The World Economic Forum recently released its Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. According to Jennifer Blanke, Senior Economist of the Forum, the Index is “not a ‘beauty contest’, or a statement about the attractiveness of a country.” Rather, the Index measures factors that make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism industry of individual countries.
Of course, as many travel destinations are location-specific — you can’t have an attraction centered around Iguazu Falls if you live in Lichtenstein — but if you’ve got loads of money to invest in a new resort, you probably don’t want to put it in a dangerous or un-business-friendly location. Duh.
Anyway, according to the report, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany took the top 3 spots, for a variety of reasons, while the rest of the Top 10 included:
Personally, I found it interesting that the UAE, home to the future Louvre expansion, ranked 18.
The bottom spots are held almost exclusively held by African nations:
Of course, this isn’t very surprising, but I was amused by the fact that Malawi ranked so low. A few years ago, I toyed with the idea of opening a dive shop on Lake Malawi. The area is absolutely beautiful, the air temperature is comfortable year-round, and the water temperature is also very nice. Moreover, labor is virtually free. Anyway, my point is you should probably weigh everything before investing. Just because something ranks low on this list, doesn’t mean it isn’t the *perfect* spot for you and your needs.