late March.

But Wine Australia manager for market Insights, Peter Bailey, said that the rise in exports to mainland China is still a small fraction of the historical peaks achieved to the market.

“The surge in exports to mainland China towards the end of the financial year saw volume rise from 1 million litres to 33 million litres and value grow by $392 million to $400 million compared to last financial year,” Bailey said.

“While the figures are very positive, they represent the re–stocking of Australian wine in the pipeline of a major market after a long absence and do not necessarily equate to retail sales. It will take some time before there is a clearer picture of how Chinese consumers are responding to the increased availability of Australian wine in-market.

“Consumption of both domestic and imported wines in mainland China is less than a third of what it was six years ago and thus it is very unlikely that Australian wine exports will return to those previous peaks in the short to medium term.”

There were 574 companies exporting to mainland China in 2023–24, up from 115 in 2022–23. Prior to the imposition of duties, there were more than 2,000 companies exporting to China.

“The growth in value has seen mainland China return to the top export market by value,” Bailey said.

“However, the volume of exports at 33 million litres, is relatively small, equating to less than 5% of Australia’s wine grape harvest in 2024 and so is unlikely to make a significant impact on the current oversupply of red wine grapes, particularly in the big volume-producing warm inland regions.”

Exports to the rest of the world (excluding mainland China) declined by 4% ($68 million) to $1.8 billion and volume decreased by 5% (33 million litres) to 587 million litres.

This is the lowest volume exported to the rest of the world in a financial year since 2003–04.

“Global trading conditions remain very challenging with wine consumption continuing to fall in many markets around the world due to moderation trends and cost of living pressures," Bailey said.

"There are also enduring problems in shipping, with a shortage of ships globally and freight and charter rates on the rise.”

So the news is decidedly mixed.

But Australia is not the only country negatively impacted by these factors. Wine exports have also declined from other major wine producing countries.

In the 12 months ended April 2024, the volume of wine exported from Spain fell by 2%, France by 7%, Chile by 7%, South Africa by 12% and New Zealand by 14%.