The new World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) tourism indices are designed to give countries a broader picture of how well their travel and tourism industries perform, moving beyond the traditional focus on international visitor arrivals.
For years, tourism performance has largely been judged by the number of people visiting a destination. Countries have competed to attract more international travellers, often using arrival figures as a key measure of success. However, growing concerns about environmental damage, pressure on housing and the impact of mass tourism on local communities have raised questions about whether visitor numbers alone provide a reliable picture of a country’s tourism performance.
In several popular European destinations, the effects of excessive tourism have become increasingly difficult to ignore. Housing pressures linked to short-term rentals have fuelled protests in cities such as Madrid, while extreme summer temperatures, wildfires and other climate-related disruptions have added to concerns about the environmental costs of travel. These developments have strengthened calls for tourism models that consider local communities and natural resources alongside economic growth.
Against this background, the World Travel & Tourism Council has introduced its Power, Efficiency & Opportunity (PEO) Indices, a new framework developed in partnership with Oxford Economics. The indices assess 184 countries across three areas: the economic scale of tourism, its environmental efficiency and the employment opportunities it creates.
According to WTTC president and CEO Gloria Guevara, the framework offers a more complete way of understanding the industry’s contribution to national economies and societies.
“Travel and tourism is one of the world’s most powerful sectors, and these new indices give us a broader and more holistic way to understand its impact,” Guevara said.
She added that tourism growth should be assessed by both its quality and quantity, with economic contribution, environmental performance and employment opportunities considered together. The framework also highlights the industry’s potential to create jobs for women and young people.
The first of the three measures, the Power Index, examines the overall size of a country’s travel and tourism industry. It considers the sector’s economic contribution, employment footprint and levels of tourism investment. Rather than assessing how environmentally sustainable a destination is, this index focuses on the strength and scale of its tourism economy.
The United States ranks first in this category, followed by China and India. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico, Spain and Saudi Arabia complete the top 10. The rankings reflect the significant economic weight of tourism in these countries and the scale of their investment and employment in the sector.
The Efficiency Index takes a different approach by examining the relationship between tourism’s economic output and its use of environmental resources. Its indicators include greenhouse gas emissions, low-carbon energy consumption, water use, air pollution and material consumption relative to the economic activity generated by tourism.
This measure is particularly relevant as destinations face growing pressure to reduce the environmental costs associated with hotels, transport, visitor facilities and other tourism activities. A destination may generate substantial tourism revenue, but the efficiency index considers how much environmental pressure accompanies that economic activity.
Among high-income economies, Sweden achieved the highest position in the Efficiency Index. Costa Rica ranked first among upper-middle-income economies, highlighting the different performances of countries within their respective income groups.
The third measure, the Opportunity Index, looks at tourism’s contribution to employment and wider social development. It examines employment growth, the participation of young people in the workforce and the number of opportunities available to women.
Unlike the Power Index, which focuses on the size of the industry, this measure considers how tourism creates opportunities for people within a country. Its rankings vary according to national income groups. Croatia leads among high-income economies, the Maldives ranks first among upper-middle-income countries, El Salvador takes the top position among lower-middle-income economies, and The Gambia leads the low-income group.
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WTTC also points to countries such as the Maldives, Grenada and Belize, where tourism accounts for a significant share of national employment. In these destinations, the industry is not simply a source of foreign visitor spending. It also plays an important role in providing livelihoods and supporting local economies.
The inclusion of 184 countries gives the new framework a broad international reach. However, its three separate indices also make an important distinction: a country can have a large tourism economy without necessarily being among the most environmentally efficient, while another may perform particularly well in creating employment opportunities.
For tourism authorities, the framework offers a different way to assess national performance. Instead of concentrating primarily on attracting more visitors, governments and destination management organisations can also examine the economic value of tourism, the resources it consumes and the opportunities it creates for local workers.
The indices do not replace the importance of visitor arrivals or tourism revenue. Rather, they add further measures to a sector whose success increasingly depends on more than the number of people crossing a country’s borders.
