The World Travel & Tourism Council has introduced three benchmarks for 184 economies, giving governments and investors a way to compare tourism’s economic weight, environmental performance and employment outcomes.
WTTC developed the measures with Oxford Economics and launched them at World Travel Market London alongside OMRAN Group. The council says the results can help public officials, investors and tourism executives identify destination strengths and gaps and guide investment and strategy. Each index produces its own result; a high economic score does not by itself mean an economy performs as well on environmental efficiency or employment.
The Power Index assesses tourism’s national economic scale through output, jobs and investment. The United States, China and India led the ranking, while economies in the first 20 places generated 81% of global Travel & Tourism GDP in 2024.
The worldwide Environmental Efficiency measure gained 2.3 points from 2019 to 2024. Its low-carbon energy component rose 6.7 points, and its greenhouse gas intensity measure improved 3.9 points. The index weighs impacts such as emissions, water use, air pollution and materials against the economic activity tourism produces. Costa Rica led upper-middle-income economies; Sweden ranked first among high-income economies.
The employment measure considers tourism’s share of jobs and job growth, with additional attention to youth and women’s employment. The Maldives led upper-middle-income economies, Croatia ranked highest among high-income economies, El Salvador topped the lower-middle-income group, and The Gambia led among low-income economies.
Oman improved across all three measures in 2024 compared with 2019, WTTC reported. Women held 28% of the country’s tourism jobs, compared with 18% across the Middle East. Young people held 13% of Oman’s tourism jobs, while they accounted for less than 9% of jobs across the country’s broader economy.
WTTC President and CEO Gloria Guevara said the sector should pay attention to the quality of its expansion: “As the sector grows, we must focus on quality as well as quantity of growth.”
