FDI & UNWTO: 2023 Tourism Investment Report

The report shows that in the first quarter of 2023, the number of international tourist arrivals had recovered to 80% of the pre-epidemic level; this figure rebounded in 2022 to 963 million, which is 63% of the pre-epidemic level.

Under this trend, in 2022, the global tourism industry added 352 greenfield investment projects (that is, multinational companies set up subsidiaries in the investment destination country and build project facilities from scratch), an increase of 23% year-on-year; the number of new jobs is estimated to exceed 36,000, also a year-on-year increase of 23%.

The report also pointed out that among these new projects, Western Europe accounted for 143, with a total estimated value of US$2.2 billion; the Asia-Pacific region had 42, a slight year-on-year increase of 2.4%.

Looking at the past five years, the hotel and tourism sector accounted for two-thirds of the new greenfield investment projects in the entire tourism industry, and the number of projects also achieved a year-on-year growth of 25% in 2022.

Also according to the report, among the top ten global tourism greenfield investors from 2018 to 2022, North America and Asia-Pacific each contributed three seats, while the remaining four companies were all from Europe.