Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations

Lesser-known Travel Destinations Have a Good 2006

The new UNWTO World Tourism Barometer has been released and by all accounts, 2006 was a banner year for tourism around the globe. “With 842 million arrivals and a 4.5% growth rate, 2006 exceeded expectations as the tourism sector continued to enjoy above average results, making it a new record year for the industry.”

The encouraging news, from where I sit anyway, is that a lot of what would be classified as “emerging markets” did quite well. It wasn’t just a year when everyone jetted off to England and Australia. (And North America was lackluster in comparison to other regions.) Surprisingly, sub-Saharan Africa had the greatest growth and Asia had a very good year, especially Thailand and India. So quite a few of the World’s Cheapest Destinations got a nice shot of business (including Peru and Guatemala), which should help the local situation in a lot of ways. Even poor Paraguay got a bump!

It’s also nice to hear sustainable tourism in the discussion, in the optimistic words of the group’s Secretary General, Francesco Frangialli. “Tourism continues to transform itself under pressure from its environment. We are now responsible for making this new phase of growth more economical in its use of energy and natural resources, more sustainable, and lastly, more in keeping with the spirit of solidarity.”